On June 11, the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) issued a scathing rebuke of Anchorage Assembly Member George Martinez for using campaign contributions to purchase both airline reward points and a frivolous round-trip flight to the Fort Lauderdale airport, thereby accruing airline miles. Martinez described his travel as a solo “strategic planning retreat,” claiming that time in the airport and in the air helped him conduct his campaign. APOC described Martinez’ scheme as “particularly egregious” and fined the Assembly Member over $5,300 – the maximum amount allowed under law.
Now, an unrepentant Martinez has doubled down, proposing an expansive program to allow all Anchorage municipal employees to fly to both domestic and international airports to conduct their own solo strategic planning retreats.
“As I have so clearly and exquisitely found through my own personal exploitations,” Martinez wrote in a press release about the proposed program, “ones best work is done whilst being shepherded through the lines of a TSA screening, ensconced in a distinguished airport lounge, or borne aloft on the fair wings of a 737 o’er both national and international waters. Success for our august municipality hinges upon the ability of our dear and cherished municipal workers to conduct their businesses in the most conducive of locations, whether that be the window seat of an Embraer 175 soaring over the Nevada Desert or in the Miami International Airport Chipotle.”
Martinez explained that his program would not allow municipal employees to leave any airports, but would only permit them to travel back and forth across the country and to select international locations. Municipal employees would be required to bring municipally-issued laptops and verbally affirm that they had performed municipal work while on their solo strategic planning retreats…