The Mudflats

[Don't forget to tune in to The Shannyn Moore Show today HERE from 11am-2pm Alaska time. I'll be Shannyn's guest for the weekly "Thursdays in the Mud" segment from 1pm-2pm. Today's special guest is Anchorage Assembly Chair Patrick Flynn! Wonder what we'll be talking about?]

Well, one thing you can say about “Sullygate” is that it’s a big fat mess. And I hesitate to even call it “Sullygate,” because I remember back when I called the mysterious and fishy firing of Sarah Palin’s Commissioner of Public Safety “Palingate.” Then, of course, there were so many gates, they all needed their own name and the firing of Monegan became known as “Troopergate.” So, on the hunch that we may be seeing more “gates” in the future from our not-so illustrious mayor Dan Sullivan, we might need to think of another name. But, until we come up with one,  ‘Sullygate’ will do. Lord knows we all feel “sullied.”

When we last left Mayor Dan Sullivan and the Anchorage Assembly, confusion reigned. The only one who seemed to have a clear head about things was Assembly Member Harriet Drummond. While everyone else was scratching their heads, and looking at the ceiling, and walking around in circles, Drummond said, “Hold on a minute.”

And then she said this: (my interpretation)

So, Mayor Dan. Your father who used to be the mayor died. And now you’re the mayor. And you keep telling us that we have no money and that the city is hurting, and you’re cutting all kinds of things like the fire department and the library among other things. And now, you’re telling the Assembly that back in the 1980s, the Assembly decided that your father was so swell that he deserved a life insurance policy from the Municipality for the rest of his life, even though no other Municipal employee gets this perk.

And then, in 2002, when the insurance company said they wouldn’t insure him any more because he wasn’t actually a municipal employee, and when age and pre-existing conditions made him ineligible for insurance from an insurance company, the city decided to pretend to be one. And you have been paying a premium between $500-1000 a YEAR for this coverage for a total of about $20,000. And now the payout that’s coming to you after your father died is $193,000.

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(Intermission) – We’re taking a little “irony break” to appreciate how Mayor Dan Sullivan has criticized conress’ attempts at health care reform, and yet is happy to take money from the government to cover health issues that disqualified his father from private sector coverage.  We also appreciate the “entitlement” of George Sullivan to get this big payout that is not an option for other former municipal employees.  Just sayin’.

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And then, you tried to slip past the public that this payout from city coffers was about to happen. And you told the Anchorage Daily News that you didn’t even know about this. And then when evidence was uncovered that you did know about it, you said you thought the reporter meant something else.

And then you wouldn’t tell us that you were the trustee when we voted at the Assembly. And now you admit you’re the trustee but you still won’t tell us who’s getting the money.  And you don’t think there’s any reason to investigate this.  And you tell us that there’s a contractual agreement, but you cannot or will not show us the contract, if there IS even a contract.  And we can’t stop the process to figure out what the heck is going on, because you’ve already disbursed the money to people you refuse to identify,  and you won’t give it back?

And then Dan Sullivan said this: (my interpretation)

Neener, neener neener!

And then he gave us this: (my interpretation)

Now, back to Harriet Drummond. She’s asked for something OTHER than the little present above. She’d like someone independent of the current administration to take a look at things and let us know what they find out.

Harriet Drummond, who was the lone Assembly vote against appropriating the money, has introduced a resolution calling for an independent counsel to investigate its legality.

Assembly Chairman Pat Flynn, meanwhile, asked the city attorney’s office to put together a report providing more details on how it all happened. [snip]

Drummond said her resolution should come up at the Assembly’s March 23 meeting. It asks the mayor to return the money to the city “until the Assembly is assured by independent legal counsel that payment of $193,000 in public funds is legally appropriate.”

Dan Sullivan said Tuesday that it wouldn’t be possible for him as trustee to give the money back. “The funds have been disbursed. … it would be violating my fiduciary responsibility to disburse it in any other means other than what is outlined in the trust.”

Sullivan will not list the beneficiaries of the trust, saying that it’s not public information.

For more details on this evolving story, read the latest at the Anchorage Daily News HERE.

And for a very detailed summary and analysis, nobody has taken it farther or done better than Mel Green HERE.

Thanks to Sean Cockerham and Mel Green for diving in. Gifts of virtual soap and Brill-O pads are on the way from the Mudflats.

So, we know at this point that Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan just can’t bring himself to fully fund the Anchorage Fire Department. $150,000 is just too darn much money to spend on saving people that fall through the ice, or get lost in the back country, or stuck in the mud, or whatever horrible thing the HazMat team might have to save you from.

So, where SHOULD we be spending our money? Shannyn Moore asks the question.

What the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks?

So, the mayor “respectfully submitted” the purchase of two Zamboni machines, but doesn’t think the “fall through the ice” rescue team should be funded during the winter months? I wonder if his friendship with Assemblyman Dan Coffey has anything to do with it. Coffey is one of the owners of the Alaskan Aces hockey team.

Hey, Anchorage, with the Zambonies we can make ice, just be careful you don’t fall through any if you’re outdoors having a “Big Wild Life.”

What have we learned?

1) There is actually a Mr. Zamboni and his first name is Frank. Who knew?
2) These Zambonies have a tight turning radius which is really impressive.
3) We got these Zambonies at a screamin’ deal because they usually cost more than $77,000 a piece.
4) My city is spending the same amount of money it’s cutting from vital city rescue services that save people’s lives, on having nice shiny indoor ice.
5) My head hurts after I bang it on the desk.

~Mayor Dan Sullivan

So, back in 1982 there lived a recently former mayor in a city in Alaska.  His name was George Sullivan and the city was Anchorage.  And as the mayor of a city, he had a life insurance policy.

And those at the time liked George Sullivan so much that they thought they’d insure him forever… that this life insurance policy would go on until the end of his life.

Fast forward 20 years.

(swooooosh)

Now fix your hair.

…in 2002, Deputy Employee Relations director Karen Moore was baffled when Dan Sullivan, who was on the Assembly at the time, came to the city to make that year’s premium payment, according to e-mails from the time. She asked the city’s insurance carrier about a policy for Sullivan. The company didn’t know about it either. The premiums paid by Sullivan and his family had been deposited into a city account, not given to Aetna.

Top officials in the administration of George Wuerch, who was mayor in 2002, spent months trying to figure out the history of the deal and what to do about it, according to the e-mails, released to the Daily News this week.

The city’s life insurance carrier, Aetna, told the city in 2002 that it had no policy on Sullivan and wouldn’t cover him anyway because its agreement was only for active city employees, according to the e-mails. Aetna made clear it wasn’t liable for Sullivan, who was 78 years old by that time. The insurance company’s legal department recommended the city just return the premiums to the Sullivan family.

Dan Sullivan must have been bummed, seeing as how it looked like the big payday might not happen.  The mayor at the time, conservative one-term wonder George Wuerch listened to the recommendations from the insurance company’s legal department who said to simply pay back the premium to the family and call it a day.  Then he listened to the city’s finance director who also said to simply pay back the premium to the family and call it a day.  Then Wuerch decided that the city just simply had no option but to provide the coverage anyway. And the city attorney at the time decided that Anchorage would become an insurance company, and then Assemblyman Dan Sullivan must have smiled and he continued making the payments knowing that some day the city would have to cough up the money.

So Assemblyman Dan Sullivan continued to pay $556 every year to the city.  An actual policy with an insurance company would have run  more than $11,000 per year in premiums back in 1982, according to the city’s benefits manager at the time.

Fast forward to last week’s Assembly meeting.

George Sullivan is no longer with us, and it’s time for the Municipality of Anchorage to pay up in the amount of $193,000 to the trustee.  Who is the trustee?   And who gets to sign the check that distributes that big wad of cash to members of the Sullivan family?  Why, look!  It’s Dan Sullivan again.  You remember him… the Assemblyman who was in the middle of the whole situation in 2002.  Well now, he’s the Mayor.

Asked last week about the trust, Sullivan said “it was kind of news to me until a year or so ago when I realized that I was named as trustee for the life insurance trust and that there were payments that needed to be made on an annual basis.”

Well, that’s strange.  Mayor Dan Sullivan is, in fact, the same person as former Assemblyman Dan Sullivan who brought the annual payment to the city that set off the alarm bells that resulted in the city becoming an insurance company.  He didn’t realize he’d been making payments all those years?  How very very convenient odd.

When this little contradiction was pointed out to the Mayor, the furious backpedaling began.

Sullivan said what he meant was that he hadn’t realized that “somewhere along the line it changed from being an insurance product to a contract.”

OK, let’s review this for a moment.

What he said before he realized the ADN knew he made the payment:

“it was kind of news to me until a year or so ago when I realized that I was named as trustee for the life insurance trust and that there were payments that needed to be made on an annual basis.“

What he “meant” after he found out the ADN knew he made the payment:

he hadn’t realized that “somewhere along the line it changed from being an insurance product to a contract.”

Ahh…  Now we get it.  I bet Mayor Dan has a bridge to nowhere he’d like to sell us too.

“But,” you ask, (because you’ve been paying attention)  “isn’t this the same Mayor Dan Sullivan who just cut $150,000 from the Fire Department, and has reduced bus service and police, and library hours, and the arts? And isn’t that the same Dan Sullivan who is spending tens of thousands to help sue the government over beluga whales, and $50,000 more to do a “forensic audit” of city finances to make sure the previous Mayor wasn’t playing fast and loose with our money?”  Yes, it is.  And no, the irony of that last point isn’t lost on me.

Oh, and yes.  It’s the same Mayor who took $12,000 to pay himself for being the “Mayor elect” before he took office, even though we had someone else who was already the Mayor.

And now, it looks like Mayor/Trustee Dan Sullivan will get to sign a check from the city to himself and his family for $193,000 that will come from the city’s general fund.

Hooray for fiscal conservatism and Dan Sullivan, the Mayor/Trustee Hybrid of the City/Insurance Company Hybrid Anchorage, Alaska.

The lone voice of reason from the Assembly on this one was Harriet Drummond.

“If there were enough (Assembly members) who realized this was stupidity and voted no, then Anchorage’s taxpayers would still have $200,000 in the bank,” Drummond said later. “And the Sullivan estate could have gotten the $20,000 in premiums back. Maybe that was the appropriate thing to do. But it was certainly not appropriate for the city to be acting as an insurance company, which it is not.”

Kudos to Drummond for some common sense skepticism, and to Sean Cockerham from the ADN for some great digging on this issue.

Mayor Dan Sullivan promised to end the unpopular ‘rolling closures’ that shuttered fire stations in Anchorage on alternating days last year. Now that cost-saving measure has been replaced with another one that will trim $150,000 from the Fire Department’s budget. These are tough times, you know. Or so the Mayor says.

Even though the city fund balances are all peachy keen now after their disastrous levels in 2008, the Mayor’s red pen feels the need to keep cutting. This time it is the special rescue teams. Why? Some say it is because overtime has amounted to far more than they’d calculated. Why? Because there aren’t enough personnel to cover the required positions, especially when people call in sick, die, retire or go on leave. Why? Because the Mayor hasn’t authorized the Fire Academy to begin training new recruits. That would cost money and remember, he was elected to not spend our money.

The timing on this should be just about right. Conservative takes over administration. Conservative breaks stuff and under-funds services. Conservative is voted out. Progressive inherits a big fat mess to clean up. Conservative says “See? Government sucks, and it doesn’t work, and it’s a big mess. And no I’m not going to help you clean up my mess because you’re doing it wrong!” Conservative sits in corner pouting and whining and stomping its feet. We’ve seen it play out on the local, statewide and national level over and over.

How many other US cities have to worry about rescuing people from icy waters, snatching tourists and reckless kids from sticky mudflats, find injured hikers, or deal with avalanche victims? Fresno? Not so much. But in Anchorage, where our city slogan is “Big Wild Life” we actually use these services and rely on them to save our lives, and the lives of those who come to visit our state. We rely on them when we’re out in the back country, or when we just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – like on the Seward Highway during an avalanche. The Fire Department special teams who provide these services are trained and equipped – ready to go 24/7. Yes, team personnel receive extra pay. Yet the Mayor had the chance to cut even more than his targeted $150,000, by accepting the union’s offer to reduce some of that extra pay. Why didn’t he accept?

More important, why isn’t the city asking for reimbursement from the Troopers for each wilderness rescue? After all, they are the ones who have to give the OK before the AFD can respond, every time a call comes in. Without reimbursement, we will end up with duplication of effort and slower service. If the Troopers agree to do wilderness rescues in Chugach State Park, the AFD will still need a rescue team to handle calls like bear maulings in Far North Bicentennial Park.

Here are a couple interesting internal memos that sum it up pretty well.

AFD memo Special Operations & Rescue Responses 17 Feb 2010

AFD memo Special Operations Reductions(b) 17 Feb 2010

AFD special team reductions guidelines Feb 2010

I’ll translate for those who don’t want to dive in. This is what we’re telling the people who are trained, ready and able to do the hard work of saving people’s lives summed up in a 10-point plan.

1) We’re not going to pay you extra to be trained to do all this really important stuff, or to participate in the team that does all this really important stuff, BUT…

2) You will be expected to do it anyway if to the Troopers tell you to. So make sure you’re prepared. We’re not training any more people, and only trained people can use all the equipment. Should we reinstate the teams you will be able to re- apply, if you keep up your certification, which we won’t be paying for.

3) The Swift Water team will be off line until breakup.

4) The Dive Team will be a skeleton crew only, but there is no actual watercraft available for use in Cook Inlet.

5) The Wilderness Rescue Team is off line indefinitely.

6) We’re also cutting people from the HazMat, High Angle, and Urban Search and Rescue teams, like the structural engineers that nobody really needs anyway, right?

7) The Duty Officer will make the decision about whether to answer someone’s rescue call. And remember, there is no seaworthy craft available for Cook Inlet rescues so they will have all be done from the shore by using ‘rope throw bags.” So, you may want to make sure you’re working those deltoids and biceps, which will allow further distances when heaving rope.

8.  We will continue to provide ‘non-technical’ operations with the rope throw bags that you can use to rescue people. It’ll be really useful to save those on the ice as long as our implements can reach that far from the shore. We’ll even have some motorized equipment if you have an emergency that is conveniently located on a city trail or park, but NOT in the wilderness. We’ve got that motorized equipment stored right near by, close to the backcountry areas where we most often use it. But we’ve decided to move it all somewhere else farther away.

9) When 9-1-1 calls are received from inconvenient wilderness locations outside the Anchorage Fire Service Area, the dispatcher will first call the Alaska State Troopers to ask if they want us to respond, like we’ve been doing all along. Since they don’t really have the ability to respond, and they’re usually pretty busy, they always say, ‘Yes.’ Then, the request will be forwarded to the Duty Officer to decide whether to respond or not.

10) Thanks for your understanding about all this. We’re just really sure that nothing bad will happen, and we’ll continue to do just fine as long as something bad doesn’t happen, which it probably won’t. And think of all the money we’ve saved, and how people will begin to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to make our city a better place.

I’m imagining a letter coming from Mayor Sullivan. You can imagine it with me. It goes something like this:

Dear Anchorage Resident or Tourist,

Do not take a boat out into Cook Inlet farther than you think someone can throw a rope with a bag on the end of it.

If you insist on having a heart attack while enjoying our beautiful state, please do so only on designated and maintained trails within the Anchorage Fire Service Area.

If you do enjoy the back country, make sure to avoid all bears, moose, bodies of water, inclement weather, avalanches, giardia, dehydration, disorientation, general illness, firearms, poison berries, tripping, sharp implements like wood saws and Swiss Army knives, hypothermia, conking yourself on the head, and other activities of a similar nature. If you do encounter an emergency situation, just let someone know and they will contact the troopers and they will tell someone to contact the fire department’s DO and they will decide whether to respond to you.

If this takes too long, we hope your last thoughts as you lie there looking at the sky, or the snow, are gratitude for living in a free society where we all take personal responsibility for our actions, and don’t rely on the government to bail us out if we do something dumb like getting mauled by a bear or buried by an avalanche. And think how much money we’ve saved! And if you do manage to survive somehow, Mayor Sullivan would appreciate your vote next time.

Don’t forget to enjoy Anchorage’s Big Wild Life!

Warmest Wishes for your continued health and happiness,
The City of Anchorage, brought to you by Mayor Dan Sullivan

Maybe it’s time for safety minded Alaskans to start enjoying the Big Wild Life from the couch.