Fairbanks leftist Savannah Fletcher has a huge conflict of interest she did not disclose

Running for Senate for Fairbanks is an “undeclared” candidate who is working to trick voters into thinking she is independent. Recent actions reveal her true allegiances and raise questions about who owns her.

Savannah Fletcher, known by critics as “Havana Fletcher” has already paid over $1,000 to the Alaska Democratic Party to use the party’s voter database as part of its shared-services program for Democrat candidates. As a member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, she is a far-left Democrat running as “undeclared,” which is becoming a standard model for Democrat candidates in the era of open primaries and ranked-choice general elections in Alaska.

The seat that is open has been held by Republican Sen. Click Bishop, who announced his retirement from the Senate earlier this year. Republican Rep. Mike Cronk, Republican activist James Squyres, and Alaskan Independence Party Bert Williams are also running.

Fletcher was recently the official who notoriously presided over the farcical ethics hearing, in which she allowed an attack on a fellow Assembly member, conservative Barbara Haney to proceed, although an ethics committee had advised against it.

Haney had written a column in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner in February and failed to use the precise words “in my opinion as a private citizen.”

Activist Kristen Schupp filed a complaint and the borough ethics committee took up the charge. The committee decided no action should be taken, because numerous other instances of letters to the editor by sitting Assembly members have been documented, and no one has ever made such an accusation.

But when the matter came before the Assembly on July 25, Fletcher led the charge to suppress the constitutionally protected right to free speech that Assembly members have.

Fletcher failed to disclose that a donation made to her Senate campaign by Schupp was not some casual $50 donation at a meet-and-greet, but was $2,500, which makes Schupp the single largest donor to Fletcher’s political ambitions.

Schupp’s husband donated $1,500 to Fletcher’s Senate campaign, and is her second-largest individual donor. Another family member of Schupp donated $500. In total, $5,000 has been donated to Fletcher’s campaign by Schupp-world.

Who knew that massage therapy was so profitable? Who knew that Schupp’s husband’s job with the Department of Environmental Conservation could be so lucrative?

These are not trivial “attending a meet and greet” type of donations. These are donations made in exchange for access, influence, and power. Even the unions that support Fletcher only gave her $1,000 each. When one considers the size and timing of the donations from the Schupp circle, it leaves one to speculate if there is influence peddling going on.

The conflicts don’t stop there. Assemblywoman Mindy O’Neal herself also had a conflict. More than one letter to the editor written by Mindy O’Neal were part of the packet submitted by Assemblywoman Haney in her defense.  Mindy O’Neal has been a prolific writer in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner, and only recently began writing “as a private citizen,” after the ethics complaint had been filed against Haney.

Previous letters frequently touted her position on the assembly in editorials and that makes O’Neal eligible for multiple ethics violations on the same part of code. She should have also conflicted out of the judgment on Haney, and should have conflicted out on the question of whether Fletcher had a conflict that would prevent her from presiding over the kangaroo court. Assemblyman Scott Crass also had a conflict, as the stepfather to the Burgess-Schupp’s children. However, Fletcher, who clearly has her own conflict, ruled he did not have a conflict.  

Liz Reeves Ramos declared a conflict, because the column written by Haney included statements made by Reeves Ramos in debate. She also stated she only had a casual acquaintance with Schupp, something that is provably false since there are photos of Schupp and Reeve Ramos together crashing Republican events as a duo.

That would have left four members without obvious conflicts. According to the rules of the Assembly, five members are needed.

Procedurally, if those with conflicts had conflicted out, the gavel would have tone to Assemblyman Brett Rotermund, who has since resigned the Assembly out of disgust over the proceedings.

Or alternatively, if the members with conflicts had been conflicted out of the matter, the question would have remained in limbo indefinitely — or the actual recommendations of the ethics committee to do nothing would have been adhered to.  

Was it the $5,000 in donations to Savannah Fletcher’s Senate campaign what made it impossible for Fletcher to ignore Schupp’s complaint against Haney and proceed with the kangaroo court?

Fletcher has received $5,000 in campaign contributions from the Alaska Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, and $1,000 from NEA-Alaska’s political action wing. Far from being an independent, she has shown herself to be the hardest of hard partisans.

Other fake independents will be covered in this series leading up to the Aug. 20 primary election.