Palin sends right-hand man home

WASILLA -- With seven weeks left before the end of her administration, Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin sent Deputy Administrator John Cramer home for good. The dismissal came on Aug. 9, just 18 days before Alaska's statewide primary election in which Palin is running for the Republican Party's nomination for lieutenant governor.

Cramer said he had a previously scheduled vacation the week of Aug. 12-16. Sometime during the week prior to his vacation he received a notice dismissing him as of 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9. He sent a farewell e-mail to an unknown number of city employees on Saturday, Aug. 10. The "To:" field in a copy of the e-mail forwarded to the Frontiersman has hidden addresses and simply says "Everyone."

Palin said Cramer's dismissal was not controversial and that she wants the transition at city hall after the October election to go smoothly.

"This isn't a controversial thing. People, for political reasons, might want to make it controversial, but it's not," Palin said. "After six years, it's time for the transition in my last six weeks here. So, we're just wrapping things up and moving forward."

Cramer said he didn't expect to be dismissed early, but that it was the mayor's prerogative to let him go at any time.

"I wasn't anticipating coming off of vacation and then not being employed by the city of Wasilla," Cramer said. "But certainly, that's her prerogative as mayor, and I understand that."

Cramer was one of nine exempt employees at city hall who serve at the pleasure of the administration. Exempt employees may be legally dismissed without cause. The city council also has two exempt employees, the city clerk and the city attorney. The mayor's exempt employees include department heads such as the city planner, police chief and library director, as well as the deputy administrator -- the mayor's right hand -- and the mayor's secretary.

A week after his dismissal, Cramer said he thought he would have been able to assist in the upcoming transition, that he had been dismissed sooner than he expected, and that he wasn't given an explicit reason for his dismissal.

"My departure was ahead of when I would have liked to have made that decision," Cramer said, but added that political appointees are hired with the expectation of being dismissed at any time. Still, Cramer thinks he would have been valuable during the transition.

"Based on my experience over the last six years with the city, I certainly felt that I would have been valuable to the next person, whoever that may be," Cramer said.

Palin said Cramer was leaving specifically to make the transition to the next administration smoother.

"The last thing I want to do is have the next administration go through what I had to go through," Palin said, referring to the transition from the administration of former mayor John Stein to her own administration six years ago.

Cramer and Palin both give each other high marks and seem to have similar ideas about how a small town ought to be run. Both say they have worked well together. The only point on which they seem to disagree is whether or not having Cramer at city hall for the last seven weeks of the Palin administration would have been practical.

"We worked wonderfully together, but that doesn't mean the next mayor is going to have the same experience," Palin said.

Both Cramer and Palin mentioned the rough transition six years ago.

"I think there's a little chaos if everything was done on the same day. I don't want to see that for my community," Palin said.

Asked if there were any recent issues that might have brought about his dismissal, Cramer couldn't come up with any.

"Not that I'm aware of. No. Not that I can put my finger on. I honestly can't say what it would be," Cramer said.