Scrimp My Ride  November 7, 2006  To: Mayor Bloomberg, Council
Speaker Quinn and various other electeds and commissioners Fr:
Charles Komanoff Re: Your request for Conflicts of Interest
Board guidance on repayment for personal use of taxpayer-funded
cars and drivers.  Forget the Conflicts Board. You don't need
them. Talk to me and Brian. We'll tell you what to pay.  Brian
is renowned engineer Brian Ketcham, executive director of
Community Consulting Services and a pioneering advocate for what
he calls "full-cost accounting" for highway expansion and motor
vehicle use. In the early 1990s, Brian and I derived painstaking
estimates of the full costs of driving in New York City -- not
just penny-ante private costs like fuel and maintenance, but
big-ticket public costs of highway gridlock, road crashes, air
and noise pollution, traffic cops and free parking. These are
the costs any public-spirited official fortunate enough to be
chauffeured around town in a taxpayer-funded SUV should be more
than happy to repay to