JUNEAU — Gov. Bill Walker's public safety commissioner is retiring and will be replaced by Walt Monegan, the former Anchorage police chief and public safety commissioner who was ousted in former Gov. Sarah Palin's Troopergate scandal.
Gary Folger, appointed commissioner in 2014 by Sean Parnell and kept on by Gov. Bill Walker, said he's retiring at the end of May because of health problems — he has multiple myeloma.
"It's been great. I wouldn't trade it for anything," Folger, 57, said in an interview at the Capitol on Wednesday. But, he added, "I'm already on borrowed time."
Monegan will be the replacement, according to Walker's office. He'll oversee a department with a $195 million budget and 900 employees, including the Alaska State Troopers.
It will be Monegan's second time as public safety commissioner, following his firing by Palin in 2008. A legislative report subsequently found that Monegan's dismissal was partly because he wouldn't fire a state trooper who was an enemy of Palin's husband.
Monegan also served as the interim corrections commissioner for Walker for two months, through January, until Dean Williams was named as the permanent commissioner. Walker hinted that Monegan would be back at the news conference announcing Williams' appointment, saying, "I don't think we've seen the last of Walt Monegan in our administration."
Monegan, 64, said in a phone interview that he's committed to the job at least through Walker's four-year term, which ends in 2018.
"I am looking forward to the opportunity and I welcome it, because we didn't necessarily leave in the conditions we wanted when we left the first time," Monegan said. "There were a few things that I wanted to see accomplished or do that maybe we'll now have a chance (to)."
He wouldn't specify, however, what changes he'd like to see for the department.
"Let me find out what's going on in the works before I start thinking about what I have to change, if I have to change anything," he said.