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Sunday, April 19, 2015

Steve Heimel, Bill Weimar, Joe McKinnon, Paul Fuhs, and Cal Williams Talk About the Old Days - Monday Evening

Photo from 2007 at Federal Court Building
Looooooong time radio news man Steve Heimel will do a public oral history collection session

Monday (April 20) at the  KAKM studio, 
6:30-8 pm.

Subject will be the Ad Hoc movement of the early 1970's in Alaska

Participants:   Bill Weimar, Paul Fuhs, Joe McKinnon, Cal Williams.

The public is welcome.

Jack Roderick, former Anchorage Borough Mayor, writes about the ad hoc Democrats on page 359 in  his book Crude Dreams:



Now this is a particularly colorful group.   Bill Weimar later ran private prisons and halfway houses, and made a $30,000 loan to Frank Prewitt, who was commissioner of corrections at the time.  The FBI's stake out in the Baranof Hotel in Juneau that led to a string of convictions, started with interest in the private prisons.  Frank Prewitt decided to cooperate with the FBI and was a key witness in the trial that convicted Tom Anderson.

I remember in court when Anderson's attorney cross-examined Prewitt about that $30,000 loan from Weimar.  From my blog June 29, 2007: 
"When Stockler finally did get to start his cross examination of Prewitt at 3:45pm, he lit right into him and then he began to try to show Anderson's behavior in a more positive light. First he hit Prewitt with a series of incidents that he suggested he could have gone to prison for.

1. A $30,000 loan Prewitt, while Commissioner of Corrections, got from Allvest another firm that subcontracted with the Department of Corrections (I think that's what he said.) Prewitt said he got the loan and paid it back.
Stockler: Is there anything in writing? Isn't it true it was a bribe?
Prewitt:  No.
Stockler:  How did you pay it back?
Prewitt:  I worked for Allvest for four months - $7500 per month.
Stockler:  Did you pay taxes on the $30,000?
Prewitt:  No, it was a loan.
Stockler:  But you say you worked for it.
Prewitt:  No, I was paying him back.
Stockler:  So, all of us could avoid paying income taxes by having our employer loan us our pay before, and then we'd repay it by working and not have to pay taxes?"  [I've reformatted the Q&A to make it clearer.]

Here's Weimar's indictment from an August 11, 2008 post:
  • Count 1
...William Weimar, Candidate A, Consultant A, and others known and unknown, did knowingly and unlawfully conspire . . . to deprive the the public of the honest services that Candidate A would provide as an Alaska State Legislator, through a scheme to disguise WEIMAR’s direct payment to CONSULTANT A of approximately $20,000 in expenses for CANDIDATE A’s campaign for the legislature, without reporting the payment as required by applicable Alaska law and regulations and without routing it for payment through CANDIDATE A’s campaign, and through the foreseeable use of the mails, interstate were communications, in violation of Title 18 US Code Section 1341, 1343, and 1346.

  • Count 2
Weimar concealed the money through breaking the $20,000 into three payments to avoid the required reporting of transactions over $10,000.

And here's Michael Carey's  bio of pre-Alaska Bill Weimar.   [Monday, April 10, 10:30am  I've fixed this link]


I knew about Paul Fuhs as a fish guy.  He's been mayor of Dutch Harbor and commissioner of the Department of Commerce and Economic Development.  While looking for more on Fuhs I found this video on Youtube
"This performance by Steve Nelson (piano, vocals) and Paul Fuhs (vocals) with accompaniment by members of the Soviet Border Guard Military Band and their conductor was recorded in Vladivostok, Russia in May 1990 at the studio of the local state television station."  [The link gives a longer account of how this video came to be.]






I met attorney Joe McKinnon at the redistricting board meetings.  Actually I think I met him during the political trials - I think he was representing one of the witnesses.  This link goes to a brief video of Joe after one of the redistricting board meetings.


Finally, Cal Williams, who moved to Alaska in 1973 after working for civil rights in his home state of Louisiana.  He's been involved in Alaska politics since. 

This should be good stuff.


Tuesday, Steve's going to reading from a manuscript, "My First 50 Years in Broadcasting" at the UAA Bookstore."  4pm.

2 comments:

  1. And here's Michael Carey's bio of pre-Alaska Bill Weimar. = BAD LINK

    http://www.adn.com/article/20110411/making-bill-weimar

    Too bad the comments can't be read anymore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Anon. Someone else told me too and I fixed it in the text. It's strange because it says I could make a comment there now, but I don't see any comments. It's also kind of weird to see the old Daily News articles under the Dispatch banner as if this had been published by the Dispatch. In the old days, if you had to look up the old paper copy, it would be clear it was from the Daily News. How will this affect historians and other researchers who might not know that this was a Daily News story? This is how we change history. Maybe if we can find the cached Daily News story we can retrieve the comments.

      Delete

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