Anchorage Assembly overrides Mayor Bronson’s veto of new advisory board of people who have experienced homelessness

The Anchorage Assembly voted Tuesday to override Mayor Dave Bronson’s veto of an ordinance passed by the Assembly last week that established a board made up of people who have experienced homelessness to advise the Assembly and the mayor.

The override passed in a 9-1 vote during a special meeting, marking the first time the Assembly has taken action to quash a veto from Bronson. The Assembly needed at least eight votes to reach a supermajority and override the veto. Assembly member Jamie Allard cast the lone no vote and member Crystal Kennedy was absent.

The ordinance, which initially passed last week in a 9-2 vote, creates a city advisory board that will give input and feedback to the administration and Assembly on “housing and homelessness solutions with the goal of centering the perspective of those with lived experience,” according to the ordinance.

Bronson last week had exercised his veto power as mayor for the first time when he nixed the ordinance. He cited the existence of a different advisory board and a private council, saying the new advisory board would replicate work already being done.

“As you know, addressing homelessness is a pillar of my administration,” Bronson said in his statement to the Assembly last week. “The homelessness crisis in Anchorage does not require another board or commission to contemplate or pontificate policy suggestions or to make advisory recommendations. Instead, the homelessness crisis demands action.”

Felix Rivera, the Assembly member who spearheaded the ordinance, then immediately called for the Assembly to override the veto, noting that the board and council the mayor cited as a reason to veto the ordinance actually supported it.

“I have been astounded sometimes by how far certain plans to help people experiencing homelessness have been developed … and when I ask the question, ‘How have people experiencing homelessness been involved up to this point in time?’ Typically, the answer is, ‘They haven’t,’” Rivera said during an interview on Tuesday. “So, this board aims to rectify that massive gap.”

The back-and-forth legislation over the new advisory board on homelessness comes as members of the Assembly and administration undergo negotiations on the city’s homelessness plans for a winter mass care shelter and longer-term plans.

Assembly member John Weddleton, a member of the negotiation team, said before voting in favor of the override that the city needs to consult homeless individuals about its plans but doesn’t have a good way to do so. The advisory board provides that process, he said.

“As we kind of embark on developing a new, significant new city government program to provide for the homeless, we should hear from the people that it’s going to impact,” Weddleton said.

Assembly member Kameron Perez-Verdia called the override a normal process and said it shouldn’t be characterized as a disagreement.

“We bring forward items, and we approve them and it’s well within the mayor’s right to veto them. And if it’s our will to override that, then you can,” Perez-Verdia said. “It’s really about process and not about emotion.”

Member Jamie Allard, who voted against the override, said she had concerns about unknown potential fiscal impacts of the legislation and said that it would mean using municipal staff.

“We still don’t know the source of the funding because, Mr. Rivera, you still have never answered that actual question,” she said.

Rivera said he is seeking financing from third parties to pay for staff support for the board and said that he could not speak to who might provide that support because it is still under negotiation.

The mayor appoints members of boards and commissions, and those appointments are then subject to confirmation by the Assembly, according to city charter. Bronson will be in charge of appointing board members to the Houseless Lived Experience Advisory Board.

Rivera said he will be “working actively with the administration to ensure we have a slate of folks to appoint that are agreeable to all parties.”

Following the veto override, Corey Allen Young, spokesman for the mayor’s office, said the mayor believes the advisory board a duplication of services already being done. Young said the mayor’s team is talking with as many people as possible, including homeless services providers, the Coalition to End Homelessness and people experiencing homelessness.