OPINION: At a loss to explain Bronson’s decisions

As we draw closer and (thankfully) closer to the end of Dave Bronson’s term in office, I look back at the debris-strewn path he and his administration are leaving behind, filled with destroyed reputations, demoralized employees and a homeless population that he seems to want to simply disappear, and wonder what he thought he was doing.

He was new to government. Perhaps starting at the top was not a good idea. Maybe he should have started closer to the bottom, so he’d have had some appreciation of what working for municipal government is really all about.

For instance, most people will tell you that municipal government is not a safe haven for any friend who needs a well-paying job for which they are not qualified. That should be a rather basic concept. But Bronson skipped early steps in city government, so he never understood this. He apparently came from a part of the private sector where giving high-paying jobs to unqualified friends and supporters was the norm.

We could also ask what he thought he was doing when he kept trying to hire unqualified individuals to run the Loussac Library. I mean, seriously. Who makes the library a point of contention when there are so many other points of contention that are actually real? No politician with any skill would do anything but make the library one of their proudest moments to tout when running for re-election. But Bronson can’t do that. Instead of taking a diamond and shining it for all to see, he turned it back into a piece of coal that tarnished his administration way longer than it should have.

The issues in which the Bronson administration acted as though no one on the staff had a municipal IQ higher than 10 are too many to list. Suffice it to say, we all lived and sometimes laughed through them. Does he really not have even one member of his team with some political experience? Because if he does, then I have to suggest he fire that person and hire someone with actual good political instincts. The advice he’s been getting so far really stinks.

Winter is coming. There are hundreds of homeless people at risk of dying when the cold hits. You would have thought that while they were occupying the Sullivan Arena last winter, the mayor and his advisors would have looked for a more permanent solution than putting up a temporary tent that would have cost taxpayers millions and not been a permanent fix. Instead, the mayor tossed everyone out of the Sullivan onto buses that brought them to a campsite that Anchorage residents had, until then, thought of as a park. Now, winter again approaches and Bronson seemingly has no plan to actually keep people from dying in our streets this winter — oh, I’m sorry, I meant at that lovely homeless camp that protects them from nothing.

Who the heck are these advisors who think tossing the homeless into a camp where many will die as winter takes hold is a “plan?” I pray that this is not just Bronson’s idea and he has no one who will tell him it’s wrong. Surely at least one person in his administration has the common sense to know that running for re-election after a winter of people freezing to death because they had no shelter is not probably going to win you a second term.

I’ve lived a long life, during which time I have known many politicians. Some were good. Some were bad. I agreed with some and vehemently disagreed with others. But with Bronson, I am honestly at a loss. Can he really be this dumb? Or is he just tone-deaf? Does he understand that the majority of his constituents have followed the follies of his administration over the past three years with oftentimes whoops of laughter and other times tears of pain and shame?

Again, I have to ask what kind of tone-deaf politician makes the local library a source of conflict and negative headlines. The library! The easiest positive headline he could have had. All he had to do was stop trying to put in cronies without the required credentials. Who does that? Who seems to deliberately shoots himself in the foot this many times and not eventually figure out he’s causing his own pain?

Bronson is either dumb or doesn’t care what the public thinks. Either way, why would anyone ever vote for him again?

Elise Patkotak is an Alaska columnist and author. Her book “Coming Into the City” is available at AlaskaBooksandCalendars.com and local bookstores.

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