Palin Accepted $25,000 in Gifts

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-09-2008
Palin Accepted $25,000 in Gifts
2
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 7:54pm

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda, has accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows.

The 41 gifts Palin accepted during her 20 months as governor include honorific tributes, expensive artwork and free travel for a family member. They also include more than $2,500 in personal items from Calista, a large Alaska native corporation with a variety of pending state regulatory and budgetary issues, and a gold-nugget pin valued at $1,200 from the city of Nome, which lobbies on municipal, local and capital budget matters, documents show

more at link.............


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092503988.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-09-2008
Sun, 09-28-2008 - 8:02pm

Here's more...


VP candidate Palin received zoning aid, gifts as mayor


WASILLA, Alaska — Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows.


When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception — and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.


She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.


She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.


More at link.............


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6027926.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 3:34am
Uh-oh, John McCain said that Sarah learned that earmarks are evil. lol And that she is a reformer since becoming an earmark convert. Bet she won't give those gifts back either, like that road to nowhere money. lol.