Anchorage Retains Double-A Bond Rating! Oh, Dear….
Hooray! Our fair city has maintained the highest possible bond rating! Woo-hoo! Yeah, baby! Hip hip….. Hey, what’s the matter over there? (We look quizzically at the sad, sad star). Turn that frown upside down Mr. Star! This is great! It means we all have to pay less money for things than we would if the city had a lower bond rating.
Well, despite his best efforts to sabotage the city’s bond rating, Assemblyman Bill Starr will just have to be happy with a good grade. He did his best. With an impressive show of melodrama and a breathless trip to the FBI to turn our city in, he tried his best to tank that AA rating. He tried to convey to the powers that be that our super-great bond rating was based on fraud. Mikunda Cottreell, the fine, upstanding company who did that audit (and is one of only two firms in the city who are even capable of doing this type of audit) must not be very pleased with Mr. Starr. .
“Standard & Poors’ affirming the Municipality’s AA bond rating is just further proof of the professionalism and integrity of the information provided by the Begich Administration,” Hasquet said in a statement. “You can rest assured if Standard & Poor’s was concerned about the bond rating, they would make it known in short order.”
Assemblyman Bill Starr recently contacted the FBI asking them to investigate the claims of Begich administration wrongdoing. He did not return request for comment.
But Hasquet hopes this will quiet him and other critics.
“Hopefully, Mr. Starr and his cohorts will stop trying to make headlines and start focusing on the real issues facing the city,” she said.
Mayor Sullivan says this is not about what has happened in the past but about where we are now.
The entire editorial staff at Mudflats (me) says, “Whatever.” The Sullivan administration, Mr. Sad Starr and their cohorts have been doing nothing but whining and grousing about the previous administration since they took office. Mr. Sullivan thinks the Senator’s chair looks a lot more comfy than the Mayor’s chair and apparently believes the “piss and moan” strategy is the best way to get there.
So what was the last bond rating when Mayor Begich was still in office? Care to hazard a guess? Yes. That would be the same excellent AA bond rating we just got.
In other words, (according to the current administration) we got a good ratingduring the second term of the Begich administration, and we got the same good rating in the first year of the Sullivan administration, and the sky is falling and it’s all Mark Begich’s fault even though we don’t look to the past but only live in the present, both of which look good.
Grab the hand rail if you feel dizzy.
And as soon as you recover your balance, grab your wallet. Because next thing on the administration’s “to do” list is to have a “forensic audit” done. “But, didn’t we just have an audit done,” you ask? Why, yes we did. “And didn’t the results of that audit lead to our super-fantastic AA bond rating?” Why, yes they did. “And aren’t audits expensive?” Why yes, as a matte of fact they are.
So what gives? What you’re witnessing is a waste of time and money which will pay for negative advertising against Mark Begich and for Dan Suliivan. It’s the price of a witch hunt, and we get to pay for it.
I guess I just don’t understand politics very well. I would think that Sullivan would be proud of AA rating earned by Anchorage, even if it had the same rating under the previous mayor, Senator Begich.
Does it not make sense, if one wants to run for another office, that one runs on his/her own platform of what great things s/he has accomplished, rather than on negativity against the PRIOR administration?
As confusing as this is, I don’t think it is an Alaskan POV but runs throughout the country. Sad.
Cry wolf >>> Blame Begich >>> “Save city from fake wolf” >>> Improve own image >>> Destroy Begich’s credibility >>> Run against him for Senate in 2014 and win. That’s the strategy. Anchorage is incidental. AKM
If Starr and SUllivan keep crying, S&P might cut the rating due to the annoyance factor.
It’s all very simple. Mark Begich caused a world wide economic crisis, and then didn’t tell the Assembly about it so they would be surprised when investment income and tourist revenue dropped.
Why does Sullivan need it to NOT be an awesome AA bond rating? (Got plans do ya’, Danny-boy?)
OT: Is his middle name Nero and does he own a fiddle?
So, this is the guy Palin endorsed and was so-o-o looking forward to working with. They really are both prototypes of the New Republicans – ethically agnostic and dumb as a stump.
Obviously this politician doesn’t give a flying flop about Anchorage. Is there some way the council can prevent the money being spent on a redundant and frivolous audit?
I hope that the political opponets of Sullivan and Star are taking good notes. I’d sure would be if I was running against them. This whole “don’t look at me, but see what he did!” game they are playing is so completely assinine. Even though there are quite a few Anchorites who gullibly believe this ploy, when their house burns down because the fire trucks weren’t running that day, or they can’t get to work because of no bus service, or they slip and break a hip on sidewalks that aren’t shoveled, perhaps they’ll remember the next time they are at the voting booth that SP2 had the $ to do a stupid audit, but not enough to see to their immediate needs.
My new plan to be rich, rich, rich: I will copyright the “piss and moan” strategy. Think of all the politicians who will have to pay me royalties! Sullivan, Koring, Yon Dung, the list goes on and on . . . .
Whiners.
The emphasis of Starr and Sullivan is much like Limbaugh’s: they want – indeed they crave – failure on the part of anyone with a D nest to their name. It’s through their failure that they can look good and ride to the rescue. Twisted and perverted world view indeed.
This is what happens when people don’t bother to vote. Wasn’t the turnout for the special election less than 30% (which is not unusual). These idiots think they have a mandate with 20% of the eligible vote, and it happens time and time again.
Do others on the assembly have anything to say about all this?
To John, as you can tell my moniker, I am not Alaskan. So please explain to me how one man, Mark Begich, “caused a world wide economic crisis.”
Gees, John, if that’s the case, where were you warning in warning all Americans that we have had such a dangerous one-man-band in our midst?
Wow, I guess Mark Begich has been eating his world-wide-economy-destroying Wheaties since boyhood, huh?
Oh, perhaps, John, you were being sarcastic. If so, try harder to make it plainer – with Alaskan politicians, sometimes it’s as difficult to mound an effective sarcasm campaign as it is here against Kansas politicians. So many of them are so off-the-board, any remarks trying to hyperbole their actions just sounds like an apt description.
Do a Snoopy dance of Joy.
Every once in a while the good guys and sanity win.
I’d say the good tax paying citizens of Anchorage had better start a letter writing campaign to the local newspaper complaining of wasteful taxpayer dollars, why go backwards? This administration needs to just deal with what is and start moving forward, stop wasting money and time.
Go open ed letter writers!
Financial statement audits do provide some reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement, but they are not designed to catch fraud or collusion, and they are not infallible.
So, if there was some skulduggery going on, a forensic audit might find it where a financial statement audit would not.
However, AKM is right; both types of audits are expensive, and political grandstanding at taxpayer expense is unacceptable. Where is the probable cause that would lead a reasonable person to believe a forensic audit is necessary?
What stands out here is the “pissing and moaning”. When did our state produce this pack of disgusting whiners? I’ve never been so sick of whiners nor heard so many since Palin started her whining act. Now they all join in? Seems to work for her! Lemmings, all. Headed straight for the cliff.