Renewed questions from Anderson County Council member Cindy Wilson about accountability for $10,000 in credit card expenses were red meat to The Cocklebur bloggers this week.

“Where do I sign up for one of those credit cards anyways? I have a boatload of Christmas gifts to buy, under the guise of political influencing and good will towards men (and women),” WyattSC joked.

“If $10,000 is expensed, there better be a BMW plant coming to Anderson Co.,” Zn706 quipped.

Lee Cole was “very troubled.” “I think it is fiscally irresponsible on the part of the Council to allow for luxury expenditures like Starbucks Coffee to not even be questioned.”

“Starbucks?” Mustang Sally sneered. “Try Hooters. Try Greg Norman’s Grill at Myrtle Beach. … Responsible government at its best. The best money, or credit cards, can buy.”

PalmettoNative was troubled by Ms. Wilson’s directly accusing county employees of “getting drunk on the county tab without ANY PROOF. Do you for one moment think that a large restaurant bill is because of alcohol? Or maybe it’s because there were many people on the same bill? What is the more logical reason?”

“You have to be a little tipsy to believe that county employees are out there just charging away on county credit cards with no official business,” Republikin jousted. “Let’s have the council review all requests (all seven members) and vote to reimburse or decline? That should ensure that we don’t spend much and that we won’t get anything done. Nice! We’ll be the back woods of county governments.”

Stringcheese thought Section 55-31 of Anderson County ordinances backed that up.

“The maximum an employee can be reimbursed for meals is $28 per day, if the day includes an overnight stay. …. Work through the dinner hour are reimbursed at these rates: breakfast -$5, lunch-$8, dinner-$15. Receipts have to be provided.”

“I feel confident that our County finances are in good hands,” Art Kaldas commented.

But Troglodyte wasn’t impressed.

“You should be incensed that (County Administrator Joey) Preston spent more than $11,700 for meals in FY07. … How about $8,000 in phone expenses, or $4,350 in travel and $13,700 in lodging? … Her concerns about frivilous spending are real - and they should be real to every taxpayer in the county — and beyond.”

SSHM wrote, “You try to make someone on a witchunt sound like a champion of the people … Put out only enough information to generate interest, compound that with disinformation to cloud the actual facts, and watch the sparks fly. Why? Well ... if you are busy looking at the fireworks folks, you won’t have time to deal with real issues and real progress.”

The Week In Blogs, compiled from comments from The Cocklebur Blog, one of the Independent-Mail’s 14 blogs, appears each Friday. Visit all the blogs and comment from the home page at IndependentMail.com.