BUT THERE’S PLENTY OF DOCUMENTATION TO BACK UP HIS CLAIM
(Note: This story is updated with a letter that Commissioner John Quick has sent to the Senate joint committee that interviewed him on Tuesday. See link at the bottom.)
(Note ii: This story is updated to reflect that Commissioner Quick has resigned.)
After a day of political drama, the commissioner of the Department of Administration has resigned. His resume simply did not hold up under scrutiny.
The “owners” of a coffee, tea and frozen yogurt company in Washington state have challenged the claim by Commissioner of Administration nominee John Quick that he was an owner of the company. They said he was an employee whom they fired.
The Janie Reynolds letter to the Senate committee that interviewed Quick prior to his confirmation is linked here:
Senate-Joint-Finance-State-Affairs-Committee-AK-002
But while Janie Reynolds says Quick was an employee they let go, Quick says the ownership was a handshake deal when he started the business with their son, his longtime childhood friend when they were in their mid-20s. Both of them are Christians, and this arrangement is not unusual among young entrepreneurs.
In Tacoma area news stories about the successful business, Bryan Reynolds is always mentioned as an owner in recent years, but a search of news stories from several years ago finds that Quick was an owner-partner with Reynolds. At least that part of his story seems to hold up.
This story highlights John Quick and Bryan Reynolds as partners.
Quick’s claim is also backed up by an old blog entry in his family’s blog from 2011, quartetofquicks.blogspot.com
It appears from news stories, that the two young men went into business together, but eventually the entire Reynolds family eventually got involved and Quick exited the business.
Janie Reynolds, who said she is 50 percent owner of Anthem Coffee & Tea/Elements Frozen Yogurt, wrote a letter to the Senate Joint Finance and State Affairs Committee.
The letter became part of his confirmation process on Tuesday, with Sen. Bill Wielechowski and Sen. Scott Kawasaki asking him pointed questions about his financial ties to that company and his answers were in conflict with the letter they had in their hand from Reynolds, which was then leaked to the media and selected bloggers. It was clearly a coordinated set up.
Quick told the committee that he sold the company to a private party, and he didn’t want to reveal their names on the record, but was a friend from high school. That friend, from MustReadAlaska research, was Bryan Reynolds.
Quick was most recently the chief of staff to the mayor of Kenai Borough, Charlie Pierce.
UPDATE: John Quick sent a letter to the committee this afternoon, clarifying that he had an equity stake position in the company and that he parted ways with the company, rather than selling it, as he stated to the committee.
The letter is linked here:
Comm John Quick Letter 1.24.19
Other parts of his resume, including some online postings, did not hold water. For example, it appears he does not have a master’s degree, although in some places online he indicated that he earned one.
In the end, the inconsistencies were too many to explain away, and his appointment appeared destined to fail the confirmation process.
Honestly, who cares if a person back in his twenties did or did not own part of a yogurt shop (and in another state no less)? The Alaska Democrats are completely outrageous, and beyond dishonest. They all went along with the Me-Too rallies, then they had the Westlake-Fansler-Parish-Mallott incidents, and not a peep of outrage or contrition from the Democrats. Now they are worried about who made the frozen yogurt. Kawasaki, Tarr, Edgmon, Wielechowski, Tuck – they’re all jokes, very bad jokes.
Folks need to understand that this is “play one” in the playbook of the Left. If they could have found a way to make a claim of racism or something similar, they would have been thrilled. But they went with this smear. Smear here, smear there, smear anywhere.
All of this started with the Clintons. It will not end until the voters repudiate those on the Left that use the tactic.
Just want to make sure I understand the reasoning here. A family blog post and advertisement blurb is ample evidence that Quick is the victim of a left-wing smear? And his letter: characterizing Situation #1, a painful end of a job working for people he hoped would promote him to partner but who declined (in his words, not those of his former employers) as Situation #2, selling his ownership stake, does not constitute an outright lie? And one more: it’s more likely that the owners would submit a letter full of lies to the AK legislature that becomes public record than it is that Quick lied about his credentials and background? Why have you not updated your judgement in this article now that Quick’s letter confirms that he lied about selling his ownership stake?
I couldn’t agree more about the typical playbook move to smear people. But the the fact is he said he was an owner and that was part of the basis of his qualifications. 1. If that is really important to him being qualified for the position, being an owner of a yogurt shop, then he’s probably not really qualified for the position. 2. If he’s inflating his past experience to show he’s qualified then he knows that he not qualified. Can somebody answer whether he was an owner or not? The documents listed he don’t really show much- a letter from his mom doesn’t prove much.
We do always need to have honesty and transparency in our government. Falsified education histories, work histories matter since they are used in self promotion schemes by conmen. I have been proud to be a conservative Republican for 35 years, it is very sad to see my peers so easily persuaded by sloppy liars. We need to return integrity to government, that is where true conservative values shine.
It’s hardly a smear job, if the candidate is not truthful in his application. In addition embellishing his business experience, Quick apparently was not truthful about his education background. KTOO reported “Quick claims that he attended Wayland Baptist University in Texas for two years and received an MBA; the school’s registrar said he attended for about nine months and did not graduate.”
Northwest Bible College must be embarrassed to have a lying alumni publicly exposed.
Quick lied about his work history-fact.
He lied about his education-fact.
His lies have stained the Dunleavy administration that believed in him.
He has not accepted responsibility for his lies.
I question his claims about being a Christian.
Christian faith is not based on purity, but on recognition of ones sins and need for redemption. What is in Quick’s heart and soul are between him and his God. How he has behaved in the public arena is subject to scrutiny and censure.
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