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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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Then it hit me - how did you obtain all those names and details from
financial reports? <br><br>
so - a few nanoseconds on Google and up pops an article on the Huffington
Post.<br><br>
Below is an excerpt from the story by
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff//jacob-alperinsheriff">
<h2>Jacob Alperin-Sheriff</a> and here is the full
citation:</h2>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html</a>
<dl>
<dd>However, I was able to eventually track down Irl Stambaugh, police
chief of Wasilla from the founding of the department until
<a href="http://hatthief.blogspot.com/2008/08/vetting-sarah-palin-irl-stambaugh-walt.html">
Sarah Palin fired him</a> 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
<a href="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</a>.<br>
<dd>It turns out that Wasilla did <b>not</b> 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.<br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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
<a href="http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136">Document
Central</a> section of Wasilla's website.
</dl>I am to understand that you are studying law (first year?).
You have some explaining to do.<br><br>
You stated that you obtained information from a primary source.
That does not appear to be substantiated by the facts.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
This has been a great disappointment!<br><br>
At 06:38 PM 9/12/2008, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:44
PM, Jeff Harkins <jeffh@moscow.com> wrote:<br>
> Because you don't know the context of Wasilla and it residents,
hence a<br>
> potential for bias on your part. And no, Palin, as Mayor,
could not dictate<br>
> a budget policy - that can only be done by the Council.<br>
><br>
> Read the statute for municipal government in AK. By the way,
for the most<br>
> part, Idaho municipalities are subject to the same laws.<br>
><br>
> Both states require public oversight of budget creation and
budget<br>
> implementation.<br><br>
Jeff --<br><br>
We live in the era of the Internet.<br><br>
So let's just move past all the secondary sources and take a look at<br>
primary sources, shall we? The City of Wasilla has kindly published<br>
all of its budgets for the years when Sarah Palin was governor, so
we<br>
can all see what happened. In the '93-'94 fiscal year, Irl Stambaugh<br>
requested (and received) a $15,000 contingency line item for sexual<br>
assault exams, a $5,000 contingency line item for the '94-'95 fiscal<br>
year, and a $13,000 contingency line item for the '95-'96 fiscal
year.<br>
He spent around $10,000 of that money over the three years (if
you're<br>
interested, again, you can total it up).<br><br>
Then Sarah Palin fired him.<br><br>
The new police chief halved the line item request, to $7,298, and<br>
spent around half of that. The 'victim pays' policy was instituted
the<br>
next year, under Sarah Palin's watch, and only $205 of the $3,000<br>
allocated was spent on sexual assault exams--though I'm not quite
sure<br>
what that $205 was spent on, as it's not enough to cover the cost of
a<br>
whole sexual assault exam. That same year, the law was enacted to<br>
prevent Wasilla--the only municipality in Alaska to have that<br>
policy--from continuing as it had. (Incidentally, that policy<br>
endangered statewide VAWA funding.)<br><br>
The facts essentially go like this: Sarah Palin fires the old police<br>
chief and hires a hand-selected new police chief. That new police<br>
chief requests a rape-exam line item, and continues to request rape<br>
exam line items throughout his career. However, despite the money<br>
being allocated, the new police chief refuses to spend it. The issue<br>
in Wasilla is sufficiently bad that it alerts the legislature, which<br>
starts to pass a law to prevent Wasilla to continue with its policy;<br>
furthermore, the issue is raised in statewide media. If Palin was
not<br>
aware of her handpicked police chief's policy--a policy which was on<br>
her desk as a specific budget line item, the subject of statewide<br>
legislation, and the subject of statewide media coverage--then she
is<br>
merely an incompetent executive, rather than a heartless supporter
of<br>
'a la carte' law enforcement.<br><br>
-- ACS<br><br>
* Anyone who's interested in trolling through budgets to confirm
what<br>
I said can find those budgets here:<br>
<a href="http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136" eudora="autourl">
http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136</a>. If only Moscow
had<br>
something similar.</blockquote></body>
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