Ted Stevens' Seward Folly

You may remember Ted Stevens from such sneaky moves as attaching ANWR oil drilling to a defense budget, or $223 million earmarked federal pork barrel dollars for Alaskan road projects.

In an unsurprising appropriations move by Alaska's sneakiest senator, (Gov. Murkowski holds sneakiest Alaskan title for his ongoing closed door gas line meetings) all leftover monies from the City of Seward visitor's center land appropriation fund were transferred to the Seward SeaLife Center. The collective jaw of Seward's residents dropped when they learned that they would not be receiving the $1.6 million for city projects.

Why would good ol' Uncle Ted appropriate so much money away from the visitor's center? Well, it turns out, one hand washes the other pretty well here in Alaska. Senator Stevens' ex-legislative aide, Trevor McCabe, now a lobbyist, had some leftover property that the state apparently forgot to buy when it purchased the rest of his parcels at inflated prices to build the SeaLife center. In fact, no one wanted to buy McCabe's asbestos and lead lined brick building, which only seemed like a good investment in 2003 when he bought as many of the possible future SeaLife locations as he could.

In fact, last year negotiations fell through when the Seward visitor's center refused to pay above market value for McCabe's waterfront deathtrap, which basically only has value as a lot. Finally, Uncle Ted came to the rescue, taking the $1.6 million from the coffers of the stingy visitor's center and granting it to the SeaLife center, who immediately used the funds to purchase McCabe's building.