Yesterday afternoon my daughter ran in the house with the flyer pictured above. A couple of guys were going around the neighborhood sticking these smears of Alaska At-Large Congressional Candidate Ethan Berkowitz in the front door of each house.
The flyer claims that Ethan Berkowitz accepted donations from Bill Allen of VECO (you know him...of Ted Stevens fame?) and had a copy of an Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) document to show it. However the section on that document containing the date was conveniently cut off during the copying process...as if an amateur had done it. When I searched the APOC site, I found one donation in May of 2000...during Ethan's primary for his house seat. That's the ONLY donation he ever got from Bill Allen, who also donated to Con Bunde, Loren Leman, Kevin Meyer and many more during the primary and tons more folks during the General Election. Anyone who has lived here long enough knows that Allen generally donated to many folks in both parties
Remember, I said the year was 2000...before much of the corruption with Veco had been perpetrated and before it had come to light even within the Legislative community.
There were many almost-laughable problems with the flyer. However, the bottom of the flyer claimed that it was paid for by "Alaskans for Clean Elections." That was their biggest mistake as the driving force behind it, Michelle Meyers was going to be FURIOUS that someone was claiming that she paid for anything like this! (I would never want her mad at me...she's tenacious!)
So I called her and what a surprise! She was already in my neighborhood looking for the culprit and threatening legal action!
I gave her the information my daughter and the kids in the neighborhood had recounted...that there were two guys walking around putting these flyers on each door. I also offered my help, which she accepted, so I jumped in my truck and started searching the neighborhood. I love playing 007!
As it turned out, Michelle found one of the "flyer guys". After she explained to him that she would call the police because the flyers were slanderous, the man said that he was given the flyers to put on the doors in our neighborhood...by Joe Law, owner of "Nenana Creative Arts," a printer in town.
I found that information extremely interesting.
You see, several weeks ago, I called APOC to report that Uwe Kalenka (the complete wing-nut running against my girl, Alaska House Rep Berta Gardner) had no mention on his reports of the signage I'd seen around the neighborhood either as expenditures or donations. I was furious that, during my phone call, APOC put me on hold and CALLED UWE TO GIVE HIM THE OPPORTUNITY TO CORRECT THE PROBLEM! The point of my call was to verify that my information was correct before I filed a complaint, you see. I was flummoxed when the APOC employee told me that Uwe promised to get the information from his printer and post it ASAP...and that they would call me when it was done! They called me back on that Monday to let me know he had updated his information and that it was supposed to have been posted in September! I was too angryat the time to care much who the printer was but I remembered...it was Nenana Creative Arts.
I left messages yesterday and today for Joe Law, but he has not returned them. I have questions. He's a professional printer; was it just a careless mistake leaving the date of the donation off of the flyer? Was "Joe the Printer" the ultimate "decider" on doing a smear AND lying about who funded it, or was someone else (say...someone actually running for office in that neighborhood) the originator?
I'd sure like to know, wouldn't you?