Palin Continues to Support "Road to Nowhere" L.A. Times Reports

The Los Angeles Times today leads with aspects of the "Bridge (and Road) to Nowhere" story which have long circulated around the internet. First, they reported that Gov. Sarah Palin (R, Alaska), who supported "The Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it, kept the once-earmarked bridge funds rather than return those funds to the federal taxpayer. That money was used for other projects within Alaska.

[I]n 2006, Palin stood before residents in this region during her gubernatorial campaign and expressed support for the bridge. It became apparent after she was elected that the state's portion would be too costly, and Palin ordered transportation officials to abandon the project.

She held on to the $223 million in federally earmarked funds for other uses, such as the Gravina road, approved by her predecessor.

"Here's my question," said Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein. "If Sarah Palin is not being truthful on an issue like the Gravina bridge project, what else is she not being truthful about?"

But, more significantly, The Times reports that Palin continues to support "The Road to Nowhere."

Sarah Palin continues to build The Road to Nowhere - a dead-end road on an Alaskan island which is apparently home to all of 50 residents. The road, leading to near where the non-existant bridge was going to connect to the island, is moving ahead as though a bridge was still going to appear. From the Times story:

GRAVINA ISLAND, ALASKA — The 3.2-mile-long partially paved "road to nowhere" meanders from a small international airport on Gravina Island, home to 50 people, ending in a cul-de-sac close to a beach.

Crews are working to finish it. But no one knows when anyone will need to drive it.

That's because the $26-million road was designed to connect to the $398-million Gravina Island Bridge, more infamously known as the "bridge to nowhere."*** Gov. Sarah Palin killed the (bridge) project after it was ridiculed and Congress rescinded the money. Plans for the road moved forward anyway.

Some residents of Ketchikan -- a city of 8,000 on a neighboring island where the bridge was to end -- see the road as a symbol of wasteful spending that Palin could have curtailed. Some of them even accuse her of deception.

"Surely we won't have to commute on the highway if there won't be a bridge," said Jill Jacob, who has been writing and calling the governor's office for the last two years to protest the road. "It's a dead-end highway, a dead-end road."

Why would Palin move ahead with a Road to Nowhere? Could it be because, unlike the funding for the Bridge to Nowhere, the federal money for the road would have to be sent back if not used to build that road? Or because, if access to the island is not improved, Alaska might have to return the nearly $50,000,000 in federal money which was used for "planning" for the bridge?

From the Times article:

On a clear day recently, Mayor Weinstein flew over Gravina Island, looking down on the nearly completed road. "When Sarah Palin goes on national television and says: 'I told Congress, "Thanks but no thanks," ' it's not true," he said. "The implication is we didn't take the money. But we did."

To hell with waste and inefficiency, Sarah Palin seems to be saying, if the waste helps you, your state, and (could it be?) , your friends and campaign contributors.

It will be interesting to see how many of the companies constructing the Road to Nowhere are contributors to Palin and/or the McCain/Palin campaign, who owns land which may benefit from construction of the Road to Nowhere. (And could it be that my profile picture for this blog was taken just off the coast of Ketchikan, Alaska?)

More to be revealed.

(Photo: Hall Anderson / Ketchikan Daily News

April, 2008 trucks carry rocks to end of the Gravina Island road. All rights reserved by author, not for profit publication.).