October 8-14, 2022
This Week in Anchorage Politics will be a regular scheduled column published on Fridays. This column’s aim is to help you quickly and easily stay informed about what is happening each week in our Municipal government.
Anchorage made national news again this week, and again it was not because we are a shining example of constructive civil discourse. It was because a guy came from the Mat-Su to give a racist rant at an Anchorage Assembly meeting.
Tour operator David Lazer drove from Hatcher Pass on Oct. 11 to disparage the homelessness situation in a city he does not live in. He also repeated some of the most despicable, and factually incorrect, stereotypes about homelessness: mainly that it is an Alaska Native problem, not one we all share.
Mr. Lazer said we should deport people experiencing homelessness to villages (in case we’re not clear, he’s advocating for kidnapping and human trafficking) so “they could drink, smoke, do dope, and whatever they do in the villages with their own people and they would be happy.”
YIKES.
It was another tired example of a white man standing on unceded Indigenous land, claiming to know what is best while being shockingly unaware of how entitled he sounds. This has been happening for centuries, though these days it’s usually done with more veiled racism than Mr. Lazer displayed (how a dude with such a cool name can display such embarrassing racism is unfortunate).
Following the rant, Assembly member Forrest Dunbar (District 5) stepped in to correct Mr. Lazer’s misconceptions, but was interrupted by fellow Assembly member Jamie Allard (District 2), who has a history of publicly defending racism (that, too, received national media attention).
Video courtesy of Nika Wolfe
Not all news is good news, it turns out
Anchorage has been on a national news roll lately, but none of it is good news. Anchorage has made national news when protesters wore mock yellow Stars of David to an Assembly meeting, attempting to make a tasteless comparison between mask requirements and the persecution of Jews in the Holocaust. We gained further national infamy when Mayor Dave Bronson shut off the fluoride in city water and his administration denied it for three days afterwards, and again when people experiencing homelessness were bused to Centennial Campground and left improperly equipped, without food or proper food storage, in bear country.
Also during this same meeting, the Assembly approved an appropriation to rent 50 rooms at the Alex Hotel and reaffirmed their desire to use the vacant and city-owned Golden Lion Hotel to house people experiencing homelessness.
The State of the State Elections
With the 2022 elections coming fast upon us, APOC reports were filed this week, showing the amount of money campaigns for state legislature and other offices raised and spent in the last reporting period. Analysis of the reports by Robert Hockema (of the excellent AKPoliticsBlog) found that House Majority candidates outraised GOP candidates by $742,000.
Anchorage Puttin’ Work In
The first of two five-hour municipal budget work sessions took place on Friday. The budget this year is largely a carry-over from last year’s, but the controversy looks to be centered around a proposal by the administration to move the Mental Health Crisis Team (MCT) from Anchorage Fire Department (AFD) to the Anchorage Police Department (APD). It is well established nationwide that best practice places MCTs in fire departments rather than police departments, so that people in the midst of a mental health crisis are not confronted by officers with firearms. The administration also tried to do this last year, leading to a line item change by the Assembly, a veto and a veto override that resulted in MCT remaining in the fire department.
Future work sessions will reveal more details, but it seems likely that the Assembly will push to have MCT remain in AFD as they did last year.
On the Endless Horizon
Next week I will report on the Housing and Homelessness Committee meeting, the second budget work session and other happenings in our municipal government. Also next week is the scheduled abatement of Centennial Campground. Stay tuned, and I hope you enjoyed this edition of This Week in Anchorage Politics. If you have any tips, corrections, or if you just want to get in touch, please feel free to email me at yarrow@thealaskacurrent.com.
