the (ex) mayor of wasilla

really didn't do that much AND she hired a deputy administrator to FURTHER limit her personal involvement. huh?

do we REALLY want a person running this country whose ONLY experience is building an ice rink (one that went over budget and had some legal type problems at that)?

hell NO we don't.

and think about this. if the democrats had chosen a sarah palin (and sometimes the democrats have made VERY bad decisions indeed but never quite as bad as sarEVIL palin), what would the wingnuts be saying? you KNOW what they'd be saying. they would be saying everything i am saying times a MILLION

why won't any of them grow a set and speak up? why won't they say sarevil palin is a DISASTEROUS CHOICE?

As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood

By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer
WASILLA, Alaska -- On Sept. 24, 2001, Mayor Sarah Palin and the City Council held their first meeting after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The council condemned the attacks and approved a $5,000 gift to a disaster relief fund. Palin said she would try to obtain materials from both attack sites to include in the town's "Honor Garden." And then the council and mayor returned to their normal business: approving funds to upgrade the public well, issuing a restaurant permit and taking up a measure forbidding residents from operating bed-and-breakfasts in their homes. After a lively debate, the bed-and-breakfast measure lost, 4 to 1............

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Firefighting and schools, two of the main elements of local governance, are handled by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the regional government for a huge swath of central Alaska. The state has jurisdiction over social services and environmental regulations such as stormwater management for building projects.

With so many government services in the state subsidized by oil revenue, and with no need to provide for local schools, Wasilla has also made do with a very low property tax rate -- cut altogether by Palin's successor -- sparing it from the tax battles that localities elsewhere must deal with. Instead, the city collects a 2 percent sales tax, the bulk of which is paid by people who live outside town and shop at its big-box stores.

The mayor oversees a police department created three years before Palin took office; the public works department; the parks and recreation department; a planning office; a library; and a small history museum. Council meetings are in the low-ceilinged basement of the town hall, a former school, and often the only residents who show up to testify are two gadflies. When Palin was mayor, the population was just 5,500.

Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected............