With new questions being raised about Joe Miller's behavior as a Fairbanks North Star Borough attorney, Alaska Dispatch has asked borough officials to reconsider their refusal to fully release a number of documents from Miller's personnel file.

The request comes amid accusations that while employed as a borough attorney and on borough time, Miller used borough computers for politicking -- the sort of problem that forced Alaska GOP chairman Randy Ruedrich to leave his job at the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. A former borough employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Alaska Dispatch that Miller was caught doing the same sort of thing in 2008.

Requests put into Miller this weekend for a response to the accusation went unanswered, although attorney Thomas Van Flein -- who monitored ballot counts after the primary for Miller, has worked for the Palin family, and who is assisting Miller's campaign in connection with this issue -- did contact Alaska Dispatch seeking information about whether reporters had obtained Miller's personnel file.

Miller recently accused the borough itself of politicking and asked for a public outcry in response. "The Fairbanks North Star Borough must be held to account by voters for FNSB employees' use of borough assets to assist the Murkowski campaign," he said in a statement posted on his website. "An immediate investigation should ensue."

Alaska Dispatch is now seeking information from the borough on two distinct issues: the circumstances leading up to Miller's resignation, and a series of entries in his file chronicled over a one-week period in March 2008. That timeframe coincides with the Alaska Republican Party's annual convention and Miller's failed effort alongside the state's newly installed governor, Sarah Palin, to get rid of party chair Ruedrich.

Palin, a onetime AOGCC commissioner, exposed Ruedrich's ethical lapses in conducting Republican business out of his office at work and then used her reputation as a corruption fighter to bootstrap her way into the governor's office.

Miller, a former borough attorney who is now a contender for U.S. Senate, has said a number of times he wants "full disclosure" regarding his departure from the borough, wrote Alaska Dispatch attorney D. John McKay in a letter sent last week to the borough seeking the release of more of Miller's records in furtherance of Miller's wish.

The fact that Miller is running for Senate makes it even more important that any questions about his government service be cleared up by the borough making records public, McKay said. He noted that the law allows for disclosure; the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled on a number of occasions that "applicants for high government positions expose their private lives to public scrutiny."

Moreover, he said, the high court has said that information and personnel records can be made public when the matter affects the public.

Lots of talk, but few answers

Speculation about Miller's departure from the Fairbanks North Star Borough began on June 28 when Andrew Halcro, a political blogger and friend of Murkowski, posted a simple item on his blog entitled "We Know Palin Quit ... But why was Miller Fired?"