[Rhodes22-list] Bullwinkle Politics

[Brad Haslett]

Elle,

I don't do Illinois politics - much.  My parents and sister still live
there. The fact that Obama is a Chicago politician is enough for most
people downstate to vote against him but they're way outnumbered by
Chi-town.

My last involvement in Land of Lincoln politics was tin canning a dog
in front of the Governor.  We had this stray that adopted the airport
in Vandalia as his new home. He was going to get hit by a prop sooner
or later and besides, he wouldn't stay out of the shop. There was no
pound nearby and the options were to "encourage" him to find a new
home or shoot him.  Texaco airplane oil used to come in metal cans, so
I used safety wire and tied about five together. The Guv's airplane
was on the ramp but he was off making a speech at the old State House.
 Just as I attached the cans to the dog and he went off running,
Governor Dan Walker drives up and witnesses the whole thing (circa
1973).  I hid in the parts room until I heard his airplane take off.

Walker later went to jail.  Chicago politician = crooked. Some things
never change.

Brad

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 9:15 PM, elle <watermusic38 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> A McCain ad running in VA references Rezko, Wright, and others of the band of 5 (give or take.) It's vague, & doesn't really hit the mark...
>
> Runnin out of time...ya sure ya won't reconsider, Rummy??  ;^)
>
> (oops...I don't do politics...;^)
>
> elle
>
>
>
> We can't change the angle of the wind....but we can adjust our sails.
>
> 1992 Rhodes 22   Recyc '06  "WaterMusic"   (Lady in Red)
>
>
> --- On Sun, 9/28/08, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Bullwinkle Politics
>> To: "The Rhodes 22 Email List" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>> Date: Sunday, September 28, 2008, 9:48 PM
>> 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.
>>
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