NCAAbbs

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-...3728.story

The L. A. Times has an expose out this morning about Alaska government under Palin. One in four of her state hires went to friends or campaign contributors.




Palin appointed friends and donors to key posts in Alaska, records show

100-plus jobs went to campaign donors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications. Several donors got state-subsidized loans for business ventures of dubious public value.

By Charles Piller
October 24, 2008

Reporting from Anchorage -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, plucked from relative obscurity in part for her reform credentials, has been eager to tout them in her vice presidential campaign.

"I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau when I stood up to the special interests and the lobbyists and the big oil companies and the good old boys," Palin told the Republican National Convention in her acceptance speech. She said that as a new governor she "shook things up, and in short order we put the government of our state back on the side of the people."

By midway through her first term, she had signed an ethics reform bill, increased oil profit taxes and tweaked Big Oil again by awarding a gas pipeline contract to a Canadian company.

In some other respects, a Los Angeles Times examination of state records shows, her approach to government was business as usual. Take, for example, the tradition of patronage. Some of Palin's most controversial appointments involved donors, records show.

Among The Times' findings:

* More than 100 appointments to state posts -- nearly 1 in 4 -- went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.

* Palin filled 16 state offices with appointees from families that donated $2,000 to $5,600 and were among her top political patrons.

* Several of Palin's leading campaign donors received state-subsidized industrial development loans of up to $3.6 million for business ventures of questionable public value.

* Palin picked a donor to replace the public safety commissioner she fired. But the new top cop had to resign days later under an ethics cloud. And Palin drew a formal ethics complaint still pending against her and several aides for allegedly helping another donor and fundraiser land a state job.

Most new governors install friends and supporters in state jobs. But Alaska historians say some of Palin's appointees were less qualified than those of her Republican and Democratic predecessors.

University of Alaska historian Steve Haycox said Palin has been a reformer. But he said she has a penchant for placing supporters, many of them ill-prepared, in high posts. He called it "cronyism" far beyond what previous governors have done and a contradiction of her high-minded philosophy.

Terrence Cole, an Alaska political historian, said Palin had in some cases shown "a disrespect for experience."

Administration officials disputed such criticism. They said campaign contributions were not a factor in state appointments. Frank Bailey, the state's directorof boards and commissions, in speaking for Palin, who was not available to answer inquiries from The Times, said, "We are always seeking the best-qualified folks."

In a little-noted sequel to Palin's controversial dismissal of her public safety commissioner, the governor replaced Walt Monegan with former small-town Police Chief Charles Kopp of Kenai. The appointment unraveled almost immediately in what Cole called a vetting catastrophe.

A previous sexual harassment complaint came to light and Kopp had to resign two weeks after taking over. Alaska paid him $10,000 in severance.

After another of Palin's campaign donors and fundraisers landed a civil service job with the state department of transportation, GOP activist Andree McLeod filed an ethics complaint against the governor and several aides, alleging that improper pressure was used to help Tom Lamal.

Lamal, a public school teacher in Fairbanks until he retired in 2006, was hired as a right-of-way agent despite reports of internal conflicts over whether he was qualified under state law.

E-mail messages between Palin aides, obtained by McLeod under the state public records act, indicate that the hiring was pushed "through the roadblocks" by a deputy to one of Palin's appointees. And Palin aide Bailey sent Lamal a congratulatory note saying, in part, "Well now your foot's back in the door and maybe we can tap you for other things."

Lamal declined to be interviewed for this article.

Palin spokesman William McAllister declined to comment because of an ongoing state personnel board inquiry.



Click the Emptywheel link for expansion.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/1...#more-2954

On second thought, here's Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel's) take. Some won't bother to click through and it's worth reading. Click the link above for the original post with the linkage to sources and articles of interest.

Everybody's Nailin' Palin

Ouch. If it weren't for bad news, Sarah Palin might not have any news at all. In the first Troopergate investigation, conducted by the Alaska Legislature, Palin was found culpable of abuse of power as Governor. On the morning of her deposition in the second major investigation, this one by the Alaska State Personnel Board, Sarahdipity woke up to a skewering by the LA Times for rampant hiring of incompetent cronies for critical state offices. Looks like there may be a lot Palin has to answer for in her deposition.

* More than 100 appointments to state posts -- nearly 1 in 4 -- went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.

* Palin filled 16 state offices with appointees from families that donated $2,000 to $5,600 and were among her top political patrons.

* Several of Palin's leading campaign donors received state-subsidized industrial development loans of up to $3.6 million for business ventures of questionable public value.

* Palin picked a donor to replace the public safety commissioner she fired. But the new top cop had to resign days later under an ethics cloud. And Palin drew a formal ethics complaint still pending against her and several aides for allegedly helping another donor and fundraiser land a state job.

Some of her appointments make "Heckuva Job Brownie" look like Einstein. Tavis Colberg, Palin's childhood buddy, was installed as the Alaska Attorney General in spite of the fact that he was barely qualified to appear in local Wasilla courts on worker's comp claims. Franci Havemeister, another of Palin's childhood friends, was made director of the Alaska State Agriculture Division. Havemeister was previously a part time real estate agent who stated a childhood love of cows as a qualification for the job. In multiple cases, Palin installed both husband and wife of family friends to cushy, well paid state positions for which they were unqualified.

As the New York Times has previously stated, Palin's Wasilla High School yearbook now doubles as a veritable directory of state government.

Turns out Palin is to nepotism what McCain is to narcissism.

And, when it came to her friends and donors, Palin was as loose and generous with Alaska's public coffers as she was executive jobs.

In one case, Jae G. Lee, a former Los Angeles businessman who is the proprietor of Party Time, a rundown grocery store and bottle shop in Anchorage, sought a $2.7-million state loan to buy an aging strip mall in midtown Anchorage. It was on the market because of a glut of similar malls in the area, all of them losing customers to big-box stores.

Lee and his wife, who had contributed $3,000 worth of office space to Palin's 2006 campaign, won the low-interest, state-backed mortgage although it was unclear how the old mall would add jobs. Lee said he did nothing to improve his acquisition, but with the cheap loan his profits have been robust.
...
Two other state-backed loans with favorable terms and questionable development benefits went to Palin contributor and local dentist Scott Laudon and his partners. The investors got $1.2 million to refinance debt on Northern Lights Village -- a gritty collection of shops including massage and tattoo parlors, a secondhand-clothing store and a video arcade. Its neighbors along a 1 1/2 -mile stretch of Northern Lights Boulevard in midtown Anchorage include a dozen strip malls.

Laudon and other partners also received $3.6 million to buy two automated car washes in Anchorage. The benefit to Alaska, according to the approval documents, was the retention of five jobs -- which would have remained without the subsidy.

John McCain habitually claims that Palin is the most qualified VP candidate in recent memory, and that she is a maverick reformer specializing in clean and efficient government. In spite of Sarah's overwrought complaints that scrutiny of her acts and record are sexist, it sure looks like the nailin of Palin is imminently justified.