President Obama's Ft. Myers visit cost thousands a minute
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Four In Your Corner's Colleen Hogan is doing the math to find out how much local taxpayers paid for the brief visit. Video by fox4now.com
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FT. MYERS, Fla. - We are learning how much it's going to cost you to pay for President Obama's brief visit to Ft. Myers last Friday.
Four In Your Corner's Colleen Hogan has been pressing the city to release that information since last week.
Viewers want to know how much the president's visit will cost local taxpayers. We did the math and discovered, you paid thousands of dollars a minute while the president was giving his speech.
The trip to the City of Palms was a quick one; cut short by the tragedy in Colorado.
The president addressed a packed house at Harborside Event Center, making his first public remarks about the shooting.
He spoke for about eight minutes before heading back to Washington.
So how much did his quick visit cost you?
The director of the Fort Myers Finance Department says, so far, at least $24,000. That's about $3,000 for every minute he spoke at Harborside.
Alan Redfield with the Edison State College Republican Club says that's a lot of taxpayer money for a short speech.
"$24,000 is a substantial amount of money and that's just the preliminary figure without the actual cost of the increase in security," he said.
The finance director says the that went for normal expenses in departments like police, fire, and parks services.
"Would you like to see the breakdown of the $24,000 from the city?" Hogan asked Redfield.
"I'd love to see it," he said. "Especially considering portions of it have come out of my pocket."
Fox 4 requested every receipt from the visit that makes up the $24,000 visit cost. The finance director says she will provide them next week.
The city is still waiting on final numbers from Harborside and the costs associated with extra police presence. Those final numbers will be in, by the first week of August.
Colleen Hogan, reporter
chogan@fox4now.com
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