Gattis says watchdog’s call is a political attack

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - A watchdog group’s call for an investigation into a Wasilla state representative’s involvement with a land easement is a “politically motivated attack” and “old hash served up warm again,” the lawmaker said Monday.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington announced Monday that it has asked the U.S. attorney and state attorney general to investigate Rep. Lynn Gattis and her husband over an easement conveyed to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The group, known as CREW, said the couple received about $65,000.

CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said in a news release that Gattis “didn’t sell the Brooklyn Bridge, but the deal she made isn’t far off.”

Documents released by CREW as part of its request show a state loan officer in May 2012 said the agreement violated land-use restrictions. An attorney for the borough wrote assistant state attorney general Robert McFarlane in July 2012, saying the borough had decided the access road for which easements were granted was no longer needed, and the easements - involving the Gattises’ and other properties - were being released.

McFarlane said Monday that the matter had been resolved. “The easement was removed, and that was the end of it,” he said.

A Department of Law spokeswoman said the attorney general’s office received CREW’s request. An assistant U.S. attorney said the office does not comment on what it may or may not be investigating.

McFarlane said it was his understanding that Gattis did not have to repay the money but referred the question to the borough. A borough spokeswoman said people she needed to talk with had left the office for the day and she would respond Tuesday.

In a May 2012 letter to the Gattises, a real estate acquisition officer with the borough noted that an agreement between the parties stated that the borough “agrees to defend and hold harmless the Grantor from any use of easement area that may conflict with any agricultural use restrictions upon the land.”

Gattis, in a May 2012 financial disclosure filed when she was a candidate, reported the easement in an amount between $50,000 and $100,000, with her husband as the owner. Financial disclosures on the forms are listed in ranges.

“My family did not ’decline’ to return the money that the borough paid us,” she said. “The Borough is honoring a business contract and we were never asked to give the money back.”