In the six months since abruptly firing his former municipal manager Amy Demboski, Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has continued his pattern of silence, avoiding media, rarely giving press conferences, and overseeing a backlog of public records requests that take months, if not more, to fulfill.
A records request The Alaska Current submitted in December illustrates the lack of transparency within the administration, and internal frustration with the lack of transparency. When the request was fulfilled with pages of fully redacted emails, a city employee pushed back, supplying The Current with unredacted copies.
On Dec. 19, The Alaska Current requested emails between Bronson, then-chief of staff Adam Trombley and Demboski referencing Purchasing Director Rachelle Alger, who is a central figure in the conflict that led to Demboski’s termination. The Current didn’t receive a confirmation of receipt until April, when the city charged $74 to fulfill the request, which the city estimated would take 1.85 hours to complete.
In June, when the request had still not yet been fulfilled, The Current sent a letter citing municipal public records law, which dictates requests must be fulfilled in a timely manner. Days later, the records were made available. However, they were too heavily redacted to be able to glean any real information from them.
As has often been the case in Bronson’s administration, a whistleblower within the Bronson administration contacted The Current directly to provide the unredacted emails. The emails show chaos behind the scenes of the Bronson administration, and include a set of redacted emails between Demboski and Trombley that give more details behind the events that transpired just before Bronson fired Demboski.
“The emails I sent you are part of a FOIA request that are being sat on because it affects Rachelle,” the employee stated in their email, referring to Alger, Bronson’s purchasing director. “HR is ignoring employee complaints and so is the Mayor. This is your request and you should ask for your money back. It’s not right. And the Mayor is doing it to protect Rachelle.”
Government-generated documents and communications are public record. This allows the public to understand what its elected officials and taxpayer-funded staff are doing. Public records law allows for some exemptions, such as personal medical information or information that could influence a real estate purchase, but the laws exist to keep most documents readily available to the public.
The Current was able to match the redacted emails up against the emails sent by the anonymous source. The Bronson administration blacked out entire pages that were already public knowledge, including a letter Demboski sent to Bronson before she was fired, which Alaska’s News Source reported on, and a photo of penis-shaped cookies which Alger ordered for staff, previously reported on by The Current. They redacted other emails that include potentially embarrassing content but do not qualify for an exemption under city code.
“For months now, multiple departments are reporting severe delays in purchasing, fear of retaliation when concerns are raised, and as I have expressed multiple times to you, the Mayor, and HR, we have seen a pattern of unprofessionalism and hostility towards staff from the Purchasing Director,” Demboski wrote in the email to Trombley. “On multiple occasions Rachelle engaged in behaviors that are the center of a current HR investigation (i.e. intimidation, unprofessionalism, and sexual harassment.)”
Trombley responded, agreeing that photos, presumably of the cookies, were “disturbing, unprofessional, certainly cross the line of what is appropriate and create an unhealthy work environment.” Trombley specifically asked if anyone filed a complaint about the cookies, as well as about some of the other concerns that Demboski detailed.
Demboski also told Trombley that Alger attempted to pressure her into firing an employee, and was concerned she would continue to target others.
“I recognize the passion and energy Rachelle has can be a value, but her behavior is simply unacceptable and continues to impede my department’s, and many departments’, ability to effectively carry out time sensitive duties,” Demboski wrote. “This is beyond what should be occurring in a professional organization; our employees deserve better.”
Demboski also said Alger was creating headaches for the Maintenance and Operations Department and wrote that former Maintenance and Operations Director Saxton Shearer kept a file documenting “multiple challenges” navigating the purchasing department. Shearer did not return calls from The Current.
This redacted exchange between Demboski and Trombley was cited under AMC 3.90.04 B, a personnel exemption. This code allows redaction of records “which reveal the financial or medical status of any specific individual, the release of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.” None of the redacted records obtained by The Current revealed financial or medical information.
While the request was technically filled, the level of redaction conceals ample information, and makes it difficult to determine how much of the redacted information actually qualifies for an exemption. Because of this, The Current filed an appeal to Mayor Bronson, requesting the redactions be reviewed. On June 28, Bronson responded, denying the appeal.
The Bronson administration redacted other descriptions of workplace events that don’t qualify for redaction from a public record, such as a description of a sick dog brought to the workplace that peed near an employee’s chair and “started to rub his butt on the carpet” in their work area.
The letter describing the dog incident was redacted in its entirety under the words “executive privilege,” and referencing code which states:
“Any records or documents which are accorded confidential or privileged status by this Code or which are accorded confidential or privileged status under state or federal law and which have been provided on a condition that the information retain its privileged or confidential nature.”
Municipal code states “if information requested is declared privileged” the person who considers the information privileged is required to disclose on paper “the date, the item of information requested, the specific provision of applicable state, federal or municipal law exempting the requested information from disclosure, and the title and signature of the person withholding the information.” Mayor Bronson and his administration did not provide this information to The Current.
The person who wrote about the dog incident worked with the Purchasing Department for about two weeks before writing a three-page letter describing the unprofessional nature of the workplace.
“In all my years of working I have never come across such an unprofessional and chaotic office,” the former employee wrote. “In my short time there I heard a lot about constant turnover. After my experience I can see why.”
In the cover email they said that Alger asked how they “felt about the f bomb” on their first day of work, and went on to describe how uncomfortable this made them. “Of course I was put on the spot and did not want to reveal how I really felt about the foul language in the office. She joked about being an HR nightmare and after witnessing some of her remarks I could not agree more.”
