Merrick accuses man of stalking children

UNION BOSS AND HIS WIFE CALL JAMIE ALLARD VOLUNTEER A ‘CREEP’

With the wife of a union boss running against Army veteran Jamie Allard for House District 14, things have gotten “union nasty.”

The union boss has called a volunteer from the Allard side a child stalker and plastered it all over Facebook.

Laborers 341 Union Boss Joey Merrick got into a sign dispute with a volunteer from the campaign of Army veteran Jamie Allard.

The volunteer, Mark Halterman, started tracking Joey Merrick as he posted signs for his wife around Eagle River; the Allard campaign has been monitoring whether those signs were permitted by property owners. That’s when the trouble began in earnest.

The confrontation started on a street corner, but spilled over onto Facebook.

Kelly Merrick, the candidate, posted an accusation on her page, alerting the public to the man who she characterized as dangerous, and told people if they saw him to call the police, as he was stalking children. She posted his photo and the license plate from his car.

Mark Halterman, the volunteer who felt his good name had been smeared by the Merricks, shared what happened:

“Kelly Merrick is staging an attack on me over social media, claiming I am a pervert. She’s got a picture of me sitting in my car in my neighborhood (a picture that was taken by her husband Joey Merrick),” Halterman wrote.

“I was observing her husband Joey Merrick place signs back up on Meadow Creek after my wife had alerted that they were coming down. The day before we had seen a neighbor down the street remove a Kelly Merrick sign from his yard and we stopped to ask why. We were told his parents own the home and were out of country and they hadn’t approved the sign placement. He also alerted a couple of doors down a sign had been placed in a deceased woman’s yard. He was pretty sure Kelly Merrick didn’t have permission to place it in her yard. I have lived in this neighborhood for over 23 years and I have observed candidates place signs on right of ways and other locations where signs shouldn’t be placed.

“Now, Kelly is claiming I was stalking the children while doing a lit drop. This is all because Joey confronted me for watching him place signs. I didn’t see the children when watching Joey, they were unsupervised and around the corner. I took no photos of anyone and was just observing Joey. When he saw me, he stopped placing signs and he drove around the corner. I drove up the street and stopped to text my wife to alert her about what I had seen. While sitting on Chain of Rock Joey Merrick approached me in his vehicle, a truck, at a high rate of speed demanding to know what I was doing. I stated it was none of his business. He told me I needed to quit creeping out his kids. I then told him that if he believed what I was doing was illegal he should call the police department. He sped away and I drove home.

“To my shock and surprise I woke at 6 am yesterday and was alerted by my daughter that the picture taken by Joey Merrick was posted on the Eagle River Crime Watch and Eagle River Repeat Offenders Facebook Pages. The photos and posts were posted by someone named John D. Rathert. When asked he stated Joey Merrick did indeed take the photographs he posted.

“After several complaints were sent to the Eagle River Crime Watch, the post was removed from that site. Numerous requests were made to the Repeat Offenders Site asking that the post also be removed. As of this time the post is still up.

“After being deleted from the Eagle River Crime watch page, Kelly Merrick posted the picture on her personal Facebook page stating ‘this creep was following my kids yesterday as they passed out campaign flyers. When my husband approached him, the man said mind your own f-ing business! If anyone knows who this is please inform law enforcement. We can’t take a chance for one more child to be a victim. We must be vigilant!’ And she listed my plate number and a full description of my car.

“I find all of this incredibly concerning because Joey Merrick knows who I am. We met around the middle of July and talked for a good amount of time. At that time, Joey attempted to place a big campaign sign for his wife at a downtown business in Eagle River. The owner was out of town when he tried to place the sign, so I had Joey place the sign in the shop until the new owner returned.

“As we talked Joey alerted he was friends with the deceased man who had owned this property. I explained to Joey the owner was out of town and I was keeping an eye on the shop. I told him I lived a few minutes away. He asked if he could place a sign in my yard. I told him I already had a sign for one of Kelly’s opponents. I find interesting that now he doesn’t know me and would stoop so low as to have one of his buddies put out information on social media that he knows to be untrue. I am requesting that anyone posting this fabricated story stop sharing it.”

Over the weekend, Kelly Merrick appears to have removed her accusation from Facebook, and the crime watch page removed the accusation.

Also over the weekend, a magnetic campaign sign for Allard was stolen from the car of one of her top volunteers. Now, Allard’s volunteers worry the sign will be put to nefarious uses by the other side just before the primary.

“I am stating for the record that someone stole one of Jamie Allard ‘s magnetic campaign signs from my car door while we were out campaigning early yesterday. I don’t want it used for nefarious things that would come back on her. Because frankly, at this point, there are powerful people doing anything to stop her from winning. But – win she will!” said campaign volunteer Kristen Bush.

The Allard side is also expecting more hit-job mailers to arrive in mailboxes and more negative radio spots that there will be no time to refute.

JOEY MERRICK HEADS THE ‘STAND FOR ALASKA’ GROUP

Joey Merrick is running his wife as a Republican for House District 14. His army of union members are “volunteering” to help her flip the Eagle River seat to union control, critics say.

Mr. Merrick was appointed by Gov. Bill Walker to the board of directors of the Alaska Gasline Development Agency.

Mr. Merrick, who is donating nearly $70,000 of union political action committee money to Democrat-leaning “Musk Ox Coalition” members Reps. Daniel Ortiz, Jason Grenn, Louise Stutes, and former Rep. Jim Colver, in an effort to keep the House under Democratic control, is also the co-chair of the Stand for Alaska committee, a group that is opposing an initiative that would shut down development in Alaska. But by putting Democrats in charge, is Merrick working against the interests of Stand for Alaska?

While his wife is a homemaker with no political experience, Joey Merrick has been engaged in politics for a long time. He as high-profile as they come. Claiming a campaign volunteer for the opponent of his wife is stalking children has attracted the concern of industry allies, some of whom have called Must Read Alaska to raise the topic.

UNION BOSS VINCE BELTRAMI JUMPS INTO FRAY, HITS BELOW THE BELT

Merrick is not alone in his tactics. The latest hit mailer against Jamie Allard came from Vince Beltrami, head of the AFL-CIO for Alaska, of which Laborers 341 is a member group.

In it, he accused candidate Allard of having a record of financial missteps. But his mailer only referred to court cases, leaving readers no information about what actually happened.

Of the four cases, three were dismissed entirely and the fourth was a small claim that Allard herself filed against someone who owed her thousands of dollars. She dropped the claim when the case got kicked up to District Court and the money she might collect would have not been worth the attorney costs.

The only case that occurred in Alaska was a claim from Ford Motors that Allard had not made a payment. The case was dropped when she proved she had, in fact, made the payment. The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought back to court:

But in the AFL-CIO hit mailer from Beltrami, these cases were portrayed as examples of financial mismanagement by Allard.

Apparently, truth can’t get on its shoes fast enough to keep up with the lies that sprout in the closing hours of a “union nasty” campaign.

Allard said she planned to attend church on Sunday with her family for some soul nourishment. Being a candidate is unlike anything she has experienced. But as an Army veteran, she has fought tougher battles.

LIES ABOUT NRA GRADES

And now, NRA candidate grades are being pulled into the fray. Kelly Merrick put a post on her Facebook page saying Jamie Allard received an F from the National Rifle Association. But Must Read Alaska did some research and discovered the following social media post comparing what Kelly Merrick said vs. the facts posted on the NRA web site:

ELECTION CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH IN EAGLE RIVER

False accusations of child stalking. False accusations of financial mismanagement. Misrepresentation of NRA grades. If this is what it means to be represented by the Merricks, Eagle River voters will want to think long and hard about opposing Kelly Merrick on any of her votes, should she be elected.

After all, she has an army of union people who can take care of problems back in the district. It’s called “constituent relations.”