Anchorage Assembly rejects 4 Bronson nominees to Library Advisory Board

The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday rejected Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson’s four nominees for the city’s Library Advisory Board, after rejecting three earlier picks in June.

The nine-member Library Advisory Board is made up volunteers who help plan library activities and projects, and the board makes recommendations to the mayor’s administration and the Assembly on matters related to the public library. Four seats have been vacant since April.

During Tuesday’s meeting, in a 7-4 vote, the Assembly voted down Stacey Lange, an account executive with a pharmaceutical company in Anchorage, Donna Moats, a school librarian with the Anchorage School District, Windy Perkins, a homeschool parent, and Aimee Sims, a teacher with the Family Partnership Correspondence School in Anchorage, according to resumes they submitted with their applications.

During the meeting, the Assembly also voted 7-4 against holding a separate confirmation vote for each of the nominees.

Assembly members who voted against the appointments cited concerns about the nominees’ personal politics, citing previous public testimony they had reviewed.

The members referenced a recent effort by some current Library Advisory Board members to limit youths’ access to a book on teen sexuality, which stalled when the Assembly then passed an ordinance that effectively removed the advisory board’s ability to decide the fate of challenged books.

At a June advisory board meeting, two Bronson-appointed board members expressed outrage about the Assembly’s action by leaving their seats in the middle of the meeting.

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Assembly member Anna Brawley said at Tuesday’s Assembly meeting that she was concerned the latest nominees might not be able to separate their personal politics from the library’s public interest, and might instead try to push forward a partisan agenda.

She said it was important for the advisory board to have a wide range of viewpoints, and referenced a rise in efforts at the national and local level to ban or restrict access to books, particularly those with LGBTQIA+ or racial themes.

“We’ve been speaking for months about the concern about this library being a battleground for freedom of speech,” Brawley said. “And I just have serious concerns.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Assembly members also requested that the administration bring forward future advisory board nominees one at a time.

Mario Bird, the mayor’s chief of staff, said he believed the candidates were all qualified for the positions on the advisory board.

“We’re looking for qualified people who are interested in the library, who have spent time here with their families,” he said. “We’re not looking for partisans. We’re looking for people who are engaged, and are going to be here and follow the the library advisory board and commit to the meetings.”

Assembly members Kevin Cross, George Martinez, Randy Sulte and Scott Myers voted in favor of the appointments.

Martinez said all the nominees appear qualified on paper, and that he would give them all the benefit of the doubt given their experience and qualifications, and respond only if they act against the public interest.

“They are educated, they are capable, and they are willing. And so my perspective is to give deference to those choices,” he said. “If buffoonery ensues, you should expect the full weight of the public attention on cleaning that mess up.”