He did it again

By Dan Fagan
Publisher
The Alaska Standard

Despite strong efforts by the Anchorage Daily News to whitewash it, more and more evidence is surfacing proving former Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich was more than willing to violate city code to keep up his big spending ways.

The current city attorney, Dennis Wheeler, found conclusively Begich violated city code by not reveling the truth about city finances when pushing for his expensive long term union contracts.

Now Wheeler has determined Begich violated city code once again by spending money he was not authorized to spend.

Anchorage city code requires the set aside of money for any contracts the city obligates itself to. Under Begich, the city obligated itself to pay $1.6 million for a software contract. But about half way through the contract Begich decided to spend a considerable portion of the money the Anchorage Assembly appropriated for the software contract on something else. Building permits had fallen off and instead of living within our means, Begich took money from a fund he should not have so he could continue his big government, big spending ways.

City attorney Dennis Wheeler says Begich violated code by failing to keep enough money on hand, and designated, to pay for the entire contract as the city closed out the 2008 budget year and moved into the 2009 budget.

Once again Begich wanted to make the city’s finances look better than they actually were. He wanted to mask the fact that he was spending money we did not have. Why wouldn’t he? He was trying to an additional $200,000,000 to the budget by pushing for union contracts he knew we couldn’t afford. Begich was also trying to get elected to the U.S. Senate on a record of fiscal responsibility.

Of course Mr. Begich is anything but fiscally responsible. He has been a willing and able foot soldier in President Barack Obama’s plan to bankrupt our country though unprecedented federal spending.
The Anchorage Assembly recently corrected Mr. Begich’s code violation by appropriating money to take care of the debt owed to the software contact company.

Assembly member Debbie Ossiander is upset over this latest Begich scandal.

"My understanding is that you're not allowed to unencumbered funds that the Assembly has approved," she said.

Ossiander will appear on my show today to talk about the controversy.

You certainly won’t get the true story on this from the Anchorage Daily News. The paper white washed the story in an article titled “Payment for software contract stirs up some controversy.” The subheading read, “CODE: Money owed shifted from one year to another led to query.

How about this for a more accurate headline?

Begich violated city code once again. Taxpayers left with the bill.