Well, THIS is a good way to start your career as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in addition to being Mayor Hatchetwoman through your personal vendettas:
Cut your work down.
And, that was cutting down what was already a below-average mayoral workload.
That’s because, compared to mayors of similar-sized small towns around the country, Sarah Palin didn’t have much legal authority:
The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education.
Firefighting and schools, two of the main elements of local governance, are handled by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the regional government for a huge swath of central Alaska. The state has jurisdiction over social services and environmental regulations such as stormwater management for building projects.
So, about all she oversaw was the library and the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, she canned, the police department and the police chief, Irl Stambaugh, she canned, and fixing potholes in streets. Did she can the public works director, too? (Don’t forget, she DID fire the museum director, too, after being elected.)
Answer is yes on that last rhetorical question, too. Her new public works director who lacked engineering experience but was married to a top aide to a former Republican governor.
Oh, speaking of Stambaugh, do the fundies know this?
She clashed with Stambaugh soon after she said elected over his push for moving bar closing time from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m.
So, Palin likes drunks!
There’s also a planning office, but from descriptions of the city’s layout, I’m not even sure Wasilla has zoning regs. And, in a town like that, city officials usually rubber-stamp big-box builders’ applications.
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