Palin gone fishing. Next: Kotzebue?

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: July 6, 2009 - 12:32 pm

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From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

Good luck getting a detailed list of where Gov. Sarah Palin is going to be this week, and when she’s going to be there.

But for today, at least, Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said she has gone fishing in Bristol Bay.

About this time yesterday, Palin tweeted that: “As has been the case for decades, family is commercial fishing in Bristol Bay-I look forward to joining the work crew for 1 day picking fish.”

Palin also wrote over the weekend that she planned to head to “West AK villages” as early as Sunday and talked about a visit to Kotzebue.

I don’t know about the villages, but Rep. Reggie Joule, D-Kotzebue, says he expects the governor at a bill signing tomorrow in Kotzebue.

“I don’t know anything else,” Joule said.

Leighow said in an e-mail that she’d release more info about Palin’s schedule “once I get details confirmed.” An assistant scheduler for the governor in Juneau said she wasn’t allowed to give out Palin’s travel plans.

The bill Palin and Joule are talking about is House Bill 106. Palin tweeted Saturday: “Our VPSOs r great contributors to rural communities, we've worked hard to see them recognized & rewarded; Kotzebue hub appreciates them too!"

VPSOs, of course, are Village Public Safety Officers – village cops trained by the state.

Watch for how the bill is described this week -– because as far as I can tell it simply allows local governments to administer the VPSO programs if local non-profits don’t want to.

In the Kotzebue region, the non-profit Maniilaq Association handles the VPSO program and is anxious to hand it off to the borough. I wrote in May about the lack of village public safety officers in the region. At the time, only two of the five VPSO jobs were filled.

Joule said he didn’t know if the bill would make any difference when it came to filling jobs. Here’s his sponsor statement.

He said Palin’s public safety commissioner, Joe Masters, was a big advocate for the bill.

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