[Vision2020] Alaskan Mayor Resigns Amid Spending Charges

[Tom Hansen]

Now here is a mayor that makes former mayor of Wasilla (Alaska) Sarah 
Palin look like Mother Theresa.

Courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News at:

http://www.adn.com

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Barrow mayor resigns amid spending charges
City credit card used for personal expenses including booze

By JAMES HALPIN and KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News

(02/11/09 18:07:37) 
The mayor of Barrow handed over his resignation Wednesday morning amid 
accusations that he improperly ran up thousands of dollars in personal 
charges on a city-owned credit card. In one use of the card, he posted 
bail on a drunken driving charge and paid for his legal defense. 

Mayor Michael D. Stotts, 44, said in a telephone interview Wednesday night 
that the City Council began investigating his use of the credit card in 
December and later determined he improperly ran up expenses.

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Mayor Michael Stotts admitted to missing meetings on city-paid trips 
because he'd been drinking, the report says.
 
http://tinyurl.com/MayorStotts
 
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An investigation by the city's attorney released this month claims the 
mayor racked up as much as $28,735 in improper spending. That includes 
credit card charges, per diem collected for out-of-town meetings he didn't 
attend and buying alcohol on the city's dime.

Stotts admitted to missing meetings on city-paid trips because he'd been 
drinking, the report says.

The mayor paid back some of the money, but by the time he submitted his 
resignation, effective Friday, he still owed $17,000, Stotts said. 

"I believed that my actions were within my authority, but the City Council 
has found otherwise, and I'll agree with them," Stotts said. "I 
essentially broke city code, and I'm paying the consequences of that." 

Stotts charged the city for airfare and hotels while attending conferences 
in other cities but sometimes wouldn't actually go to the meetings, 
councilman Bob Harcharek said.

For example, at one conference in Ketchikan for the Alaska Municipal 
League that councilman Mike Shults attended along with Stotts, the 
mayor "had a hard time making the meetings" and was more focused 
on "socializing" than participating, Shults said. 

"That, pardon the expression, pisses me off," Harcharek said of the 
mayor's missed meetings. "Because he's supposed to be a representative of 
the city and we trusted him to that position." 

Asked if Stotts also bought himself goods with city money, Harcharek said 
the mayor purchased a jacket at Big Ray's sporting goods store in 
Fairbanks and "bought booze on a credit card."

According to the council's report, Stotts also used the city credit card 
to bail himself out after he was arrested on a DUI charge in Anchorage in 
May 2008. The report says Stotts was in town for a climate change 
conference and was eating at Village Inn. Four police officers followed 
him to his car and arrested him.

"In order to be released from jail, the Mayor posted a $1,000 appearance 
bond with the Anchorage court system, and paid his personal attorney 
$2,500, using the City's credit card," Barrow city attorney Louisiana 
Cutler's report says. 

According to the report, Stotts also admitted that he was drunk while 
driving the rental vehicle he was using and that he damaged it by driving 
into a pipe post, incurring another $1,565 in charges from the rental 
company.

The report notes that Stotts was in Fairbanks in November 2007 for another 
conference, but didn't attend a single session "because he was intoxicated 
most of the time. ..."

Harcharek said he talked to Stotts about questionable spending in 2007, 
and Stotts said at the time that it wouldn't happen again.

But last November, two Barrow residents, including Forrest Olemaun, hand-
delivered a letter to council members accusing the mayor of misusing city 
money, said Harcharek, who will now fill in as the city mayor with a 
special election expected this spring. 

Olemaun, who describes himself as a concerned citizen, said some former 
city employees he knows told him what was going on and he decided 
something needed to be done. The council was surprised at the allegations 
but took appropriate action, he said. 

"I would hope that one who serves the people is cognizant of right and 
wrong," Olemaun said. "I know that there are a lot of officials in this 
town that know that, and it's unfortunate that this type of thing 
occurred."

The council got the city attorney's report last week, Harcharek said. That 
led to a 2 1/2 hour meeting on Monday, where the council asked Stotts for 
his resignation, the councilman said.

The council is also seeking reimbursement for the charges, and Stotts has 
signed a statement with the city agreeing to pay the bill, said councilman 
Shults. 

Stotts said he has already voluntarily turned in the city credit card. 

"I myself believed that there were some discrepancies in me holding the 
card," Stotts said. "Not necessarily the temptation, but just the simple 
fact to not be misused. There have been moments where the card can easily 
be deemed as being misused but that wasn't the intention at all." 

Despite the occasional lapse in judgment, Stotts had a good run as mayor, 
said Shults, who taught Stotts in eighth grade. Stotts started youth 
programs, began collecting overlooked taxes that were already on the books 
and helped fund community events using revenue from the cigarette tax and 
alcohol importation fees, Shults said. 

"It's just unfortunate that some of the (problems) outside the office 
proper happened, because the job he was doing -- it was an excellent job," 
Shults said. "He was well-liked and he was very charismatic. It's just 
that it seemed like when he got out of town the other issues came up."

Stotts took the reins as mayor in June 2007 and was to hold the position 
until 2010. 

It was unclear Wednesday if the allegations are under criminal 
investigation. Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said any 
such case would likely fall to the North Slope Borough Police Department, 
which has jurisdiction in Barrow. An officer who answered the phone there 
Wednesday night said no one was available to discuss whether it was under 
investigation.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapsed Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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