Chuck Kopp resigns effective immediately
Per KTUU 5:00 report breaking news: Kopp resigns on his own "for the good of the Department of Public Safety."
More at 6:00 PM report and the press release should be out any second...we hope...
Per ADN:
In a brief news conference with Gov. Sarah Palin in her Anchorage office late this afternoon, Kopp said he was stepping down effective immediately. Kopp, appointed to replace former Commissioner Walt Monegan 10 days ago, said recent scrutiny of a 2005 sexual harassment complaint has been too hard on his family.
Neither Kopp nor the governor would answer questions.
"We're going to move forward now," Palin said. "This has been brutal on a good family."
No replacement has been announced.
I'll bet...not for awhile...
This is the part I love:
"The recent media firestorm has been detrimental to the Department of Public Safety mission, the citizens of Alaska and my family," Kopp said. "While I have been portrayed in a negative light, my personal worth is now in the person of Jesus Christ."
Yeah, it's always a good idea to bring Jesus into these things.
Perhaps the fact that media folks and bloggers like myself have been getting all kinds of emails and comments had something to do with this? Perhaps we were calling and emailing the right people and it was only a matter of time before someone went on the record with information proving that you lied through that entire previous press conference on the nature of your harassment? Perhaps the idea of a FOIA requesting access to all of your non-case-related phone conversations with dispatchers (which are recorded) made you nervous about big trouble down the road?
Perhaps the reason you resigned wasn't because of the "media firestorm" that YOU created, but because there were more chickens that were about to roost on top of the other ones?
Buh bye...don't let the door hit ya--well, you know the rest...
***UPDATE***
HERE is the raw feed of Kopp's statement at the press conference.
HERE is the raw feed of the Governor's statement.
Labels: Chuck Kopp, Commissioner, controversy, Department of Public Safety, fired, Governor Sarah Palin, media firestorm, press conference, resign, sex harasser, sexual harassment, Walt Monegan
posted by CelticDiva at 5:28 PM
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11 Comments:
Can Monegan have his damn job back now?
By the way Diva good job of keeping the heat on. I think your blogging may have actually helped to hurry this along.
I wish she'd bring Monegan back...I don't think we'll get that lucky, though.
Thanks, Gryphen, for the compliment. Not sure this little blog itself did anything but my emails and phone calls to Kenai last night and today may have helped!
However, I suspect I was only one of many :D
I have to thank the Independent Alaska media community (and ya'll know who you are). A few of us have compared notes regularly throughout this adventure which helps all of us to know when we are on the right track!
You go gurl!
What ya got to say now, Ish-may-el? Mmmmmm?
Monegan could come back, but the underlying problem is structural, I think. When a complaint is filed against a State Trooper, particularly involving a dispute within the Trooper's family and affecting his children, to send another State Trooper to investigate is a conflict of interest. The investigating Trooper is also a member of the force and a member of the union. Those affiliations run counter to the Trooper being unencumbered to investigate and act, in protection of, the wife and the children. As a result, the Commissioner of Public Safety is caught between two competing interests - protecting the public & and managing the troopers according to their labor contract. In this instance, who spoke for the children? If this situation were to happen again, the Commissioner ought to have a statute to fall back on, with the requirement to bring in an independent authority to clearly represent the interests of the public in protecting the family - the wife and the children. In that manner, the integrity of the Alaska State Troopers is not called into question. It is a special case, but it happened, and the Commissioner ought not to face it again without tools. The situation could have been violent; thank goodness it was not.
I think Ish actually had some good points. He is a good man and I respect him so give him a break. The problem with Kopp wasn't that he may or may not have deserved to be commissioner the problem was with the governor and her handlers.
1. They should have advised Kopp better and told him to man up, admit that he got reprimanded and moved on. It seems to me that Kopp was selected and put out in front of the press and he blew his one chance to make this issue go away. His press conference caused many (including me) to have no confidence in him.
2. This mess is Sarah's fault. It started with letting her personal feelings affect her decisions regarding the trooper then...
3. She fired a good and popular public servant then...
4. She handled it poorly. She opened herself up to Andrew Halcro and he smelled blood and finally really found something to sink his teeth into that ot people's attention.
Kopp was just one link in the governor's chain. It wasn't really about him or the harassment claim. It was about integrity and immediately losing the people's trust. This is the governor fault. She is responsible for this mess.
I agree, Art and I've been saying that. Sarah chose someone who was completely unprepared and incapable of dealing with that kind of scrutiny and then left him there, like an insect being burned by a magnifying glass.
However, his choice to consistently lie is what made him ineligible for the job.
I like and respect Ish as well but I won't apologize for my "Alaska Hillbillies" post. I was using humor to make a point about a very public figure. While the governor put him in the limelight, he's the one that chose to try hiding in the shadows.
In the Palin family, as for many of us, children come first. I think the Palin family felt, with some justification, that the children were in danger. The Commissioner was caught up in representing the trooper and the labor contract rather than the public. The issue is about who speaks for and protects the children. When the State Troopers did not rise to that task, the Palins formed rank around the children, wholly predictable given their family values. It was at that point when Commissioner Monegan should have had a tool to bring in an external investigator, but he did not have that tool. The problem ought to be de-politicized a bit, and approached with a little more understanding. The causes of this problem can be fixed, so that it does not happen again. I recommend dropping the perception of political advantage on this problem. I am hoping that 'Progressive' means fixing problems, and not falling into the same old pattern of partisan politics accompanied by polarization.
Polar:
I know all about "trancending partisan politics" as during this entire issue, folks who generally hate me on the ADN site were actually giving me compliments in their comments.
I felt the need to take a shower.
While I believe that maybe the Palins have talked themselves into thinking this was about the children, Sarah's email to former Col. Julia Grimes betrays otherwise.
NONE OF THIS STARTED...MIKE WOOTEN WASN'T DEEMED "DANGEROUS" BY THE PALIN FAMILY...UNTIL MIKE WOOTEN WAS SEEN IN PUBLIC WITH HIS "MISTRESS."
Sarah is reacting as the sister of a woman scorned and while I agree that cheating parents do not provide the best role models, cheating in and of itself does not necessarily put the child in "danger."
The "righteous" Palins were perfectly OK with Wooten shooting a moose on his wife's tag...up to that point. Nothing was said about any tasering issue...up to that point. The more-than-36 charges didn't start flying...until that point.
What's more accurate here (and every piece of newly-discovered behavior is backing this up) is that the Heath/Palins act like the traditional Norwegian or Celtic clans of old--if you insult any member of the "clan" you will "suffer" until the last member's dying breath.
Ack--change "Norwegian" to "Norse".
Welcome to reality, Diva.
Scary, ain't it? Remember, she knows who you are.
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