A decision by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and his administration to not renew a security contract for a controversial city-owned building may cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars.
On Tuesday, the Anchorage Assembly approved $479,000 to repair burst pipes and water damage at the Golden Lion Hotel. The damage came after years of disuse and lack of maintenance under Bronson’s oversight.
The Golden Lion was originally purchased in 2020 with $9.3 million in funds from the sale of the city-owned Municipal Light & Power utility with the intent of it being a substance misuse treatment facility, a provision in the utility sale approved by state regulators.
During the sale of the hotel, municipal staff inspected the building and determined no major renovations or repairs were needed.
Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson’s administration provided security for the Golden Lion through a contract with Securitas, which the Bronson administration allowed to end in July 2022.
According to sources in the Maintenance and Operations Department, the heating system experienced issues over the winter. There was no security or monitoring within the building to notice the lack of heat. Later, frozen pipes and damage to the fire-suppression system was discovered. Public Works Director Lance Wilbur said during Tuesday night’s Anchorage Assembly meeting that the building was empty when the pipes burst, and the water damage was discovered when wind storms blew stucco paneling off the building.
Assembly member Kevin Cross, who toured the building shortly after the damage was discovered, added that damage occurred “because it wasn’t occupied to the normal standard.”
One of the cornerstone promises of Bronson’s campaign was that he would sell the Golden Lion on his first day in office. Many of Bronson’s biggest campaign donors and supporters, who applied pressure for the building to remain empty, live in the surrounding neighborhood.
Since Bronson took office, the Golden Lion has been mired in controversy.
Larry Baker, who lives 1,750 feet from the property, is alleged by whistleblower and former city real estate director Christina Hendrickson, to have personally blocked the treatment center while serving as a contracted advisor to the mayor.
From October 2021 to March 2022, the Bronson administration allowed WEKA LLC, a business owned by campaign donors, to operate a monoclonal antibody clinic in the building without paying rent, while the municipality continued to pay the utility bills.
As the Golden Lion sat empty and deadly drug overdoses spiked in Alaska, Bronson moved the homeless from the Sullivan Arena mass shelter to Centennial Campground and back to the Sullivan again, where it housed up to 360 people last winter. After the Sullivan closed again in May, the municipality’s homeless population spilled into parks, trails, vacant lots, and a municipal-owned snow dump, bringing the crisis to a head. After years of fighting any attempt to use the Golden Lion for homelessness or treatment services, Bronson finally agreed to allow the facility to become low-income transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness.
In explaining his sudden reversal, Bronson told reporters at a recent press conference that he “campaigned on the notion that it would not be a drug treatment facility … this is not that, this is a rooming house.”
The contract approved by the Assembly, for a not-to-exceed amount of $475,000, is required to be finished within 75 days of a notice to proceed. Despite the damage, Henning Inc., who have been selected by the Bronson administration to operate the facility, said they could begin moving people into the Golden Lion as soon as next week.
An Assembly vote approving funding for an operations contract with Henning was delayed until July 25 to straighten out issues in the programming agreement presented by the administration that could run afoul of state licensure requirements.
