DEPARTING BOARD MEMBERS TRIED ONE LAST THING
The top two board members of the Alaska Human Rights Commission offered their resignations early this week. But curiously, they both made their departures effective May 1.
The executive director of the troubled agency also resigned on Monday, after being put on unpaid leave for 15 days for bad behavior involving her infringement of a citizen’s First Amendment rights over a Black Rifles Matter truck decal.
[Read: Human Rights Commission vs. First, Second Amendment]
But the governor accepted the resignations of Chairman Brandon Nakasato and Vice Chairman Freddie R. Olin IV effectively immediately, and replaced them with two appointees — Cynthia Erickson and Debbie Fullenwider.
It all happened more quickly than usual.
[Read: Two new commissioners for Human Rights Commission]
Why did the governor act with such haste to replace the chair and vice chair of the commission?
Must Read Alaska has learned that Nakasato and Olin had planned to try to put in place a new executive director before their departure. They had scheduled a meeting for Friday to get the ball rolling.
The commission members now in place are:
David A. Barton, Anchorage
Christa J. Bruce, Ketchikan
Kathryn E. Dodge, Fairbanks
Megan C. Mackiernan, Nome
Marcus Sanders, Anchorage
Cynthia Erickson, Tanana
Debbie Fullenwider, Anchorage
Sandra Monkton, the chief enforcement officer at the agency, is now the acting executive director. In other “small state” news, she is married to the State’s former Public Defender, Quinlan Steiner, who resigned this month, saying that his division needed new leadership. Political observers said that the Governor’s Office agreed with Steiner.
