Going Rogue: An American Life by Lynn Vincent, Sarah Palin

Frontiersman reporter wrote a srory suggesting thar I was on the road to banning books. The librarian didn’t come out and correct the story, so I confronted her about it.
    “Oh, that reporter took what I said out of context,” she said.
    “Urn … can you correct it, then?”
    “Sure. I’ll try.”
    She didn·t. Not long after the story came out, there was an advisory Friends of the Library meeting that I was scheduled to attend. The head of the group was Nick Carney’s wife. I walked in and found the participants all wearing black armbands. Oh, no, I thought, I wonder who died?
    Then I realized it was in protest of me.
    And here I was expecting coffee and cake.
    Even though I never sought to ban any books, this incident was falsified years later during the presidential campaign. Odd, because some of the books I had supposedly banned had not even been written yet.
    But in the end, remembering thar we all teach our kids that life is too short to hold a grudge, when Nick was home recovering ftom knee surgery, I knocked on his door. He hobbled to it in pain. It was “Good Neighbor Day in Wasilla.” I brought him a pretty white Peace Lily.
    At times I felt like the mayor of Peyton Place. In spite of thar, I loved my job and I loved my town-I’ve always been so proud
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    SARAH
    PALIN
    of the Valley. I couldn’t wait to push forward with more of my campaign ptomises. I cut taxes-lots of them. I eliminated small business inventory taxes, I got rid of personal property taxes, I gave the boot to burdensome things like business license renewal fees, and I cut the real property tax mil levy every year I was in office. I worked to pass these cuts with a new group of consci entious, conservative council members who worked with me to develop the city’s infrastructure. We had our share of debates, but all of us ultimately shared the same vision for Wasilla. In the mid-1990s, many of the city’s main roads were still made of dirt. Even the runway at the municipal airport was gravel. I knew businesses-and thus jobs-wouldn’t locate in Wasilla if the tools weren’t there for the private sector to grow and thrive. So, in an effort to attract businesses, we built and paved roads, and extended water and sewer lines. Within a few years, established mom-and-pops were gtowing, new ones sprang up, and stores like Fred Meyer, a Wal-Mart Superstore, and other national chains opened their doors in our city.
    In 2002, we put a city bond measure before the voters that would fund construction of a multiuse sports center. Voters approved it and the half-cent sales tax to pay for it, and we broke ground on this project, which for decades had only been a dream fat Valley residents. The arena was named after our good friend Curtis Menard, Jr. The year before, Curtis Jr. was piloting family members back and forth between a Cook Inlet sport-fishing ,site when his small plane went down, and our dear friend was killed at age thirty-six. The community felt honored to name the arena after such an enthusiastic and generous soul.
    As a result of our common sense conservative efforts, Wasilla became a booming, bustling town-the fastest-growing area in the state, and an independent financial auditor (Mikunda, Cottrell & Co.) reported that Wasilla was “the envy of other Alaskan cities.”
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    Going Rogue
    Unfortunately, things hadn’t gone as well on the police chief front. I thought maybe he’d come around and work wirh me on rhe budger. Bur the issues multiplied, and he forced my hand. So I fired him.
    This gets at my approach to management. I have a bullerin board filled with coffee-srained, dog-eared quores racked up along with family photos rhat has followed me from office ro office since 1992. One of my favorite quores comes from author and former foorball
    Lou Holrz, on how ro build your team: “Motivation is simple. You eliminare those who are not motivated.” Admittedly, I didn’t know the protocol for firing rhe chief-of