The idea for this thoroughly unscientific but thoroughly fun experiment came from a news story by my colleague Frank Roylance (otherwise known as our weather blogger -- see Maryland Weather) on the fruitless search for a man and his three children whose boat reportedly sank off Middle River.
The boat never turned up but Frank included some detailed information about how much the search cost. That prompted a comment on our web site from Esther: "Yes, but did it cost more than Jon Cardin's stupid proposal?"
Good question Esther. I decided to find out!
She's of course talking about state Del. Jon S. Cardin, who last year propsed to his girlfriend with the help of city cops from the helicopter and marine unit who performed a fake raid, pretended to arrest Cardin's girl and then presented her with a ring. People were outraged by the misuse of police resources and Cardin offered to write a check to the city to cover the loss.
The city billed him $300.
Many thought this was too low, but comparisons were difficult and the city wouldn't give up a minute-by-minute cost analysis. Frank's story provided some of the missing clues. I know, we're comparing Coast Guard choppers to city choppers, but at least we get an idea of what some of these missions cost: