City reaches $52,000 settlement with former Anchorage Health Department employee

A former municipal employee who filed a complaint alleging discrimination at the Anchorage Health Department has reached a settlement with the city.

Andrea Nester, who was placed on administrative leave from her job as the homelessness program manager at the Health Department in May, said the municipality agreed to pay her $52,000 in a settlement where neither party admits to any fault.

“There’s nothing else I can do,” Nester said by phone Tuesday.

After being on leave for months, Nester for mally left the city at the end of the year.

“Ms. Nester is no longer employed by the Municipality of Anchorage. Her last day was December 29, 2023,” wrote Veronica Hoxie, spokesperson for Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration, in an email. “Due to the confidentiality of the agreement, no further details will be released.”

Though Hoxie confirmed basic details about the city’s agreement with Nester, the municipal Department of Law did not immediately return a request for the final settlement.

Nester’s tenure at the health department coincided with a period of enormous tumult. In August of 2022, AHD Director Joe Gerace resigned amid reporting by Alaska Public Media and American Public Media that he had embellished and distorted his resume and qualifications. The department also has grappled with high staff vacancy rates and has been in the middle of contentious policy decisions around the city’s homeless population, overseeing contracts with nonprofits to operate low-barrier shelters, including one inside the Sullivan Arena.

Speaking before the Assembly at a March meeting, Nester spoke about some of her allegations against the department and said she had filed multiple HR complaints, but they had been dismissed.

In the months after Gerace left, Nester said, working conditions did not improve. She filed a formal complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission alleging disability discrimination.

“I would say your biggest problem is they keep appointing people who are not qualified for their positions,” Nester said Tuesday.

It is at least the fourth settlement the city has made with employees alleging mistreatment or wrongful termination since the start of Bronson’s tenure. The largest was an agreement to pay $277,500 to Heather MacAlpine, the municipality’s former director for the Office of Equal Opportunity, in a deal approved by the Anchorage Assembly last May. The administration also paid $125,000 to former Chief Equity Officer Clifford Armstrong III over his termination, and $18,869 to Christina Hendrickson, who briefly served as the city’s real estate director.

Still unresolved is a lawsuit by former Municipal Manager Amy Demboski. In May, the Assembly rejected a settlement deal that would have paid Demboski $550,000 over what she claims was her retaliatory firing after accusing top city officials, including the mayor, of unethical, discriminatory or hostile conduct within City Hall. That lawsuit, which does not ask for a specific dollar amount, could end up costing the city many hundreds of thousands more in public money applied to legal settlements, elected officials have said.