[Rhodes22-list] Bullwinkle Politics

[Brad Haslett]

Elle,

That video was funny! Some more disturbing news out of Alaska below
the fold (the AP is really getting desperate).  For those of you like
Illinois politics, both the Chicago Tribune and Sun newspapers  ran
articles that Rezko isn't happy in jail and is cooperating with the
Special Prosecutor. The Governor is going down (kind of an Illinois
tradition).

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/rezko/1189480,rezko092808.article

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-rezko-flip28sep28,0,5691387.story

October should be fun!

Brad

----------------------------
 AP Investigation: Palin got zoning aid, gifts

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE, Associated Press WriterSun Sep 28, 11:58 AM ET

Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy
politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special
benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated
Press investigation shows.

When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla
mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception —
and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire
hazard.

She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she
raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous
flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon
to take home.

She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall
dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of
speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them
to give his radio station advertising business.

That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political
contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development.
Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man's fees, but the city
attorney told the mayor she didn't have the authority.

Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and
the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent
running a city with a population of less than 7,000.

Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised
possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose
a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and
backed the city's repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow
machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to
consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband,
Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.

Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such
issues, but that didn't stop her from pressing them, according to
minutes of council meetings.

She sometimes followed a cautious path in the face of real or
potential conflicts — for example, stepping away from the table in
1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine
race in which her husband competes.

But mostly, like other Wasilla elected officials at the time, she took
an active role on issues that directly affected and sometimes
benefited her. Her efforts to clear the way for the $327,000 sale of
the Palin family home on Lake Wasilla is an example.

Two months before Palin's tenure as mayor ended in 2002, she asked
city planning officials to forgive zoning violations so she could sell
her house. Palin had a buyer, but he wouldn't close the deal unless
she persuaded the city to waive the violations with a code variance.

The Palins, who were finishing work on a new waterfront house on Lake
Lucille about two miles away, asked the city for the variance. The
request was opposed by one planning official and some neighbors.

"I would ask that the Wasilla Planning Commission apply the exact same
rules in this situation that it would apply to other similar requests
so that our community can see that being a public figure does not give
anyone special benefits," urged neighbor Clyde Boyer Jr. in a 2002
note to the city.

The Palins' house was built by the original owner too close to the
shoreline and too close to adjacent properties on each side, including
a carport that stretched so far over it nearly connected the two
houses.

The Palins didn't create the zoning problems, but they should have
known about them when they bought the house, wrote Susan Lee, a code
compliance officer with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, in response to
the Palins' request. The borough, similar to a county government,
makes recommendations to the city, which has final say.

Lee, in recommending the city reject the request, noted that the
exception was needed to resolve an "inconvenience" the Palins
experienced while trying to sell their house. In 1989, another borough
planner told a previous owner that a variance for the carport couldn't
be approved because it didn't meet required conditions and was a
potential fire hazard.

But in August 2002, Wasilla Planner Tim Krug approved a "shoreline
setback exception" for the Palins' house being built too closely to
the water. He sent an e-mail to the mayor saying he was drafting
another variance for the side of the house built too close to the
property line, but that he understood from her that the other side
"will be corrected and the carport will be removed."

Krug asked Palin to let him know if he was wrong in his impression
that the carport would be removed.

A few minutes later, the mayor e-mailed back: "Sounds good."

On Sept. 10, 2002, the seven-member Wasilla Planning Commission
unanimously approved a variance for both sides of the property, with
language covering "all existing structures." Less than a week later,
the Palins signed a deed to sell the house to Henry Nosek.

The carport was never removed.

Nosek said Sarah Palin didn't do anything more than any other citizen
would have done.

"I sincerely don't feel that Sarah used her position as mayor at the
time to get that accomplished," said Nosek, who no longer lives in the
home.

James Svara, professor of public affairs at Arizona State University
and author of "The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in
Government and Nonprofit Organizations," suggested such behavior is
part of small-town politics.

"Small towns are first-person politics, and if people are close, it's
hard to separate one's own personal interest and one's own personal
property from the work of the city," Svara said. The key questions
from an ethics standpoint include whether the politician makes a
potential conflict of interest known and removes himself or herself
from actions related to it, he added.

"I think in a small town there is a greater likelihood that people
will accept that you will pay careful attention to friends and
neighbors," he said, adding that there may be some local gossip about
it, but not a lot of public scrutiny. "At the national level, there
will be far more people watching, there will be far more pressures to
come forward to try to influence the outcome."

___

Associated Press writer Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.