When Sarah Palin became mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, one of her first actions was to fire the city's museum director, John Cooper, who to this day is not a fan of the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Cooper, now a 67-year-old substitute teacher on the Big Island, was one of five department heads Palin asked to resign as she instituted her own team to run the city.

"She's a nice-looking woman, she can be affable, but she's single-minded, in my opinion, and vengeful," said Cooper, who moved from Wasilla shortly after losing his job.

Cooper, a self-described "bleeding-heart liberal" and a strong supporter of Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, said he was a casualty of Palin's heavy-handed style that he said emphasized political loyalty over good work.

He gave several reasons for his dismissal: a $125 campaign donation to the previous mayor, his political beliefs and an expansion of museum programs that displeased small-government Republicans.

"I don't see her as a reformer. I see her as self-serving. She has a beauty pageant focus in her life," Cooper said. "She really needs adulation. She wanted to be somebody who's admired."

Cooper describes his forced departure as a "casualty of Sarah Palin's rise to political prominence." He said he received obscene phone calls from her "right-winger" allies.

A spokeswoman for Palin said she brought reform to Wasilla by breaking up political cronyism and making Wasilla one of the fastest growing cities in Alaska.

"It's not surprising that members of the establishment were upset that Gov. Palin bucked the status quo by putting the people before politics," said spokeswoman Maria Comella.

Cooper talked to a lawyer about fighting his firing, but he was told he served at the mayor's discretion. Cooper said he then complied with Palin's request for his resignation.

Palin eliminated Cooper's job overseeing the museum and then hired a new deputy city administrator to handle it. The mayor's office in Wasilla is a nonpartisan position.

"I did tell her to her face that I thought she had no credibility. In my mind, she has not changed one iota," Cooper said. "My impression was Sarah didn't have the administrative experience or the skill or the training to run a municipality of any size, small or large."

Among Cooper's colleagues who were also asked to resign were librarian Mary Ellen Emmons, who said Palin had asked her if she would object to censorship, and Police Chief Irl Stambaugh, whom Palin told was opposed by the National Rifle Association.

Palin rescinded Emmons' termination following an outpouring of public support. Stambaugh sued to get his job back, but a federal judge in 2000 dismissed the $500,000 lawsuit, saying the mayor had the right to terminate him for nearly any reason.

Some Republicans in Wasilla wanted Cooper out of office because they thought it was wasteful to spend money on the Dorothy Page Museum, the local history museum, and on city parks and recreation, Cooper said.

Instead, they wanted money for a municipal sports center, which was built later during Palin's administration.

When Palin was running for mayor, her campaign criticized the city's "tax-and-spend mentality" while calling for fresh leadership.

But Cooper describes her as being more committed to her political friends than to the department heads whose skills made them the most qualified people for their jobs.

"We all knew what we were doing, and we were good at it. But we represented a change that the reactionary forces didn't want," Cooper said. "They won and we lost, but I'm worried about my country now."

Shortly after losing his job, Cooper moved his family to live near friends in Oregon before relocating to Hawai'i about seven years ago, where they had frequently visited in the past.

"Our lives were really coming together in Wasilla, and Sarah Palin tore it apart," Cooper said from his home in Ocean View. "In a way, I'm better off now. ... Both places are dear to my heart for different reasons, and I am definitely glad my 67-year-old body doesn't have to deal with 50 below zero anymore."