Gov. Sean Parnell on Friday announced 89 appointments to more than two dozen state boards and commissions, including two appointees to the powerful State Assessment Review Board.
Parnell, a Republican, on Nov. 4 lost his bid for re-election to Bill Walker, an independent who will be sworn into office Monday.
Parnell's office announced the appointments Friday afternoon. Nine require legislative confirmation, including the appointments to the State Assessment Review Board, and some -- but not all -- of the appointees can be removed by the incoming governor at his discretion, according to Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman for Parnell.
Many of the appointments were to lower-profile posts, such as those to the Boating Safety Advisory Board and the Emerging Energy Technology Fund Advisory Committee.
But several of the appointments were to more influential positions. Parnell renamed two people, for example, to the board of directors of the Alaska Railroad Corp., and another person to the state medical board, which controls the licensing and discipline of doctors, physician assistants and paramedics.
Then there were the two appointments to the State Assessment Review Board, James Strandberg and Bill Roberts. The positions are unpaid, but members receive expenses; they do not serve for a fixed term.
The board hears appeals from local governments and oil companies over the valuation of crude oil transport properties, including the trans-Alaska pipeline, which are initially set by the state Department of Revenue.
The board's decisions can have significant ramifications for the state and several boroughs and cities that together collect tens of millions of dollars in annual property tax revenues from the pipeline's owners.
The two vacancies on that board are long-standing, according to an archived state website. A previous Parnell appointee, a former oil industry analyst from California, withdrew his name from consideration in March amid a controversy over his residency and criticism that he was too industry-friendly.
In a series of text messages, Leighow said Parnell's director of boards and commissions had been working on the appointments since September and added that all the appointments filled vacancies or positions with terms that expired Dec. 1.
About half the appointments were made Nov. 12, and the rest were made Tuesday, Leighow said.
Asked why Parnell had waited to fill the vacancies on the State Assessment Review Board until November, Leighow responded that one of the appointees had been interviewed several months ago. She added that typically, appointees are approved in batches.
Roberts, one of the two appointees to the State Assessment Review Board, is the assessor for the Kodiak Island Borough. The other appointee, Strandberg, is the manager of mechanical engineering for the Anchorage-based company Electric Power Systems and formerly was a commissioner on the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
Marty McGee, a former Anchorage city assessor whom Parnell kicked off the State Assessment Review Board, called Roberts a "good pick," adding that he has "a good background in appraisal and in assessment."
"I don't think he's particularly pro- or anti-industry," McGee said. He added that Strandberg's regulatory and engineering experience would also be helpful.
Asked if Walker wanted to respond to the appointments, a spokeswoman, Grace Jang, said Walker has "a tremendous amount of respect for the office, and he is also cognizant of the fact that Alaska has one governor at a time."
Jang added, referring to Parnell: "He's got the power of appointments until noon on Dec. 1."
In 2006, outgoing Gov. Frank Murkowski made 35 appointments in the hour before he left office -- which included naming his former chief of staff, Jim Clark, to an unpaid post on a board charged with planning a state-owned and operated natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez.
According to news accounts at the time, Clark resigned from his chief of staff job at 10 a.m. so Murkowski could appoint him an hour later to a seat on the board reserved for the general public. Murkowski also appointed his son-in-law to the Alaska Railroad board.
In her first week in office, Gov. Sarah Pali?n, Murkowski's replacement, removed Clark and another last-minute Murkowski appointee from their positions on the gas pipeline board and replaced them with her own picks.