Anne Kilkenny’s Sarah Palin E-Mail

Kilkenny: During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

It has been reported that Palin’s first year as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, was "turbulent," according to The Seattle Times, and questions were raised about Palin’s firings of city staff. This eventually led to talk of a recall:

The Seattle-Times (Sept. 7): She became embroiled in personnel challenges, a thwarted attempt to pack the City Council and a standoff with her local newspaper. Her first months were so contentious and polarizing that critics started talking recall. … But the situation calmed, and rather than being recalled, Palin was re-elected. She later acknowledged, "I grew tremendously in my early months as mayor."

According to The Anchorage Daily News, it’s true that when Palin became mayor she hired a deputy administrator, paying him $50,000 a year. Whether it was at the behest of Republican bigwigs, as Kilkenny and others have claimed, we can’t say. Palin argued that the hire was necessary to keep up with Wasilla’s growth rate.

Kilkenny: As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

Legislative Investigation Report:  Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda … to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired.

Palin was formally found to have abused her power, violating the executive state ethics act. It will be up to the Alaska state Legislature to determine what action, if any, will be taken.

Kilkenny: While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

It’s true that when Palin first became mayor "the public works director, city planner, museum director and others were forced out," and "the police chief, Irl Stambaugh, was later fired outright," according to The New York Times. The Times also reported that Palin fired City Administrator John Cramer, though it was toward the end of her second term as mayor.

We read through documents provided by the City of Wasilla and found Kilkenny was mostly right, but off on some points:

• Wasilla’s "general government" expenditures increased by 23 percent (7 percent when adjusted for inflation); overall expenditures increased by 35 percent (18 percent in constant dollars).
• We found that, when adjusted for inflation, the city’s tax revenues increased by 29 percent, not 38 percent as Kilkenny said.
• Property taxes did go down (Kilkenny’s right)
• The city sales tax, which applies to food, did go up (Kilkenny’s right again) from 2 percent to 2.5 percent.

Kilkenny:She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for?…$1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

• Actually, Wasilla had a debt of $1.2 million the fiscal year prior to Palin’s arrival (not zero, as Kilkenny claims). But when Palin left, the city had a debt of $24.8 million – a $23.6 million increase (close to, but a bit larger than Kilkenny states).
• The sports center cost $14.7 million, and road projects, $5.5 million. (Kilkenny is basically on target here.)

We would add that Palin proceeded with the sports complex even though the city didn’t have clear title to the land, triggering litigation that continues to this day and costing the city an extra $1 million-plus (Kilkenny is accurate here, as well).

Kilkenny: As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

Sources