Secret Service hasn’t paid for stay during Bush visit

MEDFORD, Ore. – It’s a distant memory for most of the country, but President Bush’s campaign swing through Southern Oregon is fresh for hotel owners still waiting to get paid nearly $19,000 for expenses incurred by the administration last fall.

Three hotels – the Rogue Regency, the Red Lion and the Jacksonville Inn – report they have been waiting almost six months for bills generated mostly by the U.S. Secret Service during President Bush’s whirlwind tour through Jackson County, according to an article by the Mail Tribune newspaper.

Owed $3,332.72, the Red Lion Hotel in Medford sent a letter on March 28 to the president at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The letter, written by hotel accountant Kirsten Yunuba Stephens, said: “My question to you: Is this how you help balance the budget at the White House by ripping off retailers in the towns you visit? If that is the case please do not come back to the Rogue Valley.”

A White House representative said the hotels should direct their inquiries to the Secret Service rather than the president.

Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin apologized for delays in getting payment to Rogue Valley hotels. “If we haven’t paid it we should have paid it,” he said.

He added that any hotels in the area that have not been paid should contact his office immediately. “If they are sure they are all our rooms, these are things we can work out tomorrow,” he said Thursday.

Mackin attributed the delays to the Secret Service’s transition to a new payment system. “We are certainly experiencing some growing pains with the new system,” he said.

The Rogue Regency has been waiting for payment of $15,000 owed by both the president’s and Sen. John Edward’s campaigns – the bulk of which was incurred by the Bush entourage.

“It just gets routed around the bureaucracy of the government,” said Bruce Hoevet, general manager of the hotel.

He said the bill owed by the Secret Service is the longest overdue bill he’s encountered at the hotel.

President Bush stayed at the Jacksonville Inn, and its owner Jerry Evans said most of the bills have been paid except $600 owed by the Office of Administration, which he thought meant the White House. “It’s nothing I’m concerned about,” said Evans. “I’m going to get paid.”

At the Red Lion, Stephens said that a member of the Secret Service asked last week for a $400 refund on the bill because he believed his agents hadn’t used a particular briefing room. She said she pointed out that a refund wasn’t possible because the rest of the bill had not been paid.