{"id":759,"date":"2007-08-10T15:53:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T15:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=759"},"modified":"2007-08-10T15:53:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T15:53:00","slug":"huckabees-misadventures-with-the-lords-ranch-jet-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee’s Misadventures with the Lord’s Ranch & Jet Plane"},"content":{"rendered":"


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AIR HUCKABEE<\/a><\/font><\/h2>\n


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The governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plane <\/font><\/font><\/h1>\n

State Medicaid contractor provided air service. Published 6\/15\/2006
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<\/font>The twin-engine jet that ferried Gov. Mike Huckabee, his wife, his daughter, a staff member and at least one security officer to the North Carolina Republican Party convention in Raleigh on June 2 was provided by the director of the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch, a religious-based youth home in Warm Springs that had a conflict-filled relationship with the state before Huckabee became governor. <\/p>\n

The Cessna Citation SII jet, which lost one of its two engines during the flight, and made an emergency landing in Chattanooga, is owned by Southeastern Asset Management, a corporation registered in New Hampshire whose manager of record is Ted Suhl. Suhl is director of the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch.
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< Suhl and others connected to the youth home have given thousands of dollars to past Huckabee campaigns; about six years ago, it got its first contract with the state Department of Health and Human Services to provide services to troubled young people. In 2000, the contract was for $140,460 for psychological services; currently, the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch gets payments for services through Medicaid \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about $8.5 million in fiscal 2006, according to DHHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell.
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Suhl did not return a phone call, and an e-mail to Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart requesting information about the trip \u00e2\u20ac\u201d including whether Huckabee or one of his political action committees would reimburse Suhl for the cost of the flights \u00e2\u20ac\u201d has not been answered. An Internet search of the cost of chartering a Citation SII turned up rates between $1,550 and $1,900 an hour. <\/p>\n

Huckabee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visit was a personal trip outside his official duties as governor. It attracted media attention because of the emergency landing, but Huckabee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office refused to say who provided the plane. A report on the emergency landing filed at the Chattanooga airport included the name of the company as well as an address and phone number in Warm Springs. Calls to the phone number were not answered. <\/p>\n

Under state ethics rules, unless Huckabee reimburses the plane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owner for the trip, it is considered a gift because the travel was not for official business. And elected officials are prohibited from accepting gifts valued at over $100 unless the official has a relationship with the giver outside his capacity as a public servant and the gift is not a reward for the official doing his job. The fact that the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with the state has blossomed since Huckabee took office 10 years ago makes it questionable whether Suhl could claim he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rewarding Huckabee. Even if use of the plane could be claimed as a permissible gift to Huckabee, the governor would have to report it on his annual financial disclosure statement, but that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t due until the first of next year. <\/p>\n

The Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch has run afoul of the state in the past. In 1990, the state Child Care Review Board voted to revoke the home\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s license because of 16 violations, including improper use of restraints on children. The Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch officials denied using restraints improperly, and the board changed its mind and recommended granting a six-month provisional license after getting more information. <\/p>\n

In 1994, Ranch officials refused to allow state monitors to inspect the home, and a 1996 report cited continuing compliance problems. But the relationship thawed considerably in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the state gave the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch its first contract, worth $140,490. Huckabee also appointed Suhl to the Child Welfare Agency Review Board \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he was reappointed in 2004 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and appointed Russell Dixon, director of the ranch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s psychiatric program, to the state Psychology Board (his current term ends in 2009). The Ranch is currently in good standing with DHHS, Munsell said. <\/p>\n

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www.arktimes.com\/articles\/articleviewer.aspx?ArticleID=0793c6f7-0408-4974-b3c9-544a772b1eec<\/a><\/i><\/a><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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AIR HUCKABEE The governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plane State Medicaid contractor provided air service. Published 6\/15\/2006 The twin-engine jet that ferried Gov. Mike Huckabee, his wife, his daughter, a staff member and at least one security officer to the North Carolina Republican Party convention in Raleigh on June 2 was provided by the director of the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ranch, … Continue reading Huckabee’s Misadventures with the Lord’s Ranch & Jet Plane<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huckabee-shameful-record"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}