LaFrance adds 3 more hires to Anchorage mayor’s office

Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has hired three additional women to join her administration, filling out the upper ranks at City Hall.

The three are Thea Agnew Bemben, Ronni Weddleton and Berett Wilber.

Bemben is one of the founders and owners of Agnew::Beck Consulting, an influential local firm that has worked with many governments and nonprofits in Alaska, including contracts with the Municipality of Anchorage. According to a statement from the mayor’s office, Bemben at the end of the month will begin serving as a special assistant to LaFrance, working with homelessness coordinator Farina Brown “and other members of the mayor’s team to tackle interrelated problems of health, homelessness, equity, and safety.”

In addition to past contract work for the city, Agnew::Beck has some personnel overlap with the current administration. LaFrance’s chief of staff, Katie Scovic, worked at the firm for a little more than two years before leaving to manage the mayor’s campaign.

According to the mayor’s office, Bemben is leaving her job at Agnew::Beck to work for the city, and the administration will not enter any new contracts with the firm during her tenure.

Weddleton began earlier in the month as the mayor’s executive assistant. Her background is as a small-business owner in Anchorage, and she has held leadership positions at Nine Star, a nonprofit focused on education and employment programs for Alaskans. Weddleton also has a long tenure with volunteering as a cook at rural church and hunting camps in Western Alaska, as well as during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She is married to former South Anchorage Assembly member John Weddleton.

Wilber, originally from Sitka, will work as the creative director for the mayor’s office. She previously worked as a photojournalist, a legislative aide for Democratic former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka, a commercial fishing deckhand, and as deputy press secretary to independent former Gov. Bill Walker. Most recently she completed a master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. She started in the role earlier this month.

“With these three hires, the Mayor’s Office is fully staffed,” the LaFrance administration said in its statement.