Arkansas lawmakers on Thursday voted to audit the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, delving into an unusual controversy that’s prompted questions about the seemingly high cost of the item and claims that the governor’s office violated the state’s open-records law.
The all-Republican executive committee of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee also voted to audit the Republican governor’s travel and security expenditures that were retroactively shielded from public release under a new Freedom of Information Act exemption Sanders signed last month.
The 39-inch tall (1-meter), blue and wood-paneled lectern was purchased in June with a state credit card for $19,029.25. It has become the focus of intense scrutiny in recent weeks and has gained national attention. The Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the purchase on Sept. 14, and Sanders’ office has called the use of a state credit card for the lectern an accounting error. Sanders’ office said it received the lectern in August.
It’s sold on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/GTPET-Conference-Machinery-Lectern-Reception/dp/B0CGM72JXG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34HIVCKEXA10Z&keywords=gtpet%2Bpodium&qid=1697158545&sprefix=gtpet%2Bpodium%2Caps%2C355&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.2b70bf2b-6730-4ccf-ab97-eb60747b8daf&th=1
I can see some differences, but it was obviously made by someone who had looked at that design (or a third design that both are based off of)
The Amazon one looks like fake wood, and the overly expensive one looks like real wood. Real wood drives the price up, but $19k still seems excessive.
Another factor here, the government is informally banned from buying anything not made in America. That informal ban also applies to states buying shit from people and business in other states.
So yeah… A custom lectern, made by someone in Arkansas, made to look like a shitty lectern on Amazon… That’s going to be pricey. But not $19k pricey unless they just took the first bid that they got.
The 19k one looks like cheap ass ikea veneer. No way is that real wood; the differences are easily explained with source materials being different over time.
There do appear to be differences, the microphone holder, for instance, but, yeah, $19K is a stretch, even if it was made by a craftsman in Arkansas
Let me preface this by saying I have no love for Sanders or the GOP, but either the picture from the article is incorrect or the Amazon item isnot the lectern in question. While they look vaguely close in design they’re definitely not the same item.
The one linked on Amazon probably isn’t even worth the $700. It’s probably fiber board and veneer.
If they had a custom piece done out of a solid block of aged hardwood with metal finish work in a solid top, It’s not hard to hit $20,000 on an artsy piece of furniture, especially when you are client is a politician.
I’m also not saying that it has any place in a governor’s briefing room. But It’s completely reasonable that quality one-off custom piece of furniture out of good materials is 19 grand.
Sorry. But Sander’s is the same basic design- a metal frame (probably formed sheet rather than cast,) with msg/laminate panels added with a veneer on them.
You don’t carve a podium from solid wood and the stuff that into a metal box
You would never cast iron into a podium, that would be heavy as fuck.
No, it was likely welded and then sanded to a mirror finish, before the horrible powder coat was applied.
And no, that does look like real wood.
It’s ugly as fuck, but I doubt it’s badly built.
Cast aluminum, not iron. And people have gone to dumber extents. I did, however say it was probably sheet metal with panels on top.
Heavy podiums are actually preferred- they’re less likely to topple over when some fat ass leans on them (see trump, for example,) or move when the gesticulation gets …. Excessively … thumpy.
Further… you know what a veneer is? It’s a thin slice of wood glued on top (and edges.) of course it looks like it’s solid wood.
It’s not.
There’s no real reason to do otherwise- few people will be up close to the podium that the seams would be visible.
There’s absolutely no way it’s carved from a monolithic slab- you can tell by the (terribly) book matched grain in the front panel; and the grain pattern is wonky on its edge, suggesting it’s all veneered over.
The differences in appearance are easily explained by different run in manufacturing, with different powder coat formulation and different veneer but the same build. The most i would go is to say it’s a rebadge job from China (like 90% of the stuff on alibaba and Amazon,)
A $10,000 diamond ring from a jeweler and a ring from the counter at Walmart or also the same basic design.
Most of that “value” is in the stupid little chunk of rock. That or the idiot is paying a steep idiot tax