Mayor Dan Sullivan called it an "odd coincidence" that he wound up as both mayor of Anchorage and trustee for his father's estate, a role which required him to claim a unique life insurance settlement of $193,000 from the city of Anchorage.

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Dan Sullivan

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The mayor should have been able to recognize a textbook conflict of interest, which this was. He should have fully informed the Assembly about the situation. He should have handed off his trustee duties to someone else and generally stayed an arm's length from the whole business. It appears there was no legal requirement that he do those things, but he should have had the good judgment to do them anyway.

Dan Sullivan had nothing to do with the decision to provide a life insurance policy for his father, the late George Sullivan, who served Anchorage as mayor from 1967 to 1981. That decision was apparently made in 1982 by the Commission on Salaries and Emoluments at the request of the Anchorage Assembly. The commission proposed that George Sullivan receive a $193,000 life insurance policy as a private citizen for the same rate he enjoyed as a city employee. Because the city couldn't get insurance coverage for Sullivan, taxpayers took on the liability.

No one has found any other deal like it in the city's history.

As trustee for the beneficiaries, Mayor Sullivan asked the city to make the payout, and his administration advocated that the city approve it. Mayor Sullivan has not disclosed the names of the beneficiaries, but presumably they are family members, including himself.

The mayor had an ethical obligation to disclose the conflict of interest. The Assembly shouldn't have had to ask who the trustee and beneficiaries were. When one Assembly member, Harriet Drummond, did ask, she couldn't get an answer.

In defending his actions, the mayor stresses his fiduciary responsibility as trustee to seek payment. What about his fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of Anchorage? That comes first.

Mayor Sullivan didn't seek these circumstances, but he should have been able to deal with them in a straightforward and ethical way.

After heated public reaction, the administration says it has no problem with an independent legal review. Late, but good. We'll wait for the outcome of that review before we pass judgment on the propriety of the insurance payout.

But this much is clear now: Where there's a conflict of interest, the mayor has to make clear that he serves the citizens of Anchorage first and foremost. In this case, he did not.

BOTTOM LINE: The mayor's conflict of interest was clear.

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