The Alaska Personnel Board, clearly frustrated with the pile of ethics complaints filed against Gov. Sarah Palin, wants to publicize the cost of dealing with them.
The personnel board members decided at a Wednesday meeting to work with the attorney general's office on how to make public the cost of addressing each ethics complaint, without violating the board's confidentiality rules.
"We've spent pretty close to about a third of a million dollars, and it's getting to be really expensive," said Al Tamagni, a member of the board.
Also Wednesday, the three-member board dismissed another complaint, this one involving Palin and her political action committee, and heard testimony from a woman who asserted fear of retaliation has prevented her from filing a complaint against the governor.
The governor's office said it is the 13th ethics complaint against Palin or her staff that has been resolved without finding of an executive ethics act violation. But Palin has agreed to reimburse the state in order to settle an ethics complaint over 10 state-paid trips taken by her children. A "few more" complaints are pending a decision by the personnel board, the governor's office said.
Andree McLeod, an Anchorage activist who has filed multiple ethics complaints against Palin and her staff, said after the meeting that the board is trying to squash accountability by saying it costs too much.
"The whole way to mitigate all this is for Palin to behave ethically," said McLeod, who filed the complaint that was dismissed by the board on Wednesday.
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