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

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Fairbanks Assembly presiding officer Savannah Fletcher helps lead a protest against Israel, disrupting a public celebration of Noel Wien's historic flight in Alaska.

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.

22 COMMENTS

  1. In my humble opinion, ALL large campaign contributions are ultimately a path for the donor(s) to gain influence over the candidate(s) they see as most likely to provide some return on their investment. One needs only to look at the whores in Congress to see the validity of this statement!

  2. Havana Fletcher. Nice ring to it. Like a dog whistle to all the little commies in Fairbanks, pretending to be fair and independent. Well, Havana can kiss our *sses. More fuel for Mike Cronk, who can send this little totalitarian monster into hiding. Great article, Suzanne. Thanks for telling us what the SnoozeMiner won’t.

    • The DNMindless has been mining MRAK for articles and headlines… then putting Virginia’s famous counterclockwise spin on it.

      • NewsMinus might have alternate readership in Cuba, where Marxists can read all about their accomplishments. Otherwise, the little rag up in the Interior is destined for the heap bin. Even the Binkley family would pass on a restoration purchase.

    • Since 1976 and earlier ‘https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/dc80addd-bf47-4772-9e3f-8204b209e284
      “Abstract
      Reflecting on a decade of radical and progressive coalition politics led Berkeley Citizen’s Action (BCA), a group of activists affiliated with elected councilmembers John Denton, Loni Hancock and Ying Lee Kelley, and organized as the Community Ownership Organizing Project, describe potential and actual programs that would effect a transition to community ownership for the City of Berkeley, CA. Topics covered include Charter and other reforms achieved by voter initiative designed to redistribute power to popular forces; housing policies like rent control and community ownership, public acquisition of electric power, cable television and telephone service; revenue producing enterprises such as banking, recycling and insurance; taxation and capital budgets; city employment policy, transportation and social services.”
      From “The Cities Wealth: Programs for Community Economic Control in Berkeley, California”

  3. Once again, freedom and liberty under assault by:
    … Trojan Horses
    … Deep Fakes & Chameleons
    … Wolves in Sheeps Clothing
    … Manchurian Candidates

  4. Anyone who actually buys the “I’m independent” line isn’t intelligent enough to be allowed to drive, much less vote.

    A politician failing to disclose a conflict of interest? Must be a day ending in Y.

  5. Very good reporting Suzanne. Your reporting on this subject is better than any of the news organizations in the Interior, News Miner, KUAC- FM, etc.

    These woke absolutists appear to have no regard for integrity, or fair play. They are zealots for their “mission” and anything that gets in their way is fair game, no matter the ethics.

    You’ve identified multiple conficts of interest here. This issue needs to get into court. What the assembly did must be overturned.

  6. Fairbanks is Anchorage “lite”.
    The conservatives inability to go VOTE is why the Fairbanks city council is majority LibTards and childless cat ladies – UberKarens.
    Wake up!

    • Methinks you’re confusing the city council with the borough assembly, two different bodies governing two different governmental units. The city council has six regular voting members, plus a mayor who votes to break ties. With Jerry Cleworth, Lonny Marney and John Ringstad on the body, there exists some sanity. The burro ASSembly is a whole other matter. If you weren’t following the topic or have forgotten already, the body radically flipped in last year’s election. It wasn’t entirely the fault of voter turnout, either. As commentors on the site correctly pointed out at the time, conservatives failed to be on point with their messaging. It’s difficult to have much of a grasp of local issues when you spend all your time listening to Dan Bongino, Benny Johnson and Matt Walsh, looking for talking points to parrot.

  7. Once again we have Suzanne to thank for outstanding research and reporting.
    Nowhere else will an article of this depth be reported, certainly not in the leftwing News Miner.

    I am linking this and sending it to friends up in the FNSB….

  8. It is (D)ifferent when they do it. If this were a Republican, the ethics violation would have already been filed and been sensationalized in Binkley’s leftist rag. Nothing to see here. Move along…

  9. City government is a good grift, no matter what angle you come from. I could be content as parking czar.

  10. Just wait until they maneuver Fairbanks into mail-in voting. Fairbanks will be lost forever.

  11. Savannah Fletcher seems to be a ringleader moving here from the Seattle, Washington area. With her as an attorney who decides what is right or wrong, there is no room for free speech. She instigated an election that was unlawful and and continues to cause problems up here in Fairbanks. She promoted electric buses and fortunately we were able to override her when the conservatives were in majority. She also unlawfully organized an election spending $125,000 of taxpayer money to raise our land taxes. Fortunately, 70% voted it down. Now she wants us to mail in our ballots. As president of the Borough she is big headed. This borough move wreaks of revenge because the assembly did not get to raise our land taxes.

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