Single Page
Sullivan's life insurance headacheSome Anchorage residents have taken umbrage at an unusual appropriation approved in February by the Anchorage Assembly: $193,000 to the George M. Sullivan Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust. That's former Mayor George M. Sullivan, whose life insurance was guaranteed by the Assembly in an unusual move decades ago, and who was father to the current mayor, Dan Sullivan -- the man who happens to be the trustee of said life insurance trust. (Got all that? The Anchorage Daily News has a handy timeline.) Critics have lambasted the mayor for requesting the appropriation three weeks before he cut and/or scaled back special rescue and hazardous materials teams to trim $150,000 from the Anchorage Fire Department budget. Sullivan said it's an "odd coincidence" that he turned out to be the mayor under whose administration the life insurance deal, arranged by the Assembly in 1982, came due for a payout. The elder Sullivan passed away in September 2009; his wife, Margaret, died in 2007. Assembly member Harriet Drummond, the sole vote against the appropriation, has introduced a resolution (.pdf) to authorize engaging independent counsel to evalute the legality of the life insurance payout. That resolution will be presented for action at the Assembly's March 23 meeting. Correction: The original story wrongly said that Debbie Ossiander was the the no vote. |
