[Milsurplus] Goverment Liquidators

[Don Davis]

Good point.  Yes, if the item is REALLY usable, and replaces something that
the other agency was scheduled to buy in the current year.  Maybe chairs,
desks, pencils, paper, etc.  But I would argue here that having a
"scavenger" spend $$ to dig through old junk to save a little on current
needs probably makes only marginal sense.

Now, the big topic.  No, it makes no sense to offer real estate or high $$
items from one agency to another, especially when the property was not in
the acquisition budget.  Case in point is the old Navy housing in San Pedro.
Navy pulled out 10 years ago, and the LA school district and LAPD (among
others) got leases to the property.  LAUSD has had criminal complaints filed
against members for performing criminal acts on this property - used for
remote classrooms with no supervision or structural support.  LAPD also had
officers disciplined for holding all-day BBQs on the site - supposedly a
SWAT training center.  These agencies have never shown that the property was
needed - witness the fact that they are not replacing the property since the
recnt sell-off of the site.

All of this stuff while 200 housing units deterioated and are now being torn
down.  The total loss to  US taxpayers goes as follows:  200 units @ $300K
each, cost of ten years of maint and full-time security, and the loss to
local community of property taxes for 10 years X 200 units X $3,000, loss of
local txes and business revenue, loss of affordable housing on the market,
etc etc.  Now, all of this housing is being torn down as it has not had
proper maint for 10 years!  Was sold to a developer for new units.

This is the worst case.  But, consider a govt. vehicle that would bring
$2,000 to $5,000.  How much effort, dollars, and distraction will the new
agency have to spend to keep up an obsolete vehicle?  How about old radios
and transmitters that will wind up"walking away" from an agency rather than
being used (sorry - back to radio topic)?  Most of this old electronics is
not in current inventory and is not compatible with current ops.  Better for
US to get a few dollars and be rid of the stuff and let the new agancy
justify why they need to spend real dollars on new equipment.

Again, I'm sure there are some cases where reclaiming surplus makes sense,
but, only on low dollar items that the agency was going to buy anyhow.

Observations from doing quite a bit of original research on local LA
property and schoold board operations - and having spent 9 years in USAF,
and another 26 years in aerospace industry.

73,




From: "Sheldon Daitch" <sdaitch at ibb.gov>


> But really, isn't it more efficient for the tax payer for a government
> agency to recycle USG owened equipment, rather than to sell it as
> surplus and have the second agency buy new equipment?
>
> 73
> Sheldon
> WA4MZZ