[Rhodes22-list] Bullwinkle Politics

elle watermusic38 at yahoo.com
Sun Sep 28 22:15:06 EDT 2008


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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