In case you missed the story which appeared after the Academy Awards show on KOAT Channel 7, check it out here. The gist of the situation is that Albuquerque City Councilor Klarissa Peña took a very expensive trip with her family to the East Coast on the taxpayer dime. She says her fear of flying caused her to take the train, but it is clear that the taxpayers wound up picking up the tab for a variety of family expenses. Worse, the expenses were pre-approved by the City.
Using city documents, Target 7 did a breakdown of the trip. This is what taxpayers paid for:
$3,290 for train trips.
$960 for daily meal allowance.
$2082 for hotels.
$18 for cab fair.
That totals more than $6350. You can watch the full story by clicking on the picture below: 
The word for this is “chutzpah” on the part of both Klarissa Pena for submitting such outrageous expenses, and on the part of the city for approving them.
The interviewer never asks why she had to take her husband and grandchildren along. Although Pena says she separated her expenses from the others, I haven’t seen any report verifying this. And it certainly doesn’t sound like she separated her train expenses out. Pena’s expenses really need to be challenged.
I totally understand what you are saying. The physical post on the blog was made by me (Paul), but the article was written by Danny. Certainly not trying to take credit for his work, but it’s just the way the software works. In the future we could add a note at the top of the article.