Dan Fagan is breaking promises with disingenuous information...again. I predicted his mea culpa from a few weeks ago would be short-lived. But it seems unless he isn’t bashing our new senator or the unions there isn’t much schtick left when you look behind the curtain.

Speaking of behind the curtain, more than ever, Fagan looks like that exposed character from the 1939 movie, but more appropriately should be called “the Wizard of Ooze.” Okay, for the sake of space I’ll just refer to him as “the Whiz,” which not coincidentally is defined in thefreedictionary.com as “to throw or spin rapidly.” At first glance I thought it said “spin rabidly,” which really would have been apropos.

The Whiz just conjures up more of the same smoke and mirrors, and drips with exaggerated, less than forthright factoids once again in his Sunday (Aug. 30) ADN diatribe.

He’s playing the shell game with his revisionist history; all the rage with conservatives these days. He turns over the Begich shell and says, “see look here, Begich just spent, spent, spent.” But he conveniently doesn’t tell us a few things. Doesn’t give an honest look under the Wuerch or the Sullivan shell.

For starters, in 2003, Mayor Begich is elected and inherits a $33 million budget gap from the previous administration. The reasons are many. Questionable fiscal management, dipping into one-time monies, city's reserves were at an all-time low, and the city was on the verge of being unable to borrow money. Oh, and by the way, back then there was no global recession to impact our city’s deficit. But that doesn’t quite play to the Whiz’s spin.

But Begich came into office and handled it, raising fines and fees, restructuring departments, leaving some vacancies unfilled, and yes a few librarians lost their jobs, but it was hardly the sky is falling, got to lay off essential fire personnel, shortened work weeks etc. that Mayor Sullivan seems to be articulating through the Whiz.

I sure hope Mayor Sullivan doesn’t go down the path of blaming his predecessor and trying to scare the crap out of the citizens about the future. But that’s sure the way Fagan is painting this. Message to Mr. Mayor: you (and the city) might do better to use someone besides Dan Fagan as your publicist and/or union negotiator.

Next, Fagan needs to remember, every budget was approved by the Assembly, every contract was approved by the Assembly -- in most cases either unanimously or with large majorities.

There was no "dark of night" as Fagan says. What a stupid phrase. Full public hearings every time. Full Assembly participation every time by several assemblies of various political make-ups.

Also, the Whiz (coincidentally?) never mentions that the city’s bond rating was upgraded two or three times during Begich’s tenure. Or that the reserves were brought back up to a healthy level, or that the budget was balanced every year, or that every survey done in the five years Begich was mayor showed voters saying by more than 70 percent that the city was headed in the right direction and the city flourished.

Fagan further states Begich increased department program spending 49%. Unfortunately, I don’t have the data to support or refute that claim, though the Whiz acknowledges a 20% increase in inflation for the period in question, but mentions nothing about underfunded PERS pension plans that were no fault of the mayor, but a result of bad advice to the state’s pension system by a former actuary, which has adversely hit every municipality in the state. Nor did he mention the worst recession since the Great Depression and the impact it has had.

Its much simpler and much more lazy to blame the previous administration and the unions, but wait. The Whiz also left a few factoids out about the compensation of city employees:

- Taxpayers don’t foot the bill for ML&P employees, rate payers do, and ML&P happens to have some of the lowest rates in the country (a minor detail I’m sure). In fact, if memory serves, ML&P actually adds money into the city coffers.

- Fagan goes to great length to mention (by name no less...tacky Whiz) several employees and what they’re paid and notes how many high-paid employees there are at the city. Conveniently, he doesn’t mention how many are non-bargained or management personnel. Hmmm.

- And, in pure Ray Krieg fashion (he of the old light bulb gang at Chugach Electric) Fagan throws out wage and benefit numbers without any detail as to what is included. Was there any overtime? If so, how much and why? Did Fagan’s figures include employer payroll taxes, which don’t go to the employee? Of course that would have deflated the figures substantially. But who cares when you’re trying to make a point, right?

And now Fagan blames Begich for Sullivan having to break a campaign promise not to raise taxes. Read my lips: every conservative politician makes that promise. And most have to break it. Its reality. Anyone looking at their investment portfolios or watching the news knew it would be impossible to grow the city and provide the services needed and not raise taxes. The shallow hollow conservative line of not raising taxes is good for campaign rhetoric, but not so good in practice.

Before you go calling me a tax and spend liberal, recall that we are the least taxed citizens in the country and that roughly 300 million people have significantly higher taxes than us spoiled Alaskans.

So, Dan, have you really gone to policies and not personalities? If so, you’ve got a ways to go on your policy research. If not, then you’ve exposed yourself (again) as the raging hypocrite I suspect you’ve always been.

In your August 1st column of enlightenment you said: “The Bible teaches scripture must back up everything,” and “if my profession calls for tearing down others to be successful, then I’ll just have to find another career.”

In your latest column, just four weeks from your mea culpa column, you’ve already broken at least two promises. Or maybe three, because I doubt after reading this week’s entry you’ve reached out and apologized to our hard-working junior Senator.

But if you are in fact working on those apologies, how about adding the half dozen or so hard-working public servants who are guilty of nothing more than showing up every day to serve the citizens of this community, but who you manage to immorally vilify with your below the belt tactics.

Unfortunately, unlike Dorothy, we can’t just click our heels and wake up from the bad dream that is the Wizard of Ooze.

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(acknowledgement to the ADN letter writer on Sunday who planted the Wizard of Oz seed in my head)