QUICK QUIT, AND CHANCE TURNED DOWN APPOINTMENT
Two appointees of the new Dunleavy Administration have withdrawn from their appointments.
John Quick, the Department of Administration commissioner, offered his resignation today. It was accepted after too many irregularities in his resume were revealed in the media.
Art Chance, who was offered a position in the Department of Administration, decided to not accept an offer of employment. Chance, a rough-hewn labor negotiator, had a social media presence that would have been a distraction to the Administration. He has been a columnist at Must Read Alaska, but it’s his sometimes raw language on Facebook that was becoming an issue, in light of the dismissal of former Assistant Attorney General Libby Bakalar, who kept a savage and coarse blog going during the Walker Administration.
Chance had shut down his Facebook page upon deciding to work for the Dunleavy Administration, but the trail of social media is long and unforgiving.
When asked for comment, Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy stated the following: “This decision is for the best.”
Gov. Michael Dunleavy named Paula Vrana as Acting Commissioner of Administration.
“Earlier this evening, Commissioner Designee Jonathan Quick resigned. I appreciate his willingness to serve the people of Alaska and wish him the best in his future endeavors,” Governor Dunleavy said in a press release.
“I appointed Paula Vrana as Acting Commissioner of Administration.
“Acting Commissioner Vrana is an attorney who joined the Department of Administration on Jan. 2, 2019. She immediately immersed herself in your department’s important role to the State of Alaska, and I am confident you are in good hands,” Dunleavy wrote in a letter to Department of Administration employees.
Quick, in his letter of resignation, strongly refuted some of the claims made against him, but said he didn’t want to become a distraction.
For Commissioner Designee Quick’s letter of resignation, click here.
This story will be updated. Check back.
Good call on Chance. That guy is a real a-hole that thinks that he is better than everyone else.
That’s a bit rugged, don’t you think?
The question the Governor should be asking is who vetted these guys?
Joe, I asked myself the same thing. Anyone who has been in Alaska for any length of time and has their finger on the pulse of state government happenings should know of Art Chance. Does Art know his stuff? Yes. Is he rough? Double yes. I like Art. I take him for what he is. But, as we tell our kids, “what you put on the internet honey will be out there and follow you forever”. And as a conservative, they are on the hunt now. Art is easy prey. I have no idea why the administration dangled him out there like raw meat. If you did something in 3rd grade, watch out. Yogurt guy is another situation. I’d like to know more on this hit job.
Irregularities! LOL! Come on, you guys. Cut Quick loose as a fraud and move on. He’s not worth your credibility. You can do way better. If Dunleavy can manage some semblance of a vetting process, that is.
Well put.
I was looking forward to seeing Chance eat so many others lunch! Funny, a course, Dem in a negotiating position is praised as tough, driven and gets good deals for his teams. Republicans, stay meek my friends. The MSM won’t tolerate a conservative with a spine who pushes back.
I know. Isn’t it ironic? We had a light gov in the making creeping around the campfire since the 70’s and anyone paying attention knew it. He was praised and elevated to prestigious positions all his life, reaching Lt. Gov. and it was all ok. The difference was he DID those things to wives and girlfriends, he didn’t POST about them. Even when the house of cards tumbled, it was swept away and yesterdays news. Everyone is thanking their lucking stars for no social media to haunt them now. I am! The Dems are lurking with their hit teams looking for anything they can find.
Boy, the stupid was strong those days, eh Art!
Not as strong as it is in you. I don’t need a job; they need somebody who knows where the light switches in a State office are.
Next you’ll be telling us that it was your idea to not accept that job that you don’t need. Heheh!
Mr. Speedo had a good day yesterday. What he left out of his screed was the comments I was responding to. Lefties believe that the insults, accusations, and insinuations that they freely hurl at anyone who doesn’t accept their catechism are merely speaking the truth so they’re OK. I give as good as I take and I have a long way to go to catch up with the lefties in the name-calling and insults game, though I may be a bit more clever and creative at it than most of them; they tend to be rather sophomoric.
What is going to be interesting is to see how this Administration that so many pinned their hopes on handles dealing with real opposition. This was just a mau-mau operation from a third rate blog with at most a few hundred readers. It got picked up by the more leftist side of the MSM in Alaska because they’ll run with anything that might damage a Republican. Wait until you see what the media does if the Administration actually tries to cut the budget or if the Legislature fails or refuses to fund one of the Walker 11th hour agreements with the unions. Or if they do fund them, the more likely option, then the Governor can’t keep his promise to restore the Dividend. The Administration and the Legislature can’t do both; they can’t keep the unions quiet and restore they Dividend without quickly exhausting the State’s savings and Permanent Fund earnings.
If the Governor and the Legislature do begin to cut the budget, they run out of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse very quickly. Then cuts have to come from increasing organizational efficiency and that means layoffs. If they panicked from a third rate blogger criticizing them, just wait until it is the banks and merchants criticizing them. The job that pays you sixty or eighty thousand a year in government doesn’t exist in the private sector and a laid off government employee is an entry-level employee in the private sector. The best you can hope for if laid off from most government jobs is being able to trade your blue suit for a blue vest and that sort of job won’t make the mortgage and car payments. We are destined to live in interesting times.
Drop the mic
How’s that karma sandwich tasting, Art? Sorry (not sorry) your attempt to double-dip didn’t pan out. You can resume your former position under the bridge now.
The Governor can’t keep his promise. The core Consitutional cost are going to cause a dip into the PFD. None of his three Ammendments addressed these fundamentals. If we dont raise revenues somehow the PFD will be tapped after we exhaust our reserve.
I agree with you Art about the mau-mau tactics but you made it way too easy. You also got tangled with the John Quick deal. There is a bloodbath coming, I’m not sure why you wanted to be involved in it but it wasn’t going to make the administration’s life any easier.
I’m not sure how to feel about the capitulation yet. Realization setting in? Cowardice?
Good luck to you.
“Though I may be a bit more clever and creative at it than most of them; they tend to be rather sophomoric.”
That right there, made me laugh out loud. Every time I read something you wrote @ADN (not to mention the above), it reminded me of the high school gas-bags in civics that thought they were the second coming of Lincoln. In terms of your ability to write engagingly and coherently, I put you on the same shelf as Paul Jenkins. Down where the carrots kinda get lost and wrinkly.
This is so typical of our local Leftwing activist media.
They go after Chance like a bunch of baying starving bloodhounds, but remain STILL silent about Walker’s serial molesting Lt Governor and his screeching, unhinged, far Leftwing extremist AAG, Libby Whatsername.
I expect no less of them. I guess they should be congratulated for at least being consistent……
So true. But Art made it too easy for them. I’m not sure why anyone would want to be associated with that kind of unprofessional behavior on either side of the aisle…
I wish I could still acknowledge some of your good points but now you’re just pushing crazy rants and stooping to the level of the lefties. Don’t do it, Art!
If some Leftie in the media uses his/her tart tongue to cast ridicule on a Republican, or someone in the Administration, that is called “reporting.” But if a conservative does this, its met with foul retort and reference given to one of the many “isms” adopted by Lefties.
We need Art Chance around MRA to get accurate accounts of Lefty behavior…
..where, when, how, who and what.
It’s going to be a hell of a ride in 2019. Glad we have Art and Suzanne to give the truth on Lefties and their reprehensible lies.
Too bad, I was hoping that Art would take the left-over administration people to task and fire them wholesale. And then start firing anyone who isn’t up to the task, and there will be many.
Art in his comments pointed out the uncomfortable truth: Gov. Dunleavy’s plans and promises are impossible. I will always tell you the truth so here it is:
1. The Dividend is an obscene use of public resources. It is taxed by the feds as “income” right off the top – making it stupidly inefficient. It must end but the only way it can be done is with a final “double dividend” inducement. However I would then replace it with the “Alaska Individual Trust Account” (AITA) in which future surplus income may be deposited by an annual appropriation.
2. The State has previously borrowed $14 billion from the CBR which is required to be repaid by the Alaska State Constitution. So the “$18 billion” in the PFER that Mike is salivating over must begin to refund the CBR before we start passing out excessive “dividends”.
3. The fight will still remain between funding the size of government that people wish for and the amount of “profits” left over from the balance sheet available for your AITA account.
This is not good. It’s going to give the D.’s momentum to grill the other appointees. There are a number that are really good people and I hope they make it, but their qualifications are looking a bit thin for the jobs they got. I hope this doesn’t turn into a bloodbath because I really want to see them concentrate on the budget!
The budget is the last thing they want to concentrate on. There be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Everybody is praying that the price of oil goes up and little else. Art just wanted to stick it to the Unions again because he gets some grim satisfaction in believing that government employees are leftists that he can legitimately exercise his well demonstrated sadism on.
The consequences all seem to be secondary to the lip service being paid to unimaginable carnage. That’s not how you sell cuts. Which tells me they aren’t selling cuts, which tells me they are not going to concentrate on the budget in a meaningful way.
They’ll be pressing the agencies for the next couple weeks to beat out the remnants of any marginal capacity left in the system. That won’t be near enough to accomplish their stayed goals. Then they will propose cuts into the bone and we’ll laugh, because that won’t be enough either.
I doubt Donna Arduin has ever driven through an Alaskan Pass in Phase 3 conditions. She has no concept of what will be cut or its consequences to Alaskans.
Give us some examples of my “… well demonstrated sadism …” and particularly, any examples of my “sadism” in dealing with unions. And while you’re trying to find those examples consider that I represented the State for 19 years in a very high profile and controversial role. I did investigations of employee misconduct, grievance handling, grievance arbitrations, labor board hearings, and most significantly contract negotiations. In that 19 years I was never disciplined, never had a grievance filed against me personally, never sued, and had only one unfair labor practice complaint filed against me and it was withdrawn before hearing. Oh, and by the way, since I retired I have worked extensively as a consultant to some of the unions. So, I’ll be waiting for those examples of sadism.
Could you explain to us how precisely police officers and fireman are expendable and overpaid? Maybe explain that to their families?
Your railing against fellow public servants is a one trick pony. Have you ever considered retention rates in your “negotiations”. As market indicators? You’re ostensibly a free market guy.
Telling people that you’ll eff their wives and girlfriends as a negotiation strategy is idiotic and unproffesional. It didn’t serve your cause we’ll and now you’re getting some just desserts. Your actions and words have spoken for themselves, toxic.
I have sympathies with you politically but your toxicity makes you a liability. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has come to this conclusion.
Look no further than your opinion piece from December:
http://mustreadalaska.com/doing-supervisor-tells-you-unfashionable-state-government/
“While we were beating ASEA like a rented mule in collective bargaining, they went out and bought themselves a governor. ”
“I made smoke and noise, broke things, and left a series of career-ending events in my wake as I took out a bunch of self-anointed radicals who thought they were untouchable.”
sa·dism
noun
the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.
Obviously, you’ve never engaged in any sort of competition; when you compete you win or lose. I’ve been engaged in some sort of competition all of my cognizant life. When someone chooses to compete with you and you win, that isn’t sadism – unless you’re a recent graduate from a liberal arts school.
They chose to compete with me; I won. I usually do, and when I don’t I live to fight and win another day.
My comment brushed against your schtick in passing. You’re clearly proud of it.
I’ve done plenty of competing.
Have a good one.
Yes, The can of worms that is the Alaska Department of Administration. The is the same mob that have signed fraudulent contracts with Aetna and OptumRX. AlaskaCare the Alaska public retirees medical plan state “wolrdwide service” but the Aetna and OptumRx plans offer no worldwide service. This is fraud and violates the Interstate Commerce Act, Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and much more. There are people hired by the state (AlaskaCare Chief Medical officer and Vendor manager) that have no medical background in violation of Order 17-02A Title 3 Part 2 Chapter 28 3AAC 28.908(2)(c). I am a state of Alaska retiree, a member of Alaskacare, but have been denied treatment and medicine for my heart condition in violation of the Alaska Constitution XII section 7 and AS 39.35.880. (see: Cunningham v. Aetna and Gilan Washington v Aetna) I am sending my evidence to federal agencies including the FBI as these contracts could not have been signed without payoffs and kickbacks to government employees.
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