photos: Cheryl Moseley King and Kristan Cole
READ THE WHOLE WSJ ARTICLE HERE:
Creamery Case Has Palin Critics Taking Aim at Fiscal-Conservative Claim
Redux: Wall Street Journal SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
EXCERPTS:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin promotes herself as a small-government conservative. But when Alaska government officials wanted to shut down a money-losing creamery, the governor overturned the decision after dairy farmers near her hometown complained the loss of subsidies would cripple them.
On June 16, 2007, Gov. (hottest governor) Palin attended a rally by dairy farmers near her hometown of Wasilla who pleaded that the creamery stay open to help them and other members of the local dairy industry. "Things are kind of a mess right now with what's happening with Mat-Maid, and we're going to clean it up," the governor said at the event.
She then sacked the creamery board and replaced it. The new board, headed by one of her childhood (famous Palin cronies) friends, ordered the creamery kept open. Six months later -- after the business racked up more than $800,000 in additional losses, according to state officials -- the new board ordered it closed again.
Matanuska Maid has had a checkered financial history. Formed by a farmers' cooperative in 1936, the creamery was taken over by the state in 1984 after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a legal dispute. One of the employees, Joseph Van Treeck, was named chief executive in 1985 and went on to run a mostly profitable business for the next two decades.
After the state board ordered the creamery closed, Gov. Palin -- with an entourage that included her husband, Todd; daughter Piper; and representatives of the news media -- showed up at Matanuska Maid's two-story plant and requested a tour. Although the governor's office said at the time that the visit had been scheduled, plant officials said they got little advance notice. Workers told her she would have to be accompanied by Mr. Van Treeck, who was in a Creamery Board meeting at an Anchorage hotel about two miles away. After he declined to leave the meeting, board member Rhonda Boyles says she, Ms. Boyles, warned him, "Joe, this will be on the 10 o'clock news."
(Kristan Cole, Trustee of the Alaskan Trust. Cole's success is catching on, Bristol Palin has real estate
agent dreams since graduating from WHS. In Bristol's spare time she is fund raising and advocating for teens to trust her and not have sex )
Within days, the governor replaced the entire Board of Agriculture and Conservation, which oversees the Creamery Board. The new agriculture board then appointed itself as the Creamery Board and named Kristan Cole -- a grade-school classmate of Gov. Palin -- as the chairman. The new board reversed the closure and removed Mr. Van Treeck as CEO. He filed a suit in Alaska Superior Court charging he didn't get what he was owed. The case is still pending.
Ms. Cole declined to comment on the suit. She blamed mismanagement by the past regime for
(photos of Kristan and Brad Cole, Hawaii, the Cole house in Wasilla and Kristan Cole Management)
Ms. Cole said the extra time allowed the farmers to find new buyers, including a private creamery that recently opened near Wasilla with a federal grant. Meanwhile, the state has raised $2.9 million from the sale of property, equipment and inventory and is seeking to sell another parcel appraised at $1.3 million. "At the end of the day, farmers are still working, and that's a positive thing," Ms. Cole says.
****Palingates more Dairygate
*** aft agreement June 19th, 2009 at 9:52 AM
** Mudflats April 24, 2009 Under the category of “you can’t make this stuff up, Cole’s mother, Cheryl Moseley King has a colorful past involving…(wait for it)….trust fund money. We can only hope that Cole did not inherit her philosophy of money management.
*The Valley Dairy: Got Fraud?
READ THE WHOLE WSJ ARTICLE HERE:
Creamery Case Has Palin Critics Taking Aim at Fiscal-Conservative Claim
Redux: Wall Street Journal SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
EXCERPTS:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin promotes herself as a small-government conservative. But when Alaska government officials wanted to shut down a money-losing creamery, the governor overturned the decision after dairy farmers near her hometown complained the loss of subsidies would cripple them.
On June 16, 2007, Gov. (hottest governor) Palin attended a rally by dairy farmers near her hometown of Wasilla who pleaded that the creamery stay open to help them and other members of the local dairy industry. "Things are kind of a mess right now with what's happening with Mat-Maid, and we're going to clean it up," the governor said at the event.
She then sacked the creamery board and replaced it. The new board, headed by one of her childhood (famous Palin cronies) friends, ordered the creamery kept open. Six months later -- after the business racked up more than $800,000 in additional losses, according to state officials -- the new board ordered it closed again.
Matanuska Maid has had a checkered financial history. Formed by a farmers' cooperative in 1936, the creamery was taken over by the state in 1984 after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a legal dispute. One of the employees, Joseph Van Treeck, was named chief executive in 1985 and went on to run a mostly profitable business for the next two decades.
After the state board ordered the creamery closed, Gov. Palin -- with an entourage that included her husband, Todd; daughter Piper; and representatives of the news media -- showed up at Matanuska Maid's two-story plant and requested a tour. Although the governor's office said at the time that the visit had been scheduled, plant officials said they got little advance notice. Workers told her she would have to be accompanied by Mr. Van Treeck, who was in a Creamery Board meeting at an Anchorage hotel about two miles away. After he declined to leave the meeting, board member Rhonda Boyles says she, Ms. Boyles, warned him, "Joe, this will be on the 10 o'clock news."
(Kristan Cole, Trustee of the Alaskan Trust. Cole's success is catching on, Bristol Palin has real estate
agent dreams since graduating from WHS. In Bristol's spare time she is fund raising and advocating for teens to trust her and not have sex )
Within days, the governor replaced the entire Board of Agriculture and Conservation, which oversees the Creamery Board. The new agriculture board then appointed itself as the Creamery Board and named Kristan Cole -- a grade-school classmate of Gov. Palin -- as the chairman. The new board reversed the closure and removed Mr. Van Treeck as CEO. He filed a suit in Alaska Superior Court charging he didn't get what he was owed. The case is still pending.Ms. Cole declined to comment on the suit. She blamed mismanagement by the past regime for
(photos of Kristan and Brad Cole, Hawaii, the Cole house in Wasilla and Kristan Cole Management)
Ms. Cole said the extra time allowed the farmers to find new buyers, including a private creamery that recently opened near Wasilla with a federal grant. Meanwhile, the state has raised $2.9 million from the sale of property, equipment and inventory and is seeking to sell another parcel appraised at $1.3 million. "At the end of the day, farmers are still working, and that's a positive thing," Ms. Cole says.
****Palingates more Dairygate
*** aft agreement June 19th, 2009 at 9:52 AM
** Mudflats April 24, 2009 Under the category of “you can’t make this stuff up, Cole’s mother, Cheryl Moseley King has a colorful past involving…(wait for it)….trust fund money. We can only hope that Cole did not inherit her philosophy of money management.
*The Valley Dairy: Got Fraud?
Early in 2002, B.C. broker Cheryl King shocked the local real estate community and the 35 sales reps at her Re/Max Assist Realty office in Kamloops when she disappeared, along with trust fund money and real estate commissions.
She faced charges of fraud, breach of trust and forgery, but it took until last month before the issue was resolved. King, now known as Cheryl Moseley, pleaded guilty to one charge of illegally accessing trust funds on June 21, reports The Daily News in Kamloops.
