Fairbanks school board chair accuses three Interior lawmakers of taking $70,000 bribes

The quality of the Fairbanks School Board was on full display on Tuesday night, as Brandy Harty, president of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Board of Education, spoke of her disappointment in three Interior lawmakers who voted against a mega-spending bill that would have given districts $680 more per student each year going forward, without any expectation of improvement in the quality of education and without so much as a fiscal note.

During her dramatic remarks, Harty sobbed through her condemnation of three Fairbanks legislators, and then accused Rep. Frank Tomaszewski, Rep. Mike Cronk, and Sen. Robb Myers of taking $70,000 campaign contributions in exchange for their no votes. In other words, she accused them of taking bribes for their votes.

She then beseeched the journalists in the audience to not quote her on that, because it was just a rumor that she had heard. Watch her spread a rumor accusing lawmakers of felony crimes in this video clip from the March 19 school board meeting:

Harty also said she would give Rep. Mike Prax of North Pole “a pass” since he never voted in favor of the legislation to begin with.

She was reacting to proceedings on Monday, when the Alaska Legislature failed to override a veto from the governor on Senate Bill 140. The bill started out as authorizing legislation for rural broadband improvement, but ended up being the vehicle for the National Education Association Alaska to get the extra locked-in funding formula it has been lobbying for over the past few legislative sessions.

There are other education funding bills in process in Juneau, but Harty had her heart set on SB 140 as being the only one that could possibly meet her expectations.

Harty, a former special education teacher, is the recipient of generous union campaign contributions. In her last race she received support from APEA/AFT (American Federation of Teachers, and Local 52 PAC, ASEA/AFSCME, which gave her $1,200 for her campaign for school board. She has been lobbying for a higher base student allocation for months.

Recently, Fairbanks North Star Borough School District was shown to have cooperated with the campaign staff for Rep. Mary Peltola, in helping her put together a campaign event at a North Pole school during school hours, which is a violation of law. The record shows that the district administrators assisted the campaign in breaking the law.