Stevens won't apologize (7/16/2004)

The Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau has been working hard to combat the stereotype of the Valley as an unmannerly or less sophisticated place.

And so, when a leader of the state Senate dismissed one of his critics as "just more Valley trash," it stung, said Bonnie Quill, executive director of the 300-member bureau.

"It's just really sad when people from Anchorage make comments like that about the Valley when we are having this wonderful growth and have so many opportunities out here," Quill said. "It's outdated."

Sen. Ben Stevens, R-Anchorage, made the remark in an e-mail exchange with a Wasilla woman. He said he never intended it to become public. But it has, and the list of hard feelings keeps growing. Rep. Vic Kohring, R-Wasilla, is asking for an apology from Stevens, who is his party's majority leader in the Senate.

Even former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin's 13-year-old daughter voiced her offense: "My mother always told me if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

But Stevens says he's incensed too that a private communication in which he defended himself against a personal attack was shared with the news media. He says it's been blown out of proportion.

"The unfortunate thing is people are misinterpreting it. And distorting it," Stevens said by phone Wednesday. "I didn't have any comment to anybody in the Valley except for that woman who called me a whore."

That was D.L. Mooney of Wasilla. Her brief, fragmented e-mail made reference to Stevens' consulting contract with Veco, a politically influential oil field service and construction company. According to financial disclosure reports that legislators must file with the state, Stevens last year earned more than $300,000 from consulting contracts, including $47,500 from Veco.

It also evoked Palmer Republican Sen. Scott Ogan, who resigned his consulting job with a coal bed methane company last year amid criticism that he had put the company's interests ahead of his constituents'.

"Consultant fees ... remember Ogan ... conflict of interest ... you're just another whore," the unsigned e-mail said.

Stevens, reading the message from his state office last Thursday, issued a terse response: "Afraid to sign your name? Your just more valley trash."

The conversation became public after Mooney forwarded it to a reporter. The Daily News published a brief account Sunday. Since then, it's popped up on a flurry of television and radio news reports.

Kohring, running for re-election in November, told a Channel 2 reporter Tuesday that he found the comment offensive and said Stevens should apologize.

"We've got a lot of good, conservative people out here, churchgoing types, decent, hard-working folks, blue-collar," Kohring said by phone Wednesday. "Really good folks that I think command a lot more respect than they seem to be given by folks across the Inlet, if you know what I mean."

The five-term legislator said he's handled his share of critical, insulting, even threatening communications.

"You want to lash out, but you have to be thick-skinned in this business and bite your tongue," he said.

Palin echoed that advice.

During her tenure as mayor, Palin said, a woman informed her that she had been spotted having an affair on a train to Seward. Another asked whether she was resigning over word that one of her two daughters -- then ages 2 and 5 -- had been busted for smoking pot.

"Those doggone anonymous attacks," Palin said. "As tempting as they are to respond to, it doesn't do a whole lot of good."

Current Wasilla Mayor Dianne Keller said Stevens' comment didn't bother her, though she thinks he should be more clear about his intent when describing Mat-Su residents. She does not know Stevens but figures "he probably had a bad day, got that at the wrong time and he just responded without thinking."

Stevens serves with Sen. Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, in the state Senate. She did not return calls about his remark Wednesday.

Several times in the course of an interview, Stevens repeated his contention that he was addressing one person and not the residents of the Valley. He explained his choice of words this way: "Someone who calls another person that, I know nothing about her, I call 'em trash."

The Valley connection arose because the message mentioned Ogan and came from an MTA e-mail account, Stevens said.

He does not regret his response, he said.

"Whether I'm a publicly elected official or whether I'm the guy that works down the street at Napa Auto Parts, anybody that gets an e-mail that calls them a whore has the right to defend themselves," he said.