All three appointees to the Board of Public Accountancy, which oversees the accounting industry, gave to her campaign for governor, as did all three appointees to the Local Boundary Commission, which regulates contentious land annexations by local governments.
Palin reappointed donor Steve Frank to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which manages Alaska's $29-billion oil revenue nest egg. Frank, a former Republican legislator, is married to another leading donor, Linda Anderson, a lobbyist for power and tourism companies, among others.
The Permanent Fund position earns a $400-a-day honorarium. Most other board and commission appointees receive per diem and travel expenses. Regardless of compensation, experts said, such appointments are coveted for their power and prestige, or as a political stepping stone.
Palin spokesman McAllister said that most Cabinet-level officials she appointed were not donors. In every state, he added, people who "apply to serve in a voluntary role are typically supporters of the governor."
Records show that Palin donors obtained state-subsidized business loans from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, whose mission is to encourage "economic growth and diversification of the state, including expansion of small businesses."
In one case, Jae G. Lee, a former Los Angeles businessman who is the proprietor of Party Time, a rundown grocery store and bottle shop in Anchorage, sought a $2.7-million state loan to buy an aging strip mall in midtown Anchorage. It was on the market because of a glut of similar malls in the area, all of them losing customers to big-box stores.
Lee and his wife, who had contributed $3,000 worth of office space to Palin's 2006 campaign, won the low-interest, state-backed mortgage although it was unclear how the old mall would add jobs. Lee said he did nothing to improve his acquisition, but with the cheap loan his profits have been robust.
Lee said he did not seek Palin's help to obtain the loan.
Two other state-backed loans with favorable terms and questionable development benefits went to Palin contributor and local dentist Scott Laudon and his partners. The investors got $1.2 million to refinance debt on Northern Lights Village -- a gritty collection of shops including massage and tattoo parlors, a secondhand-clothing store and a video arcade. Its neighbors along a 1 1/2 -mile stretch of Northern Lights Boulevard in midtown Anchorage include a dozen strip malls.
