Tony Knowles and VECO Editorial Cartoon

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Did Knowles Forget? VECO owner Bill Allen led his 1994 transition team

Tony Knowles recently proclaimed himself squeaky clean of VECO influence. I doubt that Tony really forgot but maybe a few Daily News clips can refresh his memory. When Tony was elected he appointed VECO owner Bill Allen to head up his transition team.

Bill Allen helped raise over four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000.00) for Tony to use as he saw fit and Tony gave VECO’s clients a lease on a multi billion dollar oilfield without the requirement of competitive bid.

In an article printed in the Anchorage Daily News, October 18, 1998, that made reference to me (Ray Metcalfe) for blasting Tony Knowles for giving away Alaska’s resources in exchange for oil company favors, the Daily News said the following about Tony Knowles:

* “Within weeks of his 1994 election, he traveled to the corporate headquarters of Arco, Exxon and BP in Los Angeles, Houston and London. He took with him members of his transition team, including Bill Allen, chairman of VECO Corp., the oil field service company that years later won contracts to build production modules for Arco's Alpine field and BP's Northstar. VECO publishes the Voice of the Times.”

On January 16, 1995, the Anchorage Daily News said:

* “VECO also has the ear of Gov. Tony Knowles. The company and people affiliated with it gave Knowles' campaign $8,500.00 and VECO chairman Bill Allen is a member of the Knowles transition team.”

Then there is the story of “the Governor’s Fund.” reported in the Anchorage Daily News December 23, 1995:

· “Oil companies and lawyers were the biggest spenders earlier this month at an event that poured more than $161,000 into a political fund that Gov. Tony Knowles can tap at will. …..The Governor's Fund is a Democratic Party account that was set up primarily for Knowles' use. The figures released Friday also show that, so far this year, $375,000 has been deposited into the Governor's Fund and about $105,000 has been spent…. More than three-quarters of the $160,000 donated at the event would be illegal under a proposed ballot initiative to reform Alaska's campaign finance laws. The initiative, which supporters hope to get on next fall's ballot, would bar contributions to parties from companies, political action committees and labor unions.”


The Governors Fund didn't account for what had already been contributed to Tony’s campaign. It was in addition to his campaign contributions.

Immediately following the events described above, Tony Knowles arranged to give British Petroleum a completely rewritten lease. The Lease was conveyed in a manner intended to avoid the competitive bid process and given free of charge to BP even though Governor Knowles’ own advisers told him that the lease could possibly sell for as much as $225 million if put out to competitive bid on the same revised terms Tony was giving BP for free.

When Governor Knowles proposed his dirty deed, on April 19, 1996, the Anchorage Daily News said the following:

* “Ever since the Northstar deal was announced, several legislators have questioned whether it would be wise, or even legal, to alter leases that originally were purchased 17 years ago in a competitive-bid sale. Others have complained that the agreement has too many ''weasel words,'' especially in the nonbinding local-hire provisions.”

As soon as the deal was done the following companies put additional $59,000 into the “Governor’s Fund.” October 7, 1996, BP $20,000.00 and ARCO $10,000.00. On October 17, 1996. BP, an additional $10,000.00. October 30, 1996, ARCO, an additional $4,000.00. On November 5, 1996, VECO gave $15,000.00.

In an Anchorage Daily News article published May 30, 1998: Fritz Pettyjohn, a former Republican legislator from Anchorage, was quoted as he emerged from a closed-door meeting of the Republican Party Central Committee. The Committee had elected to show a united front, rejecting a proposed withdrawal of Party support, from John Lindauer. John Lindauer was the Republican Party’s Nominee for Governor, and he had repeatedly been caught lying about his candidacy.

Placing his loyalty to party and unity over his loyalty to ethics and honor, Fritz Pettyjohn, described John Lindauer as a “pathological liar” to an Anchorage Daily News reporter. After doing so, he then said “But, hey, he's our guy” and went on to explain that in the spirit of party unity, they had decided to hang tough with Lindauer.

Parties and party leaders will face credibility problems until they choose to place loyalty to honor and ethics above their loyalty to party unity and a united front.

I invite the Democratic Party to take a hard look at the above and do with Tony Knowles what the Republicans should have done with John Lindauer in 1998.

From Ray Metcalfe

09/20/2006

Thanks for reading

Look how fast the dirty money finds a new taker in Knowles.

With Binkly and Murkowski out of the race, VECO owner Bill Allen needs a new horse to back and it appears to be Tony Knowles.

A few of Bill Allen's closest friends have switched over to back a democrat. Unfortunate for Bill Allen, and unfortunate for Tony Knowles as well, just before the FBI raid, one of Bill's closest associates sent out an invitation for a fund raiser and invited a lot of friends of Ben Stevens, Carl Marrs and Bill Allen, to a fund-raiser for Tony Knowles. See below the invitation to a fund raiser for Tony Knowles at the home of Carl Marrs.

So who is Carl Marrs?

Carl Marrs is the former president and chief executive of Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI)

CIRI is one of the companies to which the FBI went, seeking information about VECO and their inappropriate association with certain legislators. (click here to read the story)http://www.adn.com/news/government/veco/story/8149379p-8041116c.html

Carl Marrs is a business partner with Bill Allen in a company they co-own with other partners who were also served with warrants and searched.

While Carl Marrs was president of CIRI, when CIRI paid Ben Stevens $270,000 in "consulting fees."

Carl Marrs and VECO Owner Bill Allen have a well established track-record of backing the same candidates VECO backs.

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See the origional email in PDF form here

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----- Original Message -----
*From:* Joy Marrs
*Sent:* Tuesday, September 05, 2006 1:07 PM
*Subject:* Don't forget this Thursday night!


Joy Marrs, Patti McGuire, Rosie Fletcher, Jana Hayenga, Jo Michalski,
Jeanie Penney, Bonnie Swanson and Marty Weeks invite you to join them at
a fundraising reception for Alaska's future Governor and First Lady Tony
& Susan Knowles

*Thursday, September 7, 2006* from *5:30--7:30pm*

at the home of *Mr. & Mrs. Carl Marrs* 2239 Sorbus Way

(From the intersection of Benson Blvd. & New Seward go east on Benson
Blvd. Left on Maplewood. Right at the Woodside East sign on Cimarron.
Left on Shepherdia. Right on Sorbus Way.)

*Please join us in supporting a Governor who:
*~ Works for kids, families and communities.
~ Believes Alaska can and should have the best schools in the nation.
~ Will always defend a woman's right to make her own reproductive decisions.

Suggested donation: $100 - $1,000 RSVP/Questions: 907.562.2006

*If you are unable to attend, you may donate online or call 562-2006.
Maximum allowable contribution per individual is $1,000 per calendar year.*

Paid for by Knowles for Governor, P.O. Box 201663, Anchorage, Alaska
99520-1627


Knowles for Governor
PO Box 201663
Anchorage, AK 99520

Read about the raids

Click here to read the Anchorage Daily News articles about FBI raid on Ben Stevens office.

Click here to read the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner articles about FBI raid on Ben Stevens office.

Murky Waters

Murkowski at the helm of the Alaskan Ship of State.

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©2006 Bill Fikes/Republican Moderates of Alaska

Letter Ray Metcalfe sent to Frank Murkowski's Attorney General David W. Márquez

Attached is the letter Ray Metcalfe sent to Frank Murkowski's Attorney General David W. Márquez accusing him and the Murkowski administration of engaging in cover-ups, and attempting to commit this state’s most valuable resources to bargain basement sales agreements using a State Senate President who they are fully aware is accepting bribes to advocate the position of oil interests before our State Legislature.
---------------------------------


Ray Metcalfe (907) 344-4514
Post Office Box 233809 E-mail Rayinak@aol.com
Anchorage AK 99523

March 25, 2006

Attention: Attorney General David W. Márquez:
P.O. Box 110300
Juneau, AK 99811-0300
Tel: (907) 465-2133
Fax: (907) 465-2075 email: Attorney_General@law.state.ak.us

Regarding: Your Advice to APOC Staff, Ben Stevens & Bribery.


Dear Attorney General Márquez:

I recently confronted the staff at the Alaska Public Office Commission, (APOC) regarding their prolonged failure to reply to several complaints I filed concerning Ben Stevens’ refusals to comply with disclosure reporting requirements.

On inquiry, APOC staff verbally advised me that your office has ordered them not to investigate my complaint and not to provide me with any written answer explaining why they are neither answering nor investigating my complaint. Your instructions are in violation of 2 AAC 50.810 and of the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires administrative agencies to be independent decision-makers.

Following my inquiry, APOC staff also refused to provide me with an explanation of their refusal. That also is a violation of 2 AAC 50.810.

Verbally, APOC staff explained that they have been instructed by your office to invoke "Legislative Immunity" on Ben Stevens’ behalf. The only written document provided to me by APOC was a copy of a 1986 AG’s opinion that bore little relevance to the situation of Ben Stevens.

There are three additional things that are glaringly wrong with such reasoning:
1. Nearly all of the questions raised in my complaints were presented to APOC at or before the December 1, 2005 APOC meeting, well before the Legislature was in session. It was APOC who refused to respond to questions presented and pushed hearing the issues from the December 1, 2005 calendar, into a meeting scheduled for the midst of the legislative session. Once the legislative session began, the new excuse for no response became APOC’s assertion of legislative immunity on Ben Stevens’ behalf.
2. It seems highly implausible that Ben Stevens can claim legislative immunity to avoid responding to a well-documented accusation of concealing reportable financial information when Alaska’s Supreme Court has ruled that seated senators who refuse to provide a complete Legislative Financial Disclosure Statement are subject to removal from office. (See Grimm v. Wagoner, 77 P3d 423) It would not be possible to carry out the Court’s order if one could claim immunity from such an order.
3. APOC has been deceitful by leading me to believe my complaints were being dealt with in the normal course of business, while in fact, at your direction, APOC had strategized to delay consideration of my complaints to the end of Ben Stevens' term of office. Effectively, at your direction, APOC’s methods of unannounced unwritten unilateral invocation of legislative immunity on Ben Stevens behalf has denied us the opportunity to timely challenge whether legislative immunity applies and whether Ben Stevens is allowed to serve out the remainder of his term.

History of events:
1. On July 14, 2005, I tendered a complaint to APOC arguing that Ben Stevens’ required reports to APOC were incomplete. On August 19, APOC staff disagreed and advised me that if I wished to appeal, I needed to do so by September 15, 2005.
2. I began preparation of an appeal but failed to complete it in time to meet the September 15 deadline. On November 17, 2005, I tendered what I had prepared as a second complaint, elaborating why I believed Ben Stevens’ report was incomplete.
3. On delivery, APOC staff verbally advised me that my second complaint had been received too late for consideration at the December 2005 meeting of the Commissioners and would be scheduled for a hearing then being planned for around the end of February 2006. Also at that time, contrary to APOC’s prior written advise, APOC staff verbally advised me that my first complaint was still ripe for appeal.
4. Responding to this new advice, I appealed the first complaint, adding additional reasoning explaining why I believed Ben Stevens’ report to APOC was incomplete. Most of the additional information added to the appeal was gleaned from what I had delivered to APOC as the second complaint, which APOC was refusing to hear at the December 1, 2005 meeting.
5. At the December 1, 2005 meeting, although staff provided the Commissioners with copies of my points of appeal, the only argument staff had prepared responses to and/or raised for discussion at the December 1, 2005 meeting was an argument contained in my first complaint before the points of appeal were added. (Staff’s failure to respond was a violation of 2 AAC 50.810.)
6. On two occasions, I confronted APOC staff about their non-response to my points of appeal, and each time I received a different verbal answer. First; Not to worry, most of the questions raised in my points of appeal were also contained in my second complaint and it would be heard at the next quarterly meeting. Second; Copies of my points of appeal were delivered to the Commissioners in the packet APOC staff provided to them. Therefore, according to APOC staff, the Commissioners had chosen not to respond, and by choosing not to respond, the Commission had in effect, dismissed all of my points of appeal. (It was staff who omitted my points of appeal from the agenda.)
7. On or about February 17, 2006, as the date for the next quarterly meeting drew near, (Scheduled for February 28 through March 1 of 2006), I stopped in at APOC’s Anchorage office to inquire why staff had not responded to my complaint filed November 17, 2005 or my complaint filed December 12, 2005, as required by 2 AAC 50.810. I also asked what the schedule was for the Commission to hear my complaints. That was when APOC staff advised me that they had taken the position that they were barred by legislative immunity from disturbing Ben Stevens with a request to respond to my complaints. Using that reasoning, they claimed they could not respond to my complaints and therefore they had neither opened an investigation nor scheduled a hearing or prepared a response to my complaints. APOC staff then made it clear that they were following orders from your office, and they had no intention of processing my complaints until after the conclusion of the 2006 legislative session.
Copies of my complaints were also delivered to the Anchorage offices of the Alaska AG, the DA's office, and the Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, (OSPA).

In addition to those portions of the aforementioned complaints asserting that Ben Stevens had knowingly and willingly violated Alaska’s reporting requirements, the complaints delivered to the AG, the DA and OSPA also asserted, and provided corroborating evidence, that Ben Stevens had solicited and accepted bribes that were paid in exchange for doing the bidding of Alaska’s oil industry under the direction of Alaska’s largest oilfield service company, VECO. Also delivered was more than one source of sworn testimony providing evidence that Ben Stevens is actively engaged in laundering federal money into his own pocket through the fishing industry.

The corroborating information I delivered included names, phone numbers, affidavits and letters from a variety of people, some of whom have quietly intimated to me a willingness to provide your office with testimony corroborating Ben Stevens’ involvement in subjects of money laundering, plans for delivery of clandestine “off the books” payments, and bribery.

Four months have gone by, and not one of the people who have offered to provide information to your investigators has received so much as a phone call from a single state investigator. This leads me to suspect you have provided Alaska’s law enforcement officials with the same kind of “hands-off” instructions that APOC staff says you delivered to them.

All the above brings me to the primary point of this letter and reasoning for its urgency. At this time, you and the Governor are attempting to bind future Legislatures to a tax rate that, according to the consultants that just finished advising the legislature, is about half the rate of the world average rate of taxation on oil.

You and the Governor are attempting, by way of a legislatively approved contract, to bar future Legislatures from curing this deficiency should it happen, and you are relying on a Senate President, who appears to be accepting bribes from Alaska’s oil industry, to shepherd favors to oil companies through the Legislature.

AS: 24.60.100 states: A legislator or legislative employee may not represent another person for compensation before an agency, committee, or other entity of the legislative branch and AS: 11.56.110 defines it as receiving a bribe if he does. Ben Stevens has been paid over a quarter million dollars by VECO, and the only apparent “consulting” Ben Stevens appears to have done has been his advocacy of legislation for VECO, favoring oil company interests.

You appear to have exempted Ben Stevens from the rule of law and Ben’s exemption could lead to the Legislature’s consummation of a transaction that involves the forfeiture of tens of billions of dollars and if passed, and could easily affect Alaska for the remainder of this century.

I will not stand quietly by while you and the Governor abandon the rule of law, engage in cover-ups, and attempt to commit this state’s most valuable resources to bargain basement sales agreements using a State Senate President who appears to be accepting bribes to advocate the position of oil interests before our State Legislature.

Ben Stevens re-demonstrated his allegiance to VECO as recently as March 24, 2006, in the Senate Resources Committee, as he attempted to lower the already ridiculously low proposed tax rate from a proposed 25% to 20 %. (A proposed gift to Ben’s oil company clients of over a billion dollars per year.)

I believe the above scenario warrants either the appointment of a special prosecutor now, or the expedited consideration of the Courts. I believe that Ben Stevens has been bribed to invade the Permanent Fund dividend program, with the hope it will relieve political pressure for Alaskans to get their fair share from Alaska’s oil revenues. I believe he has been bribed to send Alaska’s gas through Canada rather than the “All Alaska Gas Line” we Alaskans voted for. And I believe he has been bribed to lower Alaska’s taxes on oil whenever and wherever he is able, for his clients.

For these reasons, in the absence of a satisfactory explanation from you, I am preparing to sue you and APOC, to ask for Ben Stevens’ removal from the Senate and a preliminary injunction to halt Ben Stevens’ hand in the process until the question of his bribery has been answered.

Please contact me if you have any questions.


Sincerely


Ray Metcalfe

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Attorney General David W. Márquez response to Ray Metcalfe's letter accusing him and the Murkowski administration of engaging in cover-ups, and attempting to commit this state’s most valuable resources to bargain basement sales agreements using a State Senate President who they are fully aware is accepting bribes to advocate the position of oil interests before our State Legislature.

Click here to download the PDF file (File Size 1.8 meg)

Corruption is killing the Alaska Dream

Corruption is killing the Alaska Dream and it’s soon going to take your dividend, and possibly your job, if you don’t pay attention.

Twenty-five years ago, State Senator George Hohman’s fellow Senators expelled him from the Alaska Senate and an Alaska Judge sentenced him to three years because someone said he said supporting a certain legislative proposal might be good for a thousand dollar “campaign contribution.”

Today, State Senator Ben Stevens doesn’t need “campaign contributions.” He’s collected nearly two million dollars in “consulting fees” from people hoping to benefit from his legislation. Today, prosecutors ho-hum such indiscretions to death while our ethically bankrupt Senate Leadership rewards Ben’s behavior with the Presidency of the Alaska State Senate.

Nearly a quarter-million of Ben's payments came from VECO, in exchange for services Ben fails to define in his “Conflict of Interest Report” beyond “Consulting fees.”

If you find all this hard to believe, direct your browser to http://www.repmod.info/ and click on “Conflict of Interest Documentation.” View the facts and decide!

In 1999, VECO supported a $350,000 campaign seeking voter permission to redirect Permanent Fund Dividends to capital projects. The vote was 83% “NO.”

Since the 1999 vote, VECO has paid $400,000 to six lobbyists and $243,000 to Ben Stevens, seeking ways to fund government from Permanent Fund earnings to thereby reduce public pressure for the Legislature to demand world market value for Alaska’s oil.

VECO’s interest in raiding the Fund stems from their wish to sustain an endlessly increasing series of taxbreaks, (taxbreaks commonly referred to as ELF), that the oil companies lobbied through many years ago. While oil company profits soar, ELF has cut Alaska’s tax on oil in half.

ELF’s taxbreaks increase automatically every year. If not reversed, ELF’s increases will soon cut our severance tax on North-Slope oil to one-fourth of the original pre-pipeline agreement. If labor leaders continue to ignore this issue, everything from patching potholes to competitive salaries for teachers and troopers will become impossible without taking away dividends and slapping the public with a very big tax. Giving away Alaska’s oil is not a winning formula for successful bargaining.

When Stevens was sworn into the State Senate, he signed an oath, (a contract with Alaska) promising to uphold Alaska’s Constitution. Alaska’s Constitution requires him to seek the highest possible payment for Alaska’s resources. Stevens then contracted his advice and loyalty to a company seeking to extract Alaska’s resources for as little as possible.

Shortly thereafter, Stevens introduced a Bill attempting to redirect $337 million from the Permanent Fund Earnings Account, into capitol projects.

The Permanent Fund Earnings Account has for 25 years been Alaska’s piggybank for dividends.

Stevens argued that the cost would just be a few dollars per person, but do the math. Divide $337 million between 650 thousand Alaskans. You’ll come up with $518 for every man, woman, and child in Alaska; and you can be sure they will extract more next year.

Contracting to advocate the position of two clients on matters of each client's mutually shared but conflicting interest is generally considered fraudulent and corrupt. Due to the opposing objectives of such contracts, it is not possible for a single consultant to loyally advocate victory for both sides. “By necessity of law,” one of any two such contracts was irrefutably signed in bad faith.

Stevens’ failure to define what he actually does for his “consulting fees” violates Alaska’s Conflict of Interest Disclosure Law (Sec 24.60.200) which requires Legislators to provide the public with details sufficient to tell the reader what work was performed in exchange for payment received.

Alaska Criminal Law (Sec. 11.56.110) reads: “A public servant commits the crime of receiving a bribe if the public servant solicits a benefit with the intent that the public servant's vote, opinion, judgment, action, decision, or exercise of discretion as a public servant will be influenced.” Receiving a bribe is a felony.

If enough Alaskan's do nothing while Ben Stevens does VECO’s bidding and raids the Permanent Fund, corruption will flourish, and Alaska's Dividend distribution program will soon be history.


Ray Metcalfe


Chairman of the Republican Moderate Party,
The Only Party Founded in Ethics Instead of Issues.

AlaskaReport.com has uncovered more information about the FBI raids August 31st.

AlaskaReport.com has uncovered more information about the FBI raids August 31st.

http://www.alaskareport.com/news11020.htm
9/01/06
Juneau, Alaska

By Dennis Zaki

1) Sources in Anchorage report that there were many Forensic Accountants on the team raiding Anchorage offices yesterday. Readers may be interested to note that Stephen Taufen of Groundswell worked for a seafood supplier on their case against two factory trawlers involving federal bankruptcies, and advised the FBI and Norwegian government in January of 1997 about the impending bankruptcies of others should shoreside pollock allocations increase.
Ben Stevens

2) Another background source confirms that National Marine Fisheries special agents are on the search teams, and that it is obvious with IRS involvement regarding Ben Stevens' "consulting income" (and what it was for) will surely spill over into the payments he received from Yard Arm Knot, Highland Light, the At-Sea Processors Association, North Pacific Crab Assn. (all major crab processors), Glacier Fish Company and others who were paying Ben along with Adak Fisheries, for consulting.

3) A deep-throat source alleged that for months a staffer in one of the offices raided has been providing information to federal authorities. This may explain why documents were taken off the back of a picture on the wall.

4) The searches are said to be continuing Friday 9/1 and the searches may branch beyond Alaska, most likely to Seattle, for financial documents confirming payments to Ben Stevens for fisheries matters.

5) Bill Allen, owner of VECO, and his firm, were involved in a renovation of Ted Stevens' chalet in Girdwood in the recent past.

6) Expect the IRS to do complete audits of all sources of funds to the legislators involved, and this week's action to be the entryway for the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS to investigate monies held in offshore locations. One example is Adak Seafoods' Nowegian subsidiary KARLO, which may be a profit laundering operation for cod sales through to Brazil. In earlier court action involving Adak, mention was made of another operation in Portugal.

When Alaska's leaders break the law

ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS refused to print this article which was printed in the Fairbanks and Juneau paper.

When Alaska's leaders break the law
Ray Metcalfe
Fairbanks News-Miner
Friday, November 04, 2005 - What do you do when your government breaks the law?
Communist Russia had a great constitution that didn't work because Russians couldn't ask their courts to enforce it.

When Alaska's Legislature passes unconstitutional laws, Alaskans can ask a judge to declare them unconstitutional and throw them out. The process is called "public interest litigation."
Alaska's courts recognize that few people will risk going to court without personal economic interests. Without people willing to challenge government, simply for the purpose of enforcing our constitution, we would have very few checks and balances. Consequently, Alaska's courts protect people who bring such complaints in two ways:
First, when public litigants bear the burden of proving the state's errors, Alaska's courts recognize them as a public servants and require the state to refund 100 percent of their costs.
Second, Alaska's courts recognize that public litigants are usually underfinanced private citizens battling against a battery of well-funded state attorneys. If the state were allowed to shackle them with the state's legal fees following a loss, all public litigants would eventually be bankrupted and silenced. Consequently, unless the court concludes that a public litigants complaint was frivolous, the courts protect them from having to pay the state's legal fees even when they lose.

In 2003, Gov. Frank Murkowski asked state Sen. Ben Stevens to pass legislation designed to do away with those annoying lawsuits that have occasionally forced them to obey Alaska's constitution.

The Republican Moderate Party, which is no relation to the Alaska Republican Party, challenged the constitutionality of the attempt to dispose of public litigation, and we won in Alaska Superior Court.

With public litigation protections back, we were willing to risk challenging the closed primary law. We won, and the closed primary is now history.
We are now in court seeking disclosure of the "Wood Mackenzie Report." That's the report for which the Legislature paid $50,000 to find out how Alaska's oil company profits compare with the rest of the world's.

To the surprise of the legislators who ordered the report, it did not support the cries of VECO--the Anchorage-based oil field services company--for more oil-tax cuts. Now your VECO-sponsored Legislature is doing everything it can to keep you from seeing the report.
Gov. Murkowski has appealed the Superior Court's overturning of his attempt to do away with public litigation. His appeal will be heard before the Alaska Supreme Court at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, on the fifth floor of the old 4th and K courthouse in Anchorage. Your attendance would be appreciated.

If our victory is upheld, we will soon be in court suing the Division of Elections over its decision to toss our petition to recall Ben Stevens, and we'll sue the Alaska Public Offices Commission for its decision to toss our complaint regarding Ben Stevens' refusal to explain what he did to earn $2 million in consulting fees.

Previously, we sued Gov. Tony Knowles when he rewrote the lease of one of Alaska's largest oil fields, reducing the state's royalty to a fraction of what a previous oil company had offered to pay. Tony then gave that rewritten lease to his biggest contributor without competitive bid or payment to the state.

Our one volunteer attorney was overwhelmed by 32 well-paid state and BP attorneys. We lost on a technicality. Had we not been protected by the rules of public litigation, our litigating would have ended and none of the above issues would have ever been litigated.

Tom Irwin, Alaska's former commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, was right in recently questioning the legality of Murkowski's plan to give away Alaska's gas.

Now that Ben Stevens' plan to divvy up Alaska's fish between himself and a few friends has been exposed, it should come as no surprise to you that Frank Murkowski has similar plans rolled up in his plan to send Alaska's gas through Canada. It won't happen without a legal challenge from us.

And if Sen. Ralph Seekins ever gets the Legislature to approve his plan to put people in jail for accusing him of ethics violations, I promise to erect a giant billboard accusing him of ethics violations the very next day!

Ray Metcalfe is chairman of the Republican Moderate Party.
Web address http://repmod.info/
Email Rayinak@aol.com

When did APOC go over to the dark side?

When Alaska Public Offices Commissioner, said the law wasn’t clear enough to hold Ben Stevens accountable for channeling money from his father to his fishing company, APOC became the Ben Stevens defense team.

I read Ray Metcalfe’s charges and his supporting evidence. APOC’s $150 slap on the wrist was more than inappropriate, I believe the Republican appointed majority may be shielding the corruption of their favorite father and son team.

Sheila and her fellow Republican appointees know that the rules they are supposed to enforce were designed to prevent exactly this kind of wrongdoing by public officials.

For the rest of us who set on the sidelines and do nothing, if Ben were to tell us that a falling star had landed in his pocket once, although hard to swallow, he would deserve the benefit of a doubt. But when APOC pretends not to see, as Ben Stevens shrugs his shoulders with a “who new attitude” and over and over again, stuffs his daddy’s earmarked appropriations into his pocket, we have the classic case of the audience afraid to speak what they all know.

Neither APOC nor the King have any clothes.

Authored with assistance of Ray Metcalfe, submitted to the ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS by Al Sundquist December of 2005, and the ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS refused to print it.

What is a crime?

It is a crime for legislators to receive gifts in excess of $250, (See AS: 24.60.080), and it’s a crime for legislators to represent individuals before the legislature in exchange for pay. (See AS: 24.60.100.)

It has become commonplace, but not legal, for legislators to accept “consulting fees” under what I believe to be, far more often than not, a false pretence that they supplied an unrelated legitimate consulting service.

While it is legal for lobbyists to represent individuals before the legislature for pay, when legislators do so, it is called “bribery.” (See AS: 11.56.110.)

The real breakdown in the system comes when those who’s duty it is to prosecute the powerful have more fear of losing their jobs for trying, than they have losing their self-respect if they don’t.

Ray Metcalfe