<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Saundra,</div>
<div>This is the type of piece that I wish people would run more. Balckledge and Pritchard have assembled a list of concerns that Alaskans have asked the Governor (long before she was nominated for the VP slot). </div>
<div>One note though, Leo von Scheben has proven himslef at DOT and Public Facilities. His background may be a bit cloudy, but he has done a great job. One item that hhas iumpressed me is his allocation of state transportation funds; historcially it was all Anchorage; howver he has adobted a scoring system for projects that has eliminated the political/population factor and has resutled in a much better split of the states transporation and public facilities funds.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Chris<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 8:02 AM, Saundra Lund <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sslund_2007@verizon.net">sslund_2007@verizon.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Palin has checkered history on ethics issues<br>By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and JUSTIN PRITCHARD - 2 days ago<br>
<br>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose reformer image took<br>a hit in a report concluding she abused her powers to settle a family score,<br>has skirted state ethics rules before for personal benefit and used her<br>
office to help friends and supporters, according to an Associated Press<br>review of records.<br><br>Palin's first try at statewide office, after six years as mayor of Wasilla,<br>was an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2002. To raise money, she<br>
improperly used her City Hall office and equipment, city records show. A<br>year later she would make headlines by blasting a fellow Republican for,<br>among other things, improperly using his government position to boost his<br>
campaign.<br><br>Then, in 2006, Palin won the governor's race with a vow to reform state<br>ethics. But in less than two years, she has repeatedly taken actions that<br>violated her own stated standards for ethical behavior - if not state law.<br>
In the process, the Republican vice presidential nominee has become much<br>like the old-school politicians she attacked during her rise to power.<br><br>Some examples:<br><br>_She pummeled opponents for giving oil companies and other businesses too<br>
much control of state government. Yet she appointed the founder of an<br>engineering firm that received $6.8 million in state business as head of the<br>transportation department.<br><br>_She has accepted dozens of gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars since<br>
taking office, including two free trips last year that she failed to report<br>on disclosure forms, despite criticizing state legislators for the gifts<br>they take.<br><br>_She is under another investigation, accused of misusing her office to<br>
campaign against a voter referendum calling for tighter mining regulations.<br>Her husband, Todd, has accepted free trips from a mining company to look at<br>their proposed new site.<br><br>_Another ethics complaint, unresolved, accuses her staff of finding a state<br>
job for a friend and campaign contributor.<br><br>Last week, an investigation by the Alaska legislature found that Palin,<br>running mate to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, abused her<br>powers when she and her husband improperly pressured the state public safety<br>
commissioner to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. The<br>brother-in-law was never fired, but Palin fired the commissioner in July.<br><br>"It's all about the power, and it frightens me," said state Rep. Beth<br>
Kerttula, a Juneau Democrat who like many in the minority party have<br>supported Palin on some issues, including energy policy. "She doesn't seem<br>to know where the boundaries are."<br><br>Even critics concede that Palin deserves credit for working with legislators<br>
to toughen state ethics laws and for providing more information to taxpayers<br>about state spending. She advocated restrictions on lobbyists' giving,<br>increased disclosure requirements for public officials and posted state<br>
spending details on the Internet.<br><br>Palin also risked her own political future by exposing unethical behavior by<br>other public officials, even those in her own party.<br><br>But they say she often claims the ethical high ground when she hasn't been<br>
above questionable behavior herself.<br><br>"She's very good at reading the public's discontent and pandering to it,"<br>said Larry Persily, who worked in the governor's Washington, D.C., office<br>until resigning earlier this year.<br>
<br>Palin faced questions during her 2006 gubernatorial race about her use of<br>the Wasilla mayor's office four years earlier to run for lieutenant<br>governor. Palin used city staff and office equipment - including a fax<br>
machine, computers for e-mail and a City Hall phone number - to run her<br>campaign, according to city records.<br><br>She apologized for those transgressions in 2006, but only this month<br>acknowledged to the AP that the city initially paid for a campaign flight in<br>
that 2002 race and that weeks later she reimbursed the city.<br><br>"According to people who worked with her at the time, the travel agency<br>inadvertently billed the city rather than her personally," McCain campaign<br>
spokesman Taylor Griffin said in a written statement. "To ensure that it was<br>corrected immediately, she reimbursed Wasilla and the campaign later<br>reimbursed her. It's an example of Gov. Palin's commitment to the highest<br>
standards of ethics."<br><br>Palin brushed the issue aside when she ran for governor, arguing it was<br>nothing more than an opponent's smear campaign.<br><br>She has cast herself as Alaska's ethics watchdog. In her most dramatic move,<br>
she revealed in 2003 that the state's Republican Party leader was<br>campaigning from his state job. She then challenged incumbent Gov. Frank<br>Murkowski two years ago on a platform of government reform.<br><br>After her victory, though, Palin reverted to political tradition, rewarding<br>
even marginally qualified friends and campaign backers with high-level<br>positions.<br><br>A friend from her Wasilla High School class was named to manage the state's<br>agriculture office after a career in real estate. A family friend and<br>
campaign worker became head of the state agency that distributes dividend<br>checks to Alaskans from oil revenue. Her real estate agent's husband<br>received an appointment to the state real estate board.<br><br>Palin's biggest political splash was from attacking the big oil companies<br>
that she said ran the state. She challenged their political power, and<br>promised voters that her administration would avoid cozy relationships with<br>business.<br><br>But one of her first cabinet appointments didn't live up to that pledge.<br>
<br>Leo von Scheben, a co-founder of Anchorage-based USKH Inc. engineering firm,<br>took over the state's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities,<br>and his firm's state business increased, records show. USKH received $6.8<br>
million in state transportation contracts last year, up 13 percent from $6<br>million the year before.<br><br>Von Scheben stopped taking a salary and all benefits from the company when<br>he stepped into the state job. But he didn't sever all financial ties. Von<br>
Scheben receives annual stock payments that he arranged before he left the<br>company in 2007 that will continue for 10 years, according to his financial<br>disclosure forms.<br><br>Von Scheben said he has recused himself on projects pursued by the firm and<br>
that others in the agency select companies to receive state business. He<br>said he believes his appointment may have cost his former company state<br>business, although he doesn't regret taking the job.<br><br>"If the state can't draw on some private sector people, they're missing<br>
out," he said.<br><br>Palin claims passage of broad ethics reforms as an accomplishment following<br>state corruption scandals. But Palin didn't report as gifts two free trips<br>she received in 2007 as legislators were debating the new ethics law.<br>
<br>"This is simply a rare oversight, nothing more," campaign spokesman Griffin<br>said when asked about the omissions by the AP.<br><br>Palin has, in fact, reported most of her gifts on her annual financial<br>
disclosure forms, something her predecessor never did, according to Alaska<br>Public Offices Commission records.<br><br>The unreported paid trips:<br><br>_The $2,988 cost of Palin's April 2007 flight and hotel in Scottsdale,<br>
Ariz., for a four-day conference was paid by the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute<br>of North Carolina, a nonprofit education policy group. Palin received the<br>same free trip as dozens of other governors invited over the years to attend<br>
the annual summit, institute spokesman April White said.<br><br>_A May 2007 overnight visit with her three daughters and her parents<br>attending a family reception at Mt. Chilkoot Lodge in Skagway, Alaska, was<br>paid for by friend and former deputy campaign treasurer Kathy Hosford, one<br>
of the lodge's owners.<br><br>"We weren't open and it was just on a friendship basis," Hosford said.<br><br>The Palins used two suites valued at $150 each, said Sharon Leighow, a<br>spokeswoman in the governor's office.<br>
<br>The same day Palin visited Skagway, executives of the Anchorage-based VECO<br>Inc. pleaded guilty to offering bribes to five legislators. Palin, mingling<br>with old family friends and town residents, spoke briefly with local<br>
reporters during her visit, calling the corruption developments "atrocious"<br>and promising change.<br><br>"There are problems in state government," Palin told The Skagway News, "and<br>on our watch it is our responsibility to show people that we are going to<br>
clean things up."<br><br>Persily, who said he left Palin's administration because he didn't enjoy<br>working in Washington, said Palin is skillful in "attacking the 'good ol'<br>boys.' The good ol' boys that Palin is talking about are those that can't<br>
help her politically."<br><br>Democratic state Rep. Mike Doogan said Palin, even as she bends or breaks<br>the rules herself, acts as if she invented ethics in Alaska.<br><br>"It's insulting to those of us who have always done the right thing," he<br>
said.<br><br><a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iH0vdGiHrKngDErolJCcseYL7MSQD93QFSL02" target="_blank">http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iH0vdGiHrKngDErolJCcseYL7MSQD93QFSL02</a><br><br><br>=======================================================<br>
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