Amy Demboski, Anchorage Municipal Manager and architect of the Bronson administration, is no longer working for the city.
While the Bronson administration has had constant turnover, this is the largest shake-up to date. Demboski has been Bronson’s closest ally and a driver of many of his policies. The sudden and major shift was announced this morning by Mayor Dave Bronson in a tweet and Facebook post with little information.
Today, I named Kent Kohlhase Acting Municipal Manager.
He will take over for Amy Demboski effective immediately.
— Mayor Dave Bronson (@mayor_bronson) December 19, 2022
Several calls to the administration, including to the Municipal Manager’s Office and Bronson’s spokesperson, went unanswered Friday and Monday.
Bronson announced that Kent Kohlhase would be immediately taking over as Acting Municipal Manager. Bronson did not give any other information about why Demboski is leaving.
Demboski served on the Anchorage Assembly from 2013 to 2019 and ran for mayor in 2015, losing by over 20%. Bronson picked her to run the Municipality as his Municipal Manager, and she has proven to be one of the most impactful members of his administration, in part because she is the member who is most knowledgeable about how the city works.
Bronson, a political newcomer, has relied on Demboski’s experience since he took office. Demboski took an incredibly active role. In 2021, Bronson admitted as much, saying in a speech to the Rotary Club, “I don’t run the city. Amy Demboski runs the city. I provide the strategic direction. I picked her. Or maybe she picked me, I don’t know. … She knows exactly what she’s doing and how to execute the goals of this team.”
In an administration that bleeds staff almost weekly, Demboski has been one of Bronson’s longest serving executives. She was named for the position by Bronson on June 28, 2021, before he was sworn in as mayor.
Demboski has had a controversial tenure as municipal manager. One of her early policy moves was to order that all municipal communications go through her, which caused severe bottlenecks within the municipality. During a tumultuous meeting in October 2021, which saw several arrests as well as firearms in the chambers, Demboski ordered the Assembly meeting live feed to be shut off, while members of the administration also sent home the security guards tasked with maintaining order.
Despite early controversies, Bronson never appeared to hold Demboski accountable for her actions.
The municipality was hit by back to back snowstorms over the past few weeks, for which the municipality was woefully unprepared. Schools shut down for six days and businesses were negatively affected during the busy holiday season. At a meeting last week, it came out that a union leader had warned the administration during the summer that winter snow maintenance would fail.
Kohlhase is relatively unknown. He was named head of public works in November and before that was the director of project management and engineering.
