Here is what a resident from Wasilla has written:ABOUT SARAH PALIN
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are ona first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Herfather was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on afirst name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended moreCity Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of theresidents of the city.She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most populargirl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice andwon't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her becauseshe is a "babe".
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret.She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children andparents for seven months. She is "pro-life". She recently gave birthto a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trigis her baby.She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at thegym. She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts thingsout there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is achampion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his workschedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or soin summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing theirmajor source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anythinglike that of native Alaskans.Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She's smart.
Her experience is as mayor of a city with a populationof about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of astate with about 670,000 residents.During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of runningthis small city was turned over to an administrator. She had beenpushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after shehad gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings whichhad given rise to a recall campaign.Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over3%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by theCity increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased aregressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that shepromoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than theybenefited residents.The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administrationweren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowedmoney was needed, too.
She inherited a city with zero debt, but leftit with indebtedness of over $22 million. (Hmmm...)
What did Mayor Palinencourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructurethat she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the citylacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus forconstruction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed throughto build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have cleartitle to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight ofthe lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition tothe community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator sheclaimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for roadprojects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her officeredecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is avery small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budgetsurplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology thatwill make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governorshe proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in thestate.In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, sherecommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even whileshe proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today'ssurplus, borrow for needs.She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outsideideas or compromise.
As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren'tgenerated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on theirmerits, but on the basis of who proposed them.While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highlyrespected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to considerremoving from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. Cityresidents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and againstPalin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down andwithdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt tooust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran forMayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palinfired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and asGovernor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs andeternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusingtheir power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledgedhappened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).
As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated"her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska'stop cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at herpleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's prettyclear that an important factor in her decision to fire him wasbecause he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper.Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit thatmore 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 whoshe knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this causeda public furor, she withdrew her support.
She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her inhelp. The City Council person who personally escorted her around townintroducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Councilbecame one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. Sheabruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn'tlike the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anythingpublicly about her.When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas ConservationCommission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the bestpaid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job:the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of thisCommission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party)engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).
As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrelpolitics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to. As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects -- which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance -- but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork". She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State partyleaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliatedthem. Other members of the party object to her self-description as afiscal conservative.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together a package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum. Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. (some people don't recognize a shoe until it kicks them in the ass)
She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining inthe state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.
McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. (yikes)
There have to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced thanshe. However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.
CLAIM VS FACT
*"Hockey mom": true for a few years
*"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementaryschool, not since
*"NRA supporter": absolutely true
*Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a billthat would have denied benefits to employees in same-sexrelationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
*Pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor topromote it.
*"Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-lifelegislation
*"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla hasresidents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-onsupervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a cityadministrator to run town of about 5,000.
*political maverick: not at all
*gutsy: absolutely!*open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good atexplaining actions.
*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
*"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box storesand disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
*fiscal conservative: not by my definition!*pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a citywithout a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Builtstreets to early 20th century standards.
*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burdenon residents
*pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of citygovernment in Wasilla's history.
*pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.
WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informedvoter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student votingprograms in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny +Alaska), you will find references to my participation in localgovernment, education, and PTA/parent organizations.Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happenwhen good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I dobecause few have gone to as many City Council meetings.Third, I am just a housewife.
I don't have a job she can bump me outof. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I amno fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that thiswill cost me somehow in the future: that's life.Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian againstSarah's attempt at censorship.Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid tosay anything because they were somehow vulnerable.
CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase inspending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor)from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the Cityof Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did Iadjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it isimpossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating forthe population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official toldme that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin wasMayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in themid-90's.
Anne Kilkenny
Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,
We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidentialcandidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce-on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate-that has a real possibility of becoming fact. Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms.Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to forourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she isagainst sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform,environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom ofspeech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire thelibrarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation ofchurch and state, and polar bears.
To say nothing of her complete lackof real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on theplanet.We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, amother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, butsolely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice forVice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap inthe face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers andgreat-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've sodemonstrably benefited from.
First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does notdemonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumedthat the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win overwomen voters. We want to disagree, publicly.Therefore, we invite you to reply here (womensaynopalin@gmail.com )with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living inthis country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command forour nation.Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against SarahPalin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Pleasesend us your reply at your earliest convenience-the greater the volumeof responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.Thank you for your time and action.
Sincerely,
Quinn Latimer and Lyra KilstonNew York, NYwomensaynopalin@gmail.com
**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! If you send this to 20 women in the nexthour, you could be blessed with a country that takes your concernsseriously. Stranger things have happened.
