Mayor Dave Bronson’s Administration broke the law by telling Roger Hickel to go ahead with work on the Tudor and Elmore Navigation Center, absent Assembly approval or even notification.
This was a huge error which may cost the taxpayers millions.
Nevertheless, the administration, which hasn’t apologized for their colossal error, keeps trying to push ahead with the navigation center project quickly, despite the costs ballooning out of control, lack of a valid building plan, site plan, operating plan, seismic studies, and many unanswered questions and concerns by Assembly members and the public.
In contrast, the administration is constantly throwing up roadblocks to stop use of the Golden Lion Hotel, which has been owned by the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) for almost two years but mostly left vacant, other than letting the for-profit company WEKA use it on the taxpayer dime.
When the Assembly approved initial funding for the Tudor/Elmore project, it was on the condition that Bronson use the Golden Lion for its intended purpose of a substance use disorder treatment facility. Instead, Bronson has on multiple occasions declared “The Golden Lion will be sold.”
Every time the Assembly asks about the Golden Lion, Bronson hedges. He floated a false story that the Alaska Department of Transportation is going to take the Golden Lion for road construction. After that was shown to be false, he continued to delay, saying he needed legal review. The “legal review,” which he slow-walked, concluded that use of the Golden Lion should not go ahead because of various zoning issues, need for fire inspection, repairs, and need to check carbon dioxide monitors.
Had the administration applied the same “keep going, no matter what” process that they applied to the Tudor/Elmore project, the minor issues with the Golden Lion would have been speedily resolved.
The facts clearly demonstrate Mayor Bronson is incompetent, inept, and corrupt. Rather than frame this as a fight over power and vision between Bronson and the Assembly, let’s see it for what it is: Breaking the law to allow a big campaign donor to run up an unauthorized $5 million bill. After all, it’s not Bronson on the hook to pay, it’s us, the public.
At the same time, the administration continues to block and delay the use of the Golden Lion for no valid reason. It also just happens that a big donor to Bronson, Russell Biggs, has spearheaded the opposition to use of the Golden Lion because he lives nearby.
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