The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.
"It's too bad that the city of Wasilla didn't do their homework and secure the land before they began construction," said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. "She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly
Also, Will Thomas had this nice little piece over at TPM.
There are plenty of issues in the career of Sarah Palin that deserve a hefty amount of scrutiny, so I'm only going to give this one a few seconds.
The McCain camp is reveling in her sale of the governor's jet on eBay. McCain himself said yesterday, "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor, and sold it on eBay -- and made a profit!"
Someone should really tell McCain to be more careful with his words:
In fact, the jet did not sell on eBay. It was sold to a businessman from Valdez named Larry Reynolds, who paid $2.1 million for the plane -- shy of the $2.7 million purchase price -- according to news reports at the time. Reynolds contributed to Palin's campaign in 2006.Palin, so far as I can tell, has precisely said she auctioned the plane on eBay, without confirming whether or not it actually sold. Just a friendly reminder that details can be pesky things.
7 September 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment