The Michigan Militia - coming to a hospital near you!

No one else applied to be on the Central Peninsula Hospital advisory board, so Norm Olson, the former commander of the Michigan Militia, was appointed to fill the open slot this past Monday. This is the same guy who claimed that the FBI and the Japanese government were behind the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and then later tried to organize militias in the south to storm the hospital in Florida where Terri Shiavo was a patient. Ms Shiavo was the comatose woman who attracted national attention when her husband wanted to remove her from life support. Olson’s plans were thwarted when he contacted Shiavo’s father about this plan, but rather than acquiescing to the insanity of Olson, the father contacted the FBI instead.

And he wants to be on a hospital advisory board?!?

Mr. Olson, a contributor to white supremacy groups, has some of the most extreme anti-government views around, so it’s strange that he is now getting involved in area politics – but according to a statement he made when he moved to the Kenai a couple of years ago, one of his goals is to overturn ‘silly laws’.

Hal Smalley, the Kenai representative on the borough assembly, is looking into the appointment. More on this appointment as information becomes available.

Carey Prevails – For Now

By one vote, the borough assembly failed to override Mayor Carey’s veto of the ordinance that would have given borough middle-level management an appeals process when they felt they were fired for unfair reasons. Mili Martin and Gary Knopp originally had supported this ordinance, but decided not to overturn the veto. Ms. Martin did have strong words for Mayor Dave and warned him to address concerns of his mistreatment of long-term borough employees before the August assembly meeting or she would re-introduce the ordinance. Apparently there are 9 disgruntled former employees.

Earlier in the meeting, several members of ACT pleaded with the assembly to prevent the ordinance to move to a borough manager system from being presented to the voters. Before they were against this, ACT was a big proponent of a borough manager system. Members of ACT seemed completely oblivious to their flip-flops, but any borough resident with some memory cells intact can recall other times when ACT was for something before the were against it - like taking issues directly to the voters.

Several ACT members also spoke against establishing a recreational area service board, in this case to look into a new multi-sport complex, and asked that their districts be exempt if that district voted against the establishment of one. Ms Martin pointed out that that several assembly members, who were overwhelmingly re-elected by their districts and whose districts voted against term limits, were bound by the term limit ordinance passed by the ACT initiative.

ACT wants rules to be arbitrary – let the voters decide, unless it is about something that ACT doesn’t like, change the rules, unless ACT changes its mind, and that ordinances should be applied borough-wide, unless the ordinance is something that ACT doesn’t like.

And this group makes Mayor Dave dance. They show up in force at assembly meetings. They visit the mayor in his office. They rant on Sound-Off. They write to the PC.

Souldotna has no issues with fiscal conservatives - who can be in favor of waste? But ACT is being played by Mayor Dave as much as they are gaming the mayor and residents of the peninsula. Dave postures and pretends to cut the budget and becomes ACT's champion. ACT then protects the mayor as he practices cronyism - putting his political friends in borough positions that some are unqualified to fill. Dave then increases his own staff's budget and not one member of ACT cries foul.

Kudos to assembly members Long, Sprague, Superman, Smith and Smalley for understanding that having integrity means to be consistantly fair and honest.

The Showdown: Carey vs the Borough Assembly

Has the weather been great or what? Who wants to blog when it's 70+ and sunny? But just because SOL has been out in the Sol, it doesn't mean that there isn't a lot going on around town.

Mayor Carey vetoed Ordinance 2009-23 which had provided an appeals process to upper management positions in the borough, claiming the law would take away his right " to have loyal, able and competent staff."

Yeah, an able and competent staff is his right - it's not like he would appoint a used car salesman to run the spruce bark beetle mitigation program or anything of the sort, right?

And maybe not so coincidentally, the PC ran a story about Bonnie Golden, the Grant's Manager that Dave fired for no apparent reason. Mr Fiscal Conservative now proposes to hire someone for that position for $10K more than what Bonnie was being paid.

And speaking of looking out for the taxpayer's dollars, Mr Carey submitted a $60K increase to the budget for his personal staff. When questioned about this increase by Hal Smalley, Carey conveniently couldn't recall any details.