[Vision2020] And the Hits Just keep On Coming . . .

[Jeff Harkins]

Yes, the internet is a wonderful research tool.  And I certainly 
agree with using the primary sources - avoids the problem of bias in 
summarized digests of info.  It also alleviates all those messy citations.

So, I had no problem getting to the Document Central and in 
particular the historical operating and capital budgets as well as 
the  audited financial statements.  But I was somewhat skeptical when 
I began to review the budgets and, as would be normal, the budgets 
were all summarized by function - so I could pick out the Police 
budget, but not the detailed expenditures.

Same story for the Audited Financial Statements.  They were all 
there, but it would have been surprising for the financials to be 
reporting expenditures at the sub-object level.  The details of 
expenditures were not there.

Then it hit me - how did you obtain all those names and details from 
financial reports?

so - a few nanoseconds on Google and up pops an article on the Huffington Post.

Below is an excerpt from the story by 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff//jacob-alperinsheriff>

Jacob Alperin-Sheriff and here is the full citation:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html 

However, I was able to eventually track down Irl Stambaugh, police 
chief of Wasilla from the founding of the department until 
<http://hatthief.blogspot.com/2008/08/vetting-sarah-palin-irl-stambaugh-walt.html>Sarah 
Palin fired him for "not fully supporting her efforts to govern." 
Stambaugh sued for breach of contract, but lost when a federal judge 
ruled that "police chiefs serve at the behest of the mayor unless 
otherwise specified." He later served as the executive director of 
the 
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=html&cd=9&url=http%3A%2F%2F64.233.169.104%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3AIP8WsLXz7GsJ%3Awww.gov.state.ak.us%2Fomb%2F04_OMB%2Fbudget%2FPublicSafety%2Fcomp519.pdf%2BIrl%2BStambaugh%2B-Palin%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26cd%3D9%26gl%3Dus%26client%3Dfirefox-a&ei=3LzJSLycDaKqetawmNAL&usg=AFQjCNENxoCiVXlizQcZmtO0pspCGhsR3g&sig2=gtwXaq-FmekfwP0Lvf8wpg>Alaska 
Police Standards Council.
It turns out that Wasilla did not bill sexual assault victims for the 
cost of rape exams while Irl Stambaugh was chief of police. As chief, 
he had included a line item in the budget to pay for the cost of such 
exams. He had only just heard about the Mayor Palin/Chief Fannon 
policy today, and was just as shocked to hear about it as I was.
Checking the budget confirmed former Chief Stambaugh's claim. He had 
included a contingency of $15,000 in his budget for the department's 
1st year of existence (1993-1994), $5,000 for 1994-1995 and 
1995-1996, and $13,000 for his final year as police chief in 
1996-1997, spending $11,625.

Duwayne Charles Fannon, his replacement, halved the budget request in 
1997-1998, with a request of $7,298, spending $3,454. However, it 
seems he began the "victim pays" policy in the 1998-1999 fiscal year. 
That year, he requested $3,000 but spent only $205. This data can be 
found in the 
<http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136>Document Central 
section of Wasilla's website.
I am to understand that you are studying law (first year?).  You have 
some explaining to do.

You stated that you obtained information from a primary source.  That 
does not appear to be substantiated by the facts.

It does appear that you plagiarized the material and you 
misrepresented the basis for your report (that is, at best, 
disingenuous and, at worst, a gross misrepresentation or 
lie).  Perhaps you have an explanation that I have overlooked something.

I have no interest in any further dialogue with you.  But, I would 
hope that, should my rationale be correct, you have enough honor to 
apologize to all the posters on the viz and, if you are indeed a law 
student, that you report your actions to the Dean of the Law School. 
Remember, this is a public forum so your comments will remain in perpetuity.

This has been a great disappointment!

At 06:38 PM 9/12/2008, you wrote:
>On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:44 PM, Jeff Harkins <jeffh at moscow.com> wrote:
> > Because you don't know the context of Wasilla and it residents, hence a
> > potential for bias on your part.  And no, Palin, as Mayor, could 
> not dictate
> > a budget policy - that can only be done by the Council.
> >
> > Read the statute for municipal government in AK.  By the way, for the most
> > part, Idaho municipalities are subject to the same laws.
> >
> > Both states require public oversight of budget creation and budget
> > implementation.
>
>Jeff --
>
>We live in the era of the Internet.
>
>So let's just move past all the secondary sources and take a look at
>primary sources, shall we? The City of Wasilla has kindly published
>all of its budgets for the years when Sarah Palin was governor, so we
>can all see what happened. In the '93-'94 fiscal year, Irl Stambaugh
>requested (and received) a $15,000 contingency line item for sexual
>assault exams, a $5,000 contingency line item for the '94-'95 fiscal
>year, and a $13,000 contingency line item for the '95-'96 fiscal year.
>He spent around $10,000 of that money over the three years (if you're
>interested, again, you can total it up).
>
>Then Sarah Palin fired him.
>
>The new police chief halved the line item request, to $7,298, and
>spent around half of that. The 'victim pays' policy was instituted the
>next year, under Sarah Palin's watch, and only $205 of the $3,000
>allocated was spent on sexual assault exams--though I'm not quite sure
>what that $205 was spent on, as it's not enough to cover the cost of a
>whole sexual assault exam. That same year, the law was enacted to
>prevent Wasilla--the only municipality in Alaska to have that
>policy--from continuing as it had. (Incidentally, that policy
>endangered statewide VAWA funding.)
>
>The facts essentially go like this: Sarah Palin fires the old police
>chief and hires a hand-selected new police chief. That new police
>chief requests a rape-exam line item, and continues to request rape
>exam line items throughout his career. However, despite the money
>being allocated, the new police chief refuses to spend it. The issue
>in Wasilla is sufficiently bad that it alerts the legislature, which
>starts to pass a law to prevent Wasilla to continue with its policy;
>furthermore, the issue is raised in statewide media. If Palin was not
>aware of her handpicked police chief's policy--a policy which was on
>her desk as a specific budget line item, the subject of statewide
>legislation, and the subject of statewide media coverage--then she is
>merely an incompetent executive, rather than a heartless supporter of
>'a la carte' law enforcement.
>
>-- ACS
>
>* Anyone who's interested in trolling through budgets to confirm what
>I said can find those budgets here:
>http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136. If only Moscow had
>something similar.
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