Anchorage Assembly weighs how hard to investigate Martinez's travel

The Anchorage Assembly will choose Tuesday between two very different ways of examining Assembly Member George Martinez's taxpayer-funded travel — one a routine review, the other an investigation with subpoenas and a possible path to removing him from office.

The milder version, from Assembly Member Silvers, would have the Municipal Attorney arrange an independent investigation and report findings back within 60 days. It carries no subpoena power.

The tougher version, from Assembly Members Goecker, Handeland, and Johnson, sets a six-week deadline and instructs the Municipal Attorney's Office to draft a formal accusation for Martinez's removal if the facts warrant one. It would let the Assembly chair subpoena testimony and records from Martinez and from airlines, hotels, and conference organizers, and asks him to preserve receipts and itineraries and sit for interviews.

Both drafts ask whether Martinez's travel followed the municipal ethics code and whether it overlapped with or helped underwrite his private business. The tougher one adds a question about whether he filed false paperwork to support travel claims. None of it has been established; that is what an investigation would determine.

The proposals follow a June 15 final order from the Alaska Public Offices Commission, which found Martinez spent campaign money on travel that was not a legitimate campaign expense and personally benefited him. The commission called his sworn testimony "formulaic and evasive," ordered him to repay his campaign, and imposed the maximum civil penalty available.