Sometimes the appearance of corruption is as bad as being involved in it. I’m glad that Sen. Murkowski is going to sell the property back.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that she and her husband will sell back their Kenai riverfront property to Anchorage businessman Bob Penney.

Murkowski announced the give back a day after a Washington watchdog group filed a 15-page Senate ethics complaint against her, alleging that Penney sold the property well below market value. The transaction amounted to an illegal gift worth between $70,000 and $170,000, depending on how the property was valued, according to the complaint by the National Legal and Policy Center.

Murkowski told reporters in her office Thursday that Penney, a real estate developer who does business in Alaska and Outside, has agreed to buy back the property for the $179,400 purchase price she and husband Verne Martell paid Dec. 22, 2006.

“While Verne and I intended to make this our family home and we paid a fair price for this land, no property is worth compromising the trust of the Alaska people,” Murkowski said in a written statement. “I cannot allow this to become a distraction from the major challenges faced in representing Alaska. So we have decided to sell this property back to Bob Penney at the same price for which it was purchased.”

Murkowski said it was a heart-wrenching decision, because she and her husband and two sons - all avid fishermen — have long sought a place on the Kenai River. “My family is amazing, and they make incredible sacrifices for me,” Murkowski said. “For them to be living in Washington D.C. for nine months out of the year, working here, going to school here, and giving up Alaska is a huge sacrifice. We want to be able to have our place back home, in Alaska. And that’s what this was all about, it was nothing nefarious or underhanded or improper.”

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