Tom Toms … Former Anchorage Rep. Tom Anderson hasn’t let a little federal indictment rain on his parade. Last month earwigs reported him singing the BeeGee’s “Emotion” during an in-law related birthday party at Snow City Cafe. Now Ear is told that “Tom from Juneau,” who called into the Jim Bohannon national talk show on the 11th for a chat with guest Tom DeLay, was none other than Anderson. (Ear actually checked that DeLay was on the show that day but is relying on an extremely inside source re ID of the caller.)
So what did our indicted Tom want to talk to the other indicted Tom about? Whether DeLay thought the federal government was abusing its investigatory powers and criminalizing politics.
Alas. Ear missed the exchange but is ready to go out on a limb and bet the Toms agreed on that.
Up and Out … Anchorage Press editor Robert Meyerowitz has accepted a job as editor of New Times in Broward-Palm Beach. He’ll be leaving in early May, and he’ll be missed. The new job is impressive - New Times has popular alternative weeklies around the country and not long ago took over the venerable Village Voice.
Make and offer … Sen. Kim Elton reports that, during an Exxon rep’s testimony to the House Resources Committee on Sarah’s plan for negotiating a natural gas pipeline, Chairman Carl Gatto, R-Palmer, told the guy, with a straight face, that the state has a jet we could maybe offer as a deal sweetener.
CSI investigated … Ear has really been enjoying the jokes going around about UAA inviting that “world famous” forensic pathologist to speak on campus Thursday, only to discover at the last minute that the guy is under indictment in Pennsylvania for, among other things, trading in body parts. (He says it’s all political.)
One law enforcement type kidded about filing a complaint with the regents about UAA’s lack of due diligence in checking the guy out but decided against it. Said he figured the regents wouldn’t be all that bothered given that one of them is also under federal indictment.
And so it went.
Spend 'til they buy it … Did we all know KABATA - the Knik Bridge outfit - is hiring a public relations company to change the way the media writes about the project? The three-year contract will cost between a quarter and a half million dollars (that’s our money of course), according to a great story in last week’s Alaska Budget Review.
Ear is shocked, just shocked, to discover that “Despite general public support for the project in the Mat-Su and Anchorage, the project has garnered negative national attention as an example of poor public spending policy.” So says the April 10 RFP from KABATA.
Can you say bridge to nowhere? Death of earmarks? Profligate porkers?
Yes, the bridge project has a few problems, the authority admits. But KABATA has “remedies for many of the issues; however, the local media has not conveyed the knowledge for informed opinion making.”
The PR firm hired will “encourage local media and editors to write accurate, fair and positive stories about the project.” Hmmm. Accurate, fair, positive. In the case, aren’t those mutually exclusive adjectives?
Where is he now? … Last week Ear wondered what former Mayor Tom Phinque was doing these days. And of course, an earwig knew. Check out www.tsp.gov and follow prompts to board members. Tom is one of five members of the national Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which administers $213 billion in assets. It’s sort of like a 401(k) for federal employees that’s, like, six times the size of the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Wonder if they’ve invested any of it in Anchorage real estate.
Ooops … The earwig who reported seeing former Gov. Frank Murkowski back in Alaska was apparently doing drugs or something. As of this past week, according to a family member, he and Nancy had finished their big cruise, but were still Outside enjoying themselves.
Alaskans Outside … The voice on Camille Conte’s KUDO talk show the day after the Virginia Tech shootings should have been familiar to Alaska Baseball League fans. It was Ken Garland, longtime voice of the Anchorage Bucs, who now teaches broadcasting at V-Tech. He talked about how the campus was dealing on “The Cutting Edge with CC.”
What is time? … Ear can’t help but suspect some deep Zen meaning, incomprehensible to a mere lobe: The calendar put out by the Alaska Wild Cheerleaders has no April 12th and two April 29ths. Wasn’t the 12th their debut game?
An earwig bought one at a recent game of our new arena football team. The team seems a mite dysfunctional in news stories, but their Web site is fun. It has a clock ticking down the milliseconds until the next game. www.goakwild.com.
On the move … Larry Persily, head of the editorial section for Your Favorite Good Morning Newspaper, is leaving to become the state’s oil and gas man in John Katz’s Washington, D.C., office. Larry has been a newspaper owner, a reporter, a columnist and a deputy commissioner of revenue; but he’s still searching for colleagues who don’t make fun of his ties and saddle shoes.
• American Red Cross of Alaska CEO Joe Mathis has resigned effective May 1, the organization announced Friday. He’s had the job for three years. No word about where he’s going or who will replace him.
- Compiled by Sheila Toomey
