Former president Sarah Palin announced plans to build a vice-presidential library in her own honor to bless the great city of Wasilla.
WASILLA, AK - Imagine the surprise to the people of Wasilla, Alaska when their former governor, and former-former town mayor Sarah Palin, announced that she would begin building her Vice Presidential Library in the Brett Memorial Ice Arena that was the town's hockey rink.
"I decided that I could just as good use the rink right by my home here as my library now that I don't have an office anymore in the state and I do need to have an office to continue my work for the good of the country.
"Besides, there's plenty of other hockey rinks within a few miles of here. There's the Curtis Menard arena just 5 miles away on the north; and just over there about 10 miles south in Palmer is another one; and there's the two Harry J. McDonald (the father) Memorial Center about 18 miles down the road to the east; close by the Harry McDonald (the son) Center a couple miles further on down the road. Them McDonalds could never come to terms so they made 2 arenas –one for the father and one for the son– both good hockey players, you bettcha.
"So I did my small-town mayor thing here and decided to use the Brett Center here for my VP Library and office complex. That would have been my decision to make you know, if I was still the mayor, so I guess I can make it now. Not like I am mayor-for-life or anything like that. But we've got a lot of hockey rinks around here and this one isn't needed so much anyway.
"While litigation over this sports-complex project is still in the courts, I can rework this building into a library for just a couple hundred thousand dollars from the city treasury. Hockey is still so much loved in Wasilla. And my son was a star player. He wanted me to build him an indoor rink, but now that he's out of here, there's no reason really to keep it as a rink. Besides it matches my house and I need an office.
"So I just marched ahead, and got a sales-tax increase and $14.7 million bond issue to pay for the hockey rink. That was back in March 2002 and the town residents approved my plan by a 20-vote margin. We just went ahead and cleared roads, installed utilities and builded the place in record time.
"So I say so what if there's been years of litigation over property rights and a $1 million extra in costs for the town. We got a place for my son to play hockey till he had to leave for Iraq.
"After I left office, the city decided to settle for the disputes about the land. It wasn't till just last year, the city to paid $800,000 for the 80-acre parcel. Plus an additional $300,000 in interest, according to Mr. Klinkner, the city attorney. A small price when you think that bridges cost so much more to build.
"It has been 10 years; it's just insane, how much construction costs these days. And I figure that with a new sauna installed like the one I had in Juneau, the state will probably get by with spending maybe $500,000 or so to fix it up for my library. Most of that will be the cost of ripping out the ice and the refrigeration system. I sure won't have any use for that stuff for my books. Litigation happens."
"All I can say about the Brett Center is that it was done on time and under budget. It was done legally, and for someone else to say it could have been done in a better way, that's strictly their opinion."
"My mayoral duties are proof of my great executive experience'" she finished. "Everyone here in town has agreed about me.
"If people are voting on my experience as Wasilla's mayor, then they need to know how I did in the job," Ms. Palin said, "the good, the bad and the ugly."
But, as her son quickly noted, “she’s a survivor, and she’s going to keep trucking along.”
