Republican vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin doesn't seem to think much of the government's role in promoting culture.
In light of Time's revelation today that she threatened to fire a Wasilla, Alaska librarian who refused to help her ban books, I was keenly interested to learn that she sought to downsize the three-member staff of the Wasilla city museum in 1997 even as the city was flush with cash.
According to a Anchorage Daily News report from August 1997, Palin, then mayor of the town of about 5,000, engineered a $32,000 cut in the museum's budget, forcing the institution to choose which of three over-65 staffers to lay off. Instead, all three quit in protest.
The city at the time held $4m in budget reserves, the paper reported.
But the mayor and the City Council members who supported the cut say the surplus is beside the point. They were elected to minimize government and concentrate on infrastructure - paving roads and extending sewer lines. They also want the museum operation run better.
"I think everybody was in agreement there were ways to make the museum more efficient, to spend taxpayers' dollars wiser over there," Mayor Sarah Palin said.
The museum, which had an annual budget of more than $200,000, was costing roughly $25 per visitor, she said. Besides, she added: "If you talk to someone in Wasilla [about] where they want their tax dollars to go, nine out of 10 say, 'Fix my road. I still don't have water in my area. And protect our lakes with a sewer system.' "
According to the piece, the museum collection featured mining and homestead memorabilia and pieces from early Wasilla history.
