Mayor Auto Spend Less, Israelis Say
The mayor of Ramat Gan, a Tel Aviv suburb, should be getting the message that his constituents find it an unacceptable luxury for him to have a $46,000 official car.
Initially, opponents tried chaining the vehicle to a tree. Then, they resorted to petitions to force him to sell it.
When that failed, they tried another tactic: They put a notice in a newspaper offering the car for sale and listing Mayor Iri Amit’s telephone numbers. Amit, a politician of the Labor alignment, filed a complaint with police after his telephone rang all weekend.
Members of the city counci have accused Amit of wasting taxpayers’ money at a time when Israel is in a desperate economic crisis, kept afloat only by massive gifts from the U.S. government.
After the Labor-dominated council voted last month to let him keep the car, Amit said, “When Cabinet ministers sell theirs, I’ll sell mine.”
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