By- Suzie-Q @ 8:45 PM MST
Palin Had Wasilla Pay $24,000 For Her SUV, Nothing For Rape Kits
Daily Kos- by existenz
Tue Sep 16, 2008 at 03:06:45 PM PDT
If you were a small town mayor, what would be your priority: a new SUV for yourself, or justice for women who have been raped? If your name is Sarah Palin, the answer is shocking.
Buried within last weekend’s explosive NY Times story on Sarah Palin was a much-overlooked tidbit:
Ms. Palin ordered city employees not to talk to the press. And she used city money to buy a white Suburban for the mayor’s use — employees sarcastically called it the mayor-mobile.
The MSRP for a 1997 Chevy Suburban was about $24,000. For a town with only 6,000 residents, that’s a LOT of money. And that’s not including insurance, registration, maintenance and gas money.
And as DemocraticLuntz pointed out to me yesterday, that $24,000 could have covered the costs of up to 80 RAPE KITS.
Apparently the “mayor-mobile” was a priority for Sarah Palin. Rape victims were not.
- existenz’s diary :: ::
I’ve heard of big city mayors driving city-owned vehicles (though some, like Buffalo NY, are cutting back), but in a very small town like Wasilla this is a ridiculous abuse of taxpayer money. And it is even more shocking when you learn that Wasilla decided that they didn’t have enough funds to cover the costs of rape investigations.
Remember this story:
May 23, 2000
ANCHORAGE – Gov. Tony Knowles recently signed legislation protecting victims of sexual assault from being billed for tests to collect evidence of the crime, but one local police chief said the new law will further burden taxpayers….
While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.
Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.
Chief Fannon was hired by Sarah Palin in 1996, after she fired the previous police chief Irl Stambaugh. Here is some background on Stambaugh, and the two issues that led Palin to fire him:
In 1994, Wasilla nominated Stambaugh to be Alaska’s Municipal Employee of the Year. He started with nothing, but, within a year, assembled a trained staff of eight officers who would record 206 drunken-driving arrests.
In the summer of 1996, Stambaugh encouraged Wasilla and the Mat-Su Borough, the regional governing body, to pass ordinances requiring bars and liquor stores to close earlier than 5 a.m., the latest hour allowed by state law. Because bars in Anchorage closed earlier, some people drove to Wasilla to keep drinking, endangering themselves and others, Stambaugh argued. He wanted Wasilla’s bars to close at 2:30 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends.
The idea’s supporters talked of reducing roadway fatalities. Opponents talked of an encroachment on their individual freedom. The borough’s leadership rejected the proposal, and afterward so did the Wasilla City Council, by a 3-2 vote. Palin was in the majority.
This same year, Stambaugh opposed a state legislative proposal to lift some restrictions on Alaska’s concealed-weapons law. Among other things, it would allow concealed weapons in banks and even bars. Stambaugh called the idea “ridiculous.” “Bars, guns and booze don’t mix under any circumstances,” he would later say.
The proposal passed the legislature, but Stambaugh and others asked Alaska’s governor, Tony Knowles, to veto it. The governor did — to the dismay of the bill’s proponents, which included the NRA.
Once Palin was elected mayor, she fired Stambaugh for perceived “disloyalty” despite all evidence to the contrary. His real crime was to go against the NRA and the local bar owners.
The new police chief, Charlie Fannon, quickly began cutting funds for the rape kits:
Charles Fannon, his replacement, halved the budget request in 1997-1998, with a request of $7,298, spending $3,454. However, it seems he began the “victim pays” policy in the 1998-1999 fiscal year. That year, he requested $3,000 but spent only $205.
When the state legislature overturned Wasilla’s offensive policy, Palin’s hand-picked police chief bemoaned how much it would cost:
“In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.
Bottom line: Sarah Palin believed that her $24,000 SUV was a wise use of taxpayer money. But when the women in Wasilla were raped, the city was just too hard up for cash to pay for their rape examinations.
She should have sold the SUV on eBay and used the money to cover this cost.
Suzie-Que's Truth and Justice Blog 