Former Fairbanks North Star Borough Assemblywoman Savannah Fletcher was censured by the Assembly on Friday and fined $3.
In a 5-4 vote, Fletcher was censured for what was deemed a “minor and technical” ethics violation, relating to radio ads she recorded in 2023 that encouraged residents of Fairbanks to get involved with borough agenda items that were important to her.
In those ads, she offered opinions on matters coming before the Assembly, and she did not disclose that these were her own opinions, not the opinions of the Assembly. She also did not disclose who paid for the ads. The radio ads were privately funded, not paid for by the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Assemblyman David Guttenberg acknowledged helping pay for the ads.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly’s Ethics Board found that radio spots violated ethics rules due to her inflection, word choice, and focus on specific topics that were part of her own agenda.
Fletcher, a licensed attorney, member of the Alaska Bar Association, and member of the Alaska Judicial Council, faced scrutiny over the violation’s implications for her professional work. She is an expert litigator on behalf of the liberal Northern Justice Project and makes her living suing conservatives and governments that make decisions she disagrees with.
She left the Assembly in 2024 and ran for state Senate, losing to Sen. Mike Cronk in November.
Well they certainly made sure Brett and Barb are replaced come fall, this witchhunt cost the Borough tens of thousands of dollars.
True about the costs to the taxpayers. Thanks to Savannah Fletcher’s best friends,
Kristen Kelly and Bobby Burgess. Rats, all.
Kristen Schupp, Scott Crass, Mindy Oneall too.
This entire circus was filed and pursued by Rita Trometter, she is friends with Barbara Haney, Brett Rottermund and possibly Liz Reeves. They put her up to it, she likes attention but was shaking like a leaf she was so scared to be there.
Naomi–I agree that the ethics complaint against Fletcher was a witch hunt, but I’m less sure that the complaint against Haney was a witch hunt. After watching Brett Rotermund during the Fletcher situation, I have grudgingly come to respect him. I was especially impressed with how he maintained order even when Rita Trometter (complainant) was being especially disruptive and he begged her not to turn the hearing into a circus. He also handled the challenges to his decisions with honor and grace. As for Haney… she continues to cost the Borough tons of money with her appeal of the silly $1 fine. The Borough Assembly is sure to revise the code so that trivial and unintentional breaches of ethics do not require any penalty. So Haney’s court appeal will probably become moot very shortly. She could have saved herself–and the Borough–tons of money if she had just waited for the revisions to the code.
SA,
You need to be educated better. Your facts are wrong. Your reasoning is twisted.
Fletcher was PO when she got her friend Kristen Schupp to file a complaint against Haney because Haney wrote a simple letter to the editor like so many other Assembly members do. Fletcher signed the document that censured Haney. But the tables were turned around on Fletcher when the Board of Ethics found that Fletcher violated the same code that she used to go after Haney. Three violations. And Fletcher got censured. Your problem SA is that you are another dishonest Democrat who sees everything in an intensely partisan viewpoint. Your gal Fletcher is an extreme narcissist on a mission to poison the community with DEI and wokeness. The tables turned on Fletcher and she got punished just like she punished Haney. Fletcher is able to hypnotize a few of her close friends, and maybe even some judges. But she can’t fool the general public anymore. THEY are on to her.
@SA:
How does an appeal become “moot?”
An appeal is won or lost on the merits of the case. The prior ruling is reviewed by the court, and the arguments are considered by their proximity to the law. That is, considering fair, non-partisan, and objective judge is handling the case properly without outside influence.
Who cares?
An “expert litigator?”
LOL. She had to come into the Assembly meeting with her out-of-state lawyer to defend her “minor and technical violations.” Her opponent, Rita Trometter, had no attorney …..she represented herself. And Trometter kicked the expert litigator’s *SS.
When Fletcher attempted to run the show, the pro tem presiding officer ordered her back to her seat in the gallery. THOSE were define moments.
Oh, so she’s a lawyer. That’s all I need to know.
Savannah Fletcher is an Obama fan and was pushing electric buses through these ads, Biden/Obama’s climate crises and eliminating the tax cap in order to have no limits on borough spending, She has big aspirations to run as fast as she can through this state and onward. It is rumored she wants to run for Lt. Governor with Peltola as governor. WE attended the disciplinary meeting and she had no remorse and sat herself up in front of the assembly and in front of us at the mike when she was not supposed according to protocol. She was told to go back to her seat. She brought her lawyer with her and had 4+ inch thick high heels perhaps to be able to look down on the rest of us. Her lawyer tried to interrupt the person filing the ethics violation and the audience yelled for him to be quiet: “point of order.”
Jon and Ruth–Fletcher was not on the Assembly during the Obama administration. She never once mentioned Obama on the dais nor in the radio spots.
Fletcher did sit at the table at the beginning of the second part of the hearing because that was where she was sitting at the conclusion of the first hearing. Rita Trometter was also allowed to sit there, but declined. The protocol for the meeting, under Robert’s Rules, is that the next hearing that continues the first hearing is to begin at the same place where the first hearing left off. Fletcher followed protocol; Trometter did not.
Your claims that she “had no remorse” are false. At the very beginning of her talk, she noted that she (and Barbara Haney) would never have intentionally violated any Borough ethics code. She upfront said that she would be fine with the fine, and would not contest it in any way.
SA, ….of course she is OK with $3 fine. But censure? No. That goes to character and fitness. The two attributes that are required to practice law. Fletcher failed. She should not be serving on the Judicial Council. And she should not be practicing law, at least in Alaska. Censure scares Fletcher. Why do you think she brought her lawyer to sit with you her before the Assembly? This issue is not going away.
PS. Obviously, there are two Naomi’s posting here. But it’s very easy to tell them apart.
You are confused:
“But censure? No. That goes to character and fitness. The two attributes that are required to practice law. Fletcher failed.”
That is not accurate or true, you do not understand that the Assembly is a separate body, it does not matter to anything else at all, you’re simply just not educated about this, and don’t know how politics work.
Fletcher will continue to be a lawyer, and Barbara Haney kicking and screaming about it will continue to make her look like a fat, useless windbag. Go back to teaching dropouts how to write their name, Barbara, it was the best thing you ever did for this community.
This kind of sick-minded comment can only come from someone close to Savannah Fletcher, or from Savannah Fletcher herself. Fletcher took the time from her busy schedule suing people to go to an Assembly meeting to testify and whine about Barb Haney because Haney filed a Bar complaint against Fletcher. Fletcher must be extremely nervous knowing that more bar complaints against her are just around the corner, probably from multiple sources. Such a creepy lawyer.
LOL at SA post above. It was Savannah Fletcher who signed the censure document against Barb Haney last year. This is karma x 3, coming back to haunt the little woman from law school who thinks she still runs the FNSB Assembly. Sleep well!
Different rules for Democrats.
Savannah Fletcher was sent to Fairbanks as part of George Soros’ $multi-billion effort to foist left-wing operations on communities. Soros money was funneled through ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations For reform Now. Soros has been doing the same “seeding” operation all over America.
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Fletcher has roots in WA state. She went to law school in CA and then straight up to Alaska to clerk with the AK Supreme Court (Justice Carney). She’s been wiggling her way into the community through the FNSB Assembly. Grier Hopkins and Mike Cronk both beat her out of the mayor’s and state senate seats respectively. Rita Trometter had a great performance despite Fletcher’s attorney sent by Soros.
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Fletcher is hell bent to turn Fairbanks into a communist zone through George Soros’ vast fortune. She is now on the AK Judicial Council through placement by the Alaska Bar Association. Her next attempt for control will be with Mary Peltola in the 2026 governor’s race.
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Meanwhile, Fletcher practices law fare through her law firm, Northern Justice Project, with her husband. She has a small collection of friends in the community, including the four brainwashed lefties that sit on the Assembly. Fortunately, Fletcher has been turned down by common sense, dedicated Fairbanksans. But the fight will continue. That’s a GIVEN!
Beware of this woman.
Sounds like an accurate description of the “Soros plan”.
Funny how entities labeled “justice” seem to have no connection with it.
ACORN was set-up to steal elections through ballot harvesting, ballot stuffing, late ballot counting, software-rigged tabulation and all sorts of other methods to employ election fraud. There’s a good chance her own elections were won by fraud. Dark money has a way of finding it’s way to very dark candidates. Thank you for reporting, Suzanne. Great job!
Reaper–Savannah Fletcher did not run for FNSB mayor as you falsely claim. There is absolutely no evidence that Soros funded her campaign. Also no evidence that she won her Assembly seat due to fraud.
Fairbanks should feel damn lucky that they got Grier Hopkins as their mayor rather than the dishonest dame with a law degree. That result would have been disasterous for your town.
Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since I first pointed out how the Assembly has repeatedly disenfranchised borough voters on the matter of its own apportionment. To recap, since the early 1980s, the Assembly has sent only one question to the ballot, a yes/no on keeping its apportionment the way it is. AS 29.20.070 provides multiple options. The Assembly has consistently refused to consider those options or even entertain a discussion on them. The existing scheme of electing the entire Assembly at-large (areawide) basically allows supervoters in Ester and Goldstream, such as ol’ “Gut” Guttenberg, to control the borough as a whole from their distant fiefdom.
ACORN has been around for awhile,and you are right about George Soros’ funding, Reaper. They really are not community organizers as much as community disrupters. They are paid to bring disharmony and chaos into your community. It sounds like this Fletcher has done just that. Good job, Fairbanks, for resisting her and fighting back. You have a nice community in Fairbanks. Don’t let this woman and her arrogance steal it away from you.
This is the craziest thing I’ve read in awhile, thank you for the laugh.
George Soros robots, brainwashed little demons scattered across America in search of a new community to destroy. Looks like you people up in Fairbanks have outed another one in Savannah Fletcher. Good job.
What a circus. Embarassing.
Rather than a tap on the wrist, it should have been handcuffs, an arraignment and a trial. A real trial. Not a show trial reserved for (D)ems to let them go.
Rita, please keep your sexual fantasies to yourself, everyone is getting sick watching your balding ass say these things.
Rita did a great job without a lawyer nearby, unlike Fletcher who brought her lawyer along, but still got censured. LOL. Obviously Fletcher is on a tirade now, as shown by her vitriolic posts. Congratulations Alaska Judicial Council. You know have a mentally ill member helping pick new judges. What a proud moment for Alaska.
Savannah Fletcher’s character and fitness……..
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Character: Nurse Wratched
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Fitness: Minnie Mouse
Qualifications: good enough for AK Judicial Council.
This is what happens when you have an arrogant rookie lawyer who thinks she has the brains and
skills to be in charge. I’ve watched Savannah Fletcher for the past several years. She’s a fairly new arrival to Fairbanks with her husband, also a lawyer, thinking she can boldly change the community by shaping it to her ideological fashion. She usually begins her comments with, “We all agree…..”
No, Ms. Fletcher, we don’t all agree. That’s your first misimpression. You have created quite a mess in this town, and frankly, for yourself and your family as well. Shame on the adults and your mentors who made you believe you are something special to Fairbanks and to Alaska. You are not! The welcome mat was pulled from you long ago. Basically, it comes down to having manners……which you do not……and to being humble with your legal education …….which you are not. You rub people the wrong way, and believe it or not, that includes your own friends.
As someone who has lived in this community for many decades, I’ve seen it all before. A young upstart drifts into town with a plan to take over and tell us all how to live. Then, they suddenly leave town never to heard from again. You have a lot to learn about people, character, and how to use the law correctly. So far, you are off to a pretty backwards start.
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