Other than Gustav, it's not even a serious news day, and yet here's
*another* Sarah Palin story:

Palin for ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ before she was against it
By Tom Kizzia / McClatchy Newspapers | Sunday, August 31, 2008 |
http://www.bostonherald.com | 2008 Campaign News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - When John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded
budget-cutter was front and center.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin
told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan’s Gravina Island
bridge in Alaska.

But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform,
telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called
them "nowhere." They’re still feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over
Palin’s subsequent decision to use the bridge funds for other projects -
and over the timing of her announcement, which they say came in a
pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines.

"I think that’s when the campaign for national office began," said
Ketchikan mayor Bob Weinstein on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Weinstein noted, the state is continuing to build a road on
Gravina Island to an empty beach where the bridge would have gone -
because federal money for the access road, unlike the bridge money,
would have otherwise been returned to the federal government.

It’s a more complicated picture than the one drawn by McCain, a
persistent critic of special-interest spending and congressional
earmarks. He described Palin as "someone who’s stopped government from
wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need."

McCain also claimed to have found, in Palin, "someone with an
outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and
entrenched bureaucracies" and "someone who has fought against corruption
and the failed policies of the past" and "someone who has reached across
the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats and independents to serve in
government." On those scores, Palin can fairly claim credit, according
to Alaska political leaders and others who have followed her career here.

She did fight corruption as a whistleblower, even before an FBI
investigation burst into public view. She also stood up to "party
bosses," as McCain claimed, running against Republican incumbents as an
outsider - though she has yet to unseat her nemesis, Randy Ruedrich, as
state party chairman.

Palin told the crowd she had signed a major ethics law - an
appropriately modest claim, because although she pushed for the ethics
changes, the main impetus had come from state legislators, especially
minority Democrats.

The trickiest defense of Palin in the national spotlight involves her
reputation as a budget-cutting fiscal conservative.

Part of that reputation comes from her political rhetoric, beginning
with her years as mayor of Wasilla. But while Palin made controversial
cuts at the local museum in Wasilla and battled library expansion, she
oversaw a fast-growing town with a fast-growing budget to match.

As with much of Palin’s sun-kissed career, her timing was ideal: she was
able to cut property taxes by three-fourths because sales tax revenues
from the city’s new big-box stores were soaring. She even pushed for a
sales tax increase to build a pet project, a new sports complex for ice
hockey.

Similarly, as governor, she has presided over a state flooded with new
oil revenues, brought by high oil prices and a new tax regime she pushed
over industry objections. She vetoed $268 million in state capital
projects this year, but her cuts came out of an unusually swollen
capital budget.

"It would be hard not to appear conservative with the huge budget
approved by the majority," said state Rep. Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, the
House minority leader.

Palin and the Legislature both were criticized by some conservatives for
not making more effort to slow growth in the state’s operating budget.

At the same time, Palin deserves credit for trying to impose some
objective criteria on the capital budget, which is essentially a huge
exercise in earmarking by individual legislators, said state Sen. Fred
Dyson, R-Eagle River.

"I thought she showed some guts in doing that and really irritated some
folks," said Dyson, adding that he disagreed with some of her decisions.

But it is the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere in Ketchikan that seems
destined to make or break Palin’s national reputation as a cost-cutting
conservative.

The bridge was intended to provide access to Ketchikan’s airport on
lightly populated Gravina Island, opening up new territory for expansion
at the same time. Alaska’s congressional delegation endured withering
criticism for earmarking $223 million for Ketchikan and a similar amount
for a crossing of Knik Arm at Anchorage.

Congress eventually removed the earmark language but the money still
went to Alaska, leaving it up to the administration of then-Gov. Frank
Murkowski to decide whether to go ahead with the bridges or spend the
money on something else.

In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial
campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town’s prosperity.

She said she could feel the town’s pain at being derided as a "nowhere"
by prominent politicians, noting that her home town, Wasilla, had
recently been insulted by the state Senate president, Ben Stevens.

"OK, you’ve got valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere,"
Palin said, according to an account in the Ketchikan Daily News. "I
think we’re going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project."

One year later, Ketchikan’s Republican leaders said they were blindsided
by Palin’s decision to pull the plug.

Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Saturday that as projected costs
for the Ketchikan bridge rose to nearly $400 million, administration
officials were telling Ketchikan that the project looked less likely.
Local leaders shouldn’t have been surprised when Palin announced she was
turning to less-costly alternatives, Leighow said. Indeed, Leighow
produced a report quoting Palin, late in the governor’s race, indicating
she would also consider alternatives to a bridge.

Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin in 2006, told the Associated Press
Saturday that Palin changed her views after she was elected to make a
national splash.

Mayor Weinstein said many residents remain irked by Palin’s failure to
come to Ketchikan since that time to defend her decision - despite
promises that she would.

Weinstein may be especially sore - he helped run the local campaign of
Palin’s 2006 Democratic rival, Tony Knowles. But comments this week from
area Republicans show bitterness there, too.

Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican who represents Ketchikan in the state
senate, told the Ketchikan Daily News he was proud to see Palin picked
for the vice-president’s role, but disheartened by her reference to the
bridge.

"In the role of governor, she should be pursuing a transportation policy
that benefits the state of Alaska, (rather than) pandering to the
southern 48," he said.

Businessman Mike Elerding, who helped run Palin’s local campaign for
governor, told the paper he would have a hard time voting for the McCain
ticket because of Palin’s subsequent neglect of Ketchikan and her
flip-flop on the "Ralph Bartholomew Veterans Memorial Bridge."

Palin’s 2007 press release announcing her change of course came just a
month after McCain himself slammed the Ketchikan bridge for taking money
that could have been used to shore up dangerous bridges like one that
collapsed in Minnesota.

Leighow said she had no record of what time she sent out the press
release, but does not recall being told to send it out early for East
Coast media.

Once Palin spiked the bridge project, the money wasn’t available to
Minnesota or other states, however. Congress, chastened by criticism of
the Alaska funding, had removed the earmark but allowed the state to
keep the money and direct it to other transportation projects.

Enhanced ferry access to Gravina Island is one option under
consideration, the state said.

Meanwhile, work is under way on a three-mile road on the Gravina Island
road, originally meant to connect the airport and the new bridge. State
officials said last year they were going ahead with the $25 million road
because the money would otherwise have to be returned to the federal
government.

Leighow said the road project was already underway last year when Palin
stopped the bridge, and she noted that it would provide benefits of
opening up new territory for development - one of the original arguments
made for the bridge spending.
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/nat...icleid=1116208

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