|
Herald-Leader
November 20, 2003
Patton fills various board seats
REPUBLICANS CRYING FOUL AT LAME-DUCK MOVE
FRANKFORT - Bernie Kunkel waited years for a Republican governor who would
appoint conservatives like him to state boards and commissions.
He'll have to wait a while longer.
With less than three weeks left in office, Democratic Gov. Paul Patton is methodically
filling every seat on the more than 300 boards that help decide government policy,
steer the huge bureaucracy and regulate industries, from the State Fair Board
to the Executive Branch Ethics Commission.
Republicans and their incoming governor, Ernie Fletcher, are crying foul. Although
Patton has the authority to pack seats with anyone he chooses until Dec. 9,
that-doesn't mean he should, they said. Fletcher is urging recent Patton appointees
to decline to serve.
"Any additional appointments will be disappointing as Kentuckians overwhelmingly
gave us a mandate to bring-real change to state government, and that includes
boards and commissions," said Daniel Groves, Fletcher's chief of staff.
Although the Patton administration wants a peaceful transition, it won't relinquish
power early, said Bill Beam, the governor's director of boards and commissions.
"We'll be as gracious as we can be," Beam said. "But if there
is an appointment to be made while the governor is serving his term, then he
should have the opportunity to execute it."
Last Friday, Patton appointed or reappointed 10 people to the scandal-tainted,
11-member Kentucky Racing Commission, including its embattled chairman, Democratic
fund-raiser Frank Shoop. All had been serving expired terms.
Yesterday, Patton sent out a news release seeking applications for an opening
on the Jefferson Community College Board of Directors, and named more than 20
people to nearly a dozen other boards.
One of those, the ethics commission, settled misconduct charges against Patton
on Sunday; it also will monitor the incoming Fletcher administration.
Before Dec. 9, Patton plans to fill seats at 29 more boards, including an $85,000-a-year
post at the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, Beam said.
Republicans want posts
Meanwhile, some Republicans are impatient for an appointment after 32 years
of-Democratic governors.
Only about two dozen boards offer a full-time wage for appointees. But nearly
all -- even the Barbering Board and Podiatry Board -- control a slice of life
that's important to somebody.
Kunkel, for one, said he repeatedly applied to the Patton administration for
a seat on boards related to taxes or land ownership. Nobody replied, he said.
Now his resume is headed to Frankfort again, this time to Fletcher.
"I don't think a lot of us from Northern Kentucky -- who are pro-life,
who support gun ownership and private property rights -- ever had a chance to
serve," said Kunkel, an anti-tax activist in Boone County. "So it's
really a shame Patton is filling all these positions now that he's a lame duck."
Seat-packing is a common if controversial tradition at the end of most administrations
in Frankfort, as departing governors seek to leave their stamp on government.
In 1991, Gov. Wallace Wilkinson went one step further. With eight days left,
Wilkinson named himself to the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, considered
one of the juiciest of plums. UK faculty members and alumni were so outraged
that the legislature and Wilkinson's successor, Brereton Jones, rewrote state
law in order to dump him.
So far, Patton has expressed no interest in awarding himself a seat anywhere,
Beam said.
Appointments will expire
Still, Fletcher's not completely out of luck.
He will be stuck with Patton appointees throughout his term. However, their
numbers will diminish as their staggered terms expire, at which point Fletcher
can name his own people. At the racing commission, for example, two seats come
open in March. The new governor can also choose someone other than Shoop as
chairman.
Also, the Republican-led Senate must confirm appointments to 22 boards and
commissions, including the Public Service Commission, the Parole Board, the
Council on Postsecondary Education and the Lottery Board.
Some confirmation votes could get messy this winter, after the legislature
convenes. Yesterday, several Senate leaders came out fighting and accused the
lame-duck governor of unseemly arrogance.
"I actually admired Paul Patton and even considered him a friend until
last week, when he decided to push for keno and make all these appointments,
all at the last minute," said Sen. Charlie Borders, R-Russell, the Republican
caucus chair.
"It's like he's somehow more important than the commonwealth," Borders
said. "It's like his ego is more important than allowing the next administration
to start finding its voice."
Fletcher to name education secretary
Herald-Leader
November 20, 2003
Gov. Paul Patton could fill openings on the following boards and commissions...
Other positions Patton could fill
Gov. Paul Patton could fill openings on the following boards and commissions
before leaving office, according to his staff:
• Big Sandy Community and Technical College Board of Directors
• Bowling Green District Community Technical College Nominating Commission
• Ashland Community College Board of Directors
• Bluegrass District Community Technical College Board of Directors
• Commission on Small Business Advocacy
• Board of Certification of Alcohol and Drug Counselors
• Board of Examiners of Psychology
• Advisory Council for Medical Assistance
• Workforce Investment Board
• Public Service Commission
• Commission on Family Farms
• Licensing Board for Specialists in Hearing Instruments
• Early Childhood Business Council
• Forestry Best Management Practices Board
• Eastern Kentucky Exposition Center Board of Directors
• Northern Kentucky Exposition Center Board of Directors
• Kentucky Military Museum
• National Guard and Reserve Employers' Council
• State Advisory Council on Libraries
• Forest Products Council
• Board of Interpreters for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• Blaine City Commission
• State Advisory Panel for Exceptional Children
• Board of Barbering
• Motorcycle Advisory Commission for Highway Safety
• Workmen's Compensation Nominating Commission
• Consumers Advisory Council
• Board of Architects
• Commission on Corrections and Community Service
Herald-Leader
November 21, 2003
Somerset plane crash kills 3
TWO OF THE VICTIMS WERE PILOTS
SOMERSET - A small single-engine airplane experienced engine problems during
takeoff from the Somerset airport yesterday and lost power while trying to turn
back toward the runway, crashing and killing the three people aboard.
Pulaski County Coroner Richard New said the victims were Brian Roberts, 24,
of Somerset; Terry Sumpter, 47, of Monticello; and James F. McGettigan, 60,
of Marlton, N.J.
Sumpter and Roberts were both pilots. Roberts was on his way to take a flight
test in order to qualify for his commercial pilot's license; McGettigan, an
education consultant, was hitching a ride to Lexington to catch a commercial
flight.
It was the third fatal airplane crash near the Somerset-Pulaski County Airport
this year. A total of seven people died in the accidents.
Shannon Smith, a Somerset police detective and a flight instructor, was at
the airport yesterday preparing for a flight and saw the J35 model Beechcraft
Bonanza lift off just before 8:30 a.m. The engine missed one time as the plane
gathered speed down the runway, then began cutting out more after the plane
lifted off and climbed as high as 200 to 300 feet, Smith said.
The pilot began turning left to try to bring the plane back to the runway,
then lost power altogether and went down, Smith said.
The four-seat plane clipped the top of a tall evergreen tree and crashed sharply
into the ground. It came to rest upside down in a small clearing in the woods
at the edge of the Somerset Community College campus, which adjoins the airport.
There was a large open area just ahead, behind the college tennis courts, that
the pilot may have been trying to reach for a forced landing.
"Another hundred feet and he may have been able to land her," said
New.
Police, firefighters, emergency personnel and some bystanders from the college
rushed to the scene. "I had high hopes for survivors," in part because
there was no fire, but those hopes vanished when he got to the wreckage, Smith
said.
Emergency medical workers removed the pilot from the crumpled plane because
they thought they detected a faint heartbeat, but they were unable to revive
him, New said.
New pronounced all three men dead at the scene.
The plane was a 1958 model. Smith said he had flown the same plane and that
it had no history of accidents or recurring problems.
An official from the Federal Aviation Administration arrived in Somerset yesterday
afternoon to begin investigating. National Transportation Safety Board investigators
were due in last night, said Tiger Robinson, Pulaski County emergency management
director.
Sumpter and New were both safe, proficient pilots, said several people who
knew them.
"Both of them were stellar individuals," said Mel Burns, airport
manager. "It just tears you apart."
New said Sumpter was in the pilot's seat and was believed to have been flying
the plane, while Roberts was in the co-pilot's seat.
Roberts was on his way to Bowling Green to fly a "check ride" with
the FAA in order to qualify for a commercial pilot's license, and Sumpter, who
had been Roberts' instructor, was riding along. Roberts and Sumpter had told
him they planned to go by way of Lexington, Smith said.
McGettigan caught a ride with them to the Lexington airport. It was unclear
yesterday how he made contact with them.
McGettigan had a doctorate in education and operated a business advising institutions
and businesses with adult education, according to a resumŽ his family provided.
McGettigan was in Somerset on business, but his wife was hospitalized after
the crash, and other family members did not know who he was working with locally,
said his stepson, Craig McGettigan.
Sumpter was a retired Navy officer who worked at Mock Air in Somerset as a
flight instructor, said owner Dave Mockabee.
Roberts worked at Mock Air repairing, moving and refueling planes, and he had
been a soldier in the Kentucky Army National Guard with Company E, 1st Battalion
of the 149th Infantry, based in Somerset, since 2000.
Burns said Roberts wanted to fly commercially, either as a corporate or airline
pilot. His cousin, National Guard Lt. James Meece, said Roberts was also excited
about his work as a soldier.
"He was a good person and a good soldier," Meece said.
|
