Howard Weaver, the author, who's life it is about, won the pulitzer prize at the age of 25 for his coverage of organized crime in our teamsters union 959. Pretty gutsy guy. First pulitzer in the state and youngest one ever. He later became editor of the Anchorage Daily news and a famous editor for Maclatchy News services. I'll bet you will see a lot of yourself in his ideals. He would not stand for injustice.
It brings back a lot of memories for me, as I know a lot of the guys he talks about. We were sort of living parallel lives. While he sought out organized crime, I had it thrust on me. We had received from the feds a $500,000 pipeline impact grant. Our governor, who sat on the Temsters pension board after retirement (?), put a thug on my payroll in Anchorage (without telling me) who was going to try and steal that money which was supposed to go to native communitties along the pipeline corridor.
I couldn't allow that, but how was I going to deal with it. I reported directly to the commissioner, he wasn't going to confront the governor. I had a statutory advisory committee who made recommendations to the commissioner on community grants. Several million a year in grants to 25 or so communities. They supported me.
So I actually was in a position where I had to submit a grant to the advisory committee from my office and so they received two grants, one from my office, which directed the money to go to the native communities and one from this thug. Of course I prevailed, but then had to resign. One cannot challenge the governor and then keep their job. |
