Steve Menard, a City Councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, is being forced to repay the city for damages to a Sitka hotel room that was found trashed after his stay there.
After a meeting Monday, the City Council ordered Menard to pay back $1,404 for the cost of his trip to Sitka for an Alaska Municipal League meeting earlier this month — including a $350 bill sent to the city from the Westmark Hotel, which found the room trashed. The City Council also said Menard can’t travel for city business until his term is up in October 2013.
From the Anchorage Daily News:
The hotel reported that damage to his room included urine on two mattresses and a chair, vomit on the carpet, ruined bedding, and a burned mattress. It’s not clear exactly how it was burned but the hotel bill said there had been smoking in what was a non-smoking room.
The manager of the hotel said it took three days to clean the room, and they “actually went light on the charges.”
In a statement Monday, Menard said he would not resign, but apologized. “I would like to start off by apologizing publicly for my actions in Sitka,” he said. “The City of Wasilla, my friends and family, I’m truly embarrassed and sorry, truly sorry.”
Menard continued: “I sit here before you a humbled man 11 days sober and working a program. And only through the grace of God I will redeem myself. And I thank you.”
Menard is from an influential political family in Matanuska-Susitna Borough of Alaska. He was appointed to the Alaska Railroad’s board of directors by then Gov. Sarah Palin in 2009 after the death of his father, who was a close family friend of the Palins and previously held the post. The ADN reports that Menard also worked as an administrative assistant to Palin when she was governor before getting elected to the City Council.
Menard also works as a waiter at Evangelo’s Restaurant in Wasilla, according to the ADN.
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Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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