Begich, budgets and blame: Everybody eats it...

November 21, 2009: There is a great response in politics for when someone asks you for an opinion on a contentious issue: Some of my friends agree, some of my friends disagree and I agree with my friends.

Thursday, the Wheeler Report was released and like every other report issued in the history of report issuing...some people agreed and some people disagreed.

Anchorage Municipal Attorney Dan Wheeler released his report on the quantity and quality of information that former Mayor Mark Begich gave the Anchorage Assembly about the city's revenues and financial outlook last fall as the Assembly was being asked by Begich to adopt long term and lucrative labor contracts. 

Less than a month after the assembly approved those contracts, it was revealed that the city was facing a $17 million dollar deficit.

Wheeler's report found that Begich knew revenues for last year and this year were not going to match approved spending levels, and that the former mayor failed to report that adequately to the Assembly.

Some assembly members agree stating the contracts were rushed and they were misled with regards to the city's financial position while others disagree.

Begich has strongly defended himself saying he gave the assembly all of the information he had at the time and it was their responsibility to analyze the data and proceed accordingly.

In addition, assembly member Matt Claman, who took over for Begich as acting mayor also defended the former mayor.

The Assembly "was very much aware that the potential for financial problems was there," Claman said, as the city's year-end financial decisions were made at a time of national and global economic calamity he told the Anchorage Daily News.

So the blame game begins...and it should end now. It's time to cut through the rhetoric, the ever present fog in the form of accusations about politically motivated attacks and look at this from a purely management standpoint.

First, the assembly has the power of appropriation. Without a majority vote of assembly members, a mayor's proposal be it labor contracts or going to the moon, can't be passed into law.

Second, the labor contracts were all approved by a majority of the same six assembly members. (Matt Claman, Elvi Gray-Jackson, Mike Gutierez, Sheila Selkregg, Pat Flynn and Harriet Drummond)

Third, regardless of whether those six members who voted yes had enough information it is really inconsequential.

Either way they should all be fired by voters.

If those six members didn't have enough information, therefore didn't see that by adding tens of millions in labor costs onto a city budget that was already under water, they failed in their fiduciary duty to taxpayers and should be fired.

If those six members did have enough information as Claman (who was the Assembly Chair at the time) has stated, then they obviously ignored the very clear warning signs that the financial wheels of the city were about to come off, thus failing in their fiduciary duty to taxpayers and should be fired.

Either way these six members want to argue, they knew or they didn't know, at the end of the day it was their vote that created the problem by making a very poor choice.

In addition, they ignored financial warnings from every corner of the universe that were as audible as a three alarm fire bell in the assembly chambers.  

Prior to the vote, talk show hosts, taxpayers and editorial writers were screaming for the assembly members not to commit the city to such long term financial obligations at a time when the nation's economy was in free fall.

On December 1, 2008 I wrote a blog titled "Five Year Labor Contracts: Screwing Local Taxpayers" that highlighted the deteriorating global economy.  

Think about this; how many of you just five months ago thought the stock market would drop from 12,000 to 8,000, the price of oil would drop from $144 per barrel to $45 per barrel and your IRA would turn into an IOU?

The next Mayor of Anchorage is going to have to navigate a more troubling economic environment than the previous Mayor has enjoyed the last six years. Mayor Begich shouldn't leave his legacy in the shape of poorly thought out and politically opportunistic labor contracts.  andrewhalcro.com 12-1-08 

The Anchorage Daily News also wrote a strongly worded editorial before the December vote on the labor agreements, warning against approval of those contracts, calling into question the timing and the city's ability to afford them.

So even if former Mayor Mark Begich didn't fully portray the sad state of affairs that Anchorage's finances were in, the six majority members of the Anchorage Assembly have no excuses as to why they ignored obvious warning signs.  

Unfortunately Claman, Drummond, Flynn, Gutierez, Gray-Jackson and Selkregg ignored the loud and clear voices of concern. 

Maybe it was because they all have strong union connections through donations and felt the need to repay their campaign supporters. Or maybe they were just plain clueless and didn't grasp the severity of the city's financial situation.

Either way they want to argue, they knew enough (arrogance) or they didn't know enough (ignorance), they should all be fired by voters.