OPINION: Let’s give competence a chance

Anchorage residents have been put through the wringer the past couple of years. First the trauma and stress of COVID-19, then a cratering economy, chronic homelessness, a seemingly ever-shabbier community and one municipal management crisis after another.

But Anchorage is about to catch a break. We are lucky to have a mayoral race where the right choice is obvious, one in which we have an outstanding alternative to a sad status quo.

With the simple drop of a ballot, we can put a long-overdue end to Dave Bronson’s House of Lies and Liars, and replace it with an administration of competence and integrity.

Competence and integrity. God, what a change that would be.

I met Suzanne LaFrance when she was a rookie Assembly member and I was one of the neighbors fighting an ill-conceived rezoning. As a constituent, I could not have asked for better treatment by Suzanne.

She listened to us, as well as to the developers. She worked hard with the Assembly to find a win-win. In the end, we neighbors got some of what we wanted, and the developers got their subdivision.

I came away from the whole experience with tremendous admiration for Suzanne’s character, her work ethic, sense of fairness, compassion, determination to learn and willingness to work with competing interests.

After she became chair of the Assembly, I was present for Assembly meetings at which she and other assembly members were insulted, threatened and harassed by anti-medicine hysterics. I could not believe how calm and courageous and fair she was while presiding over the most disturbingly malignant public meetings I’ve seen in 49 years in Anchorage.

On the other side of the ballot, there is Dave Bronson, the guy who was so busy filling City Hall with right-wing ideologues and grifters he couldn’t find time to get the streets plowed.

Let’s take a look at a tiny fraction of Bronson’s greatest hits:

Bronson fought against public health while his constituents were literally dying in overwhelmed hospitals. He seems to take pride in his position as Alaska’s most prominent anti-science public office-holder, the guy whose followers wore yellow stars to Assembly meetings to show that having to wear a face mask to the grocery store during a pandemic is just like being gassed in a concentration camp.

Bronson hid his key role in organizing the “Alaska Covid Alliance,” a collection of Republican Party reactionaries, mask and vaccine opponents, and “alternative cure” hucksters. When his role eventually came to light, Bronson explained, in an atypical moment of candor, “We didn’t want my fingerprints all over it.”

He bizarrely ordered an end to the fluoridation of the municipal water supply, realized that was against the law, ordered fluoridation to resume, and then, when the episode became public, lied about it for days before finally admitting — but never explaining — the lie.

He drove out much of the competent leadership at the municipal health department. We taxpayers ended up paying at least one poor employee $52,000 for discrimination by Bronson and Co.

But Bronson outdid himself when he put an actual con man in charge of the health department. His name was Joe Gerace and he claimed to have master’s degrees in business administration and physician assistant studies, and to be a high-ranking officer in the Alaska National Guard. Turns out he didn’t have one master’s degree, much less two. Nor was he a member of the National Guard. When reporters (not the Bronson administration) discovered his fake resume, he resigned.

Before Bronson was elected, the city required its chief librarian to have a library science degree and seven years of experience. Bronson rejected those criteria and instead tried to hire an unqualified political supporter named Judy Eledge. When Eledge’s homophobic, racist, and downright bizarre social media comments became public, Eledge withdrew her name from consideration.

Bronson shamelessly then hired her as “assistant director” of the library, which allowed her to dodge confirmation by the Assembly, while he left the director’s position unfilled and Eledge remained in charge of the library.

Another failed Bronson appointment was Cheston “Prophet” McCrea, who Bronson wanted to put on the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission. When McCrea’s history of misogynistic and homophobic comments became public, he too withdrew.

Of course, in addition to personnel mismanagement, Bronson has a history of mismanaging the city’s finances. Here are a couple of instances, according to former city manager Amy Demboski (who is now suing Bronson and the city for $550,000): Municipal law requires no-bid city contracts of $30,000 or more to be approved by the Assembly. Bronson gave at least three sole source contracts for $29,500 — one right after the other — to a political crony named Larry Baker. Bronson apparently has no compunction about violating the spirit of the law to avoid Assembly scrutiny.

Demboski also says Bronson fired a city employee who declined to “swing” a city contract to the friend of a “close associate” of Bronson’s.

Bronson also admitted he broke the law when he authorized a multimillion-dollar contract to begin construction on a homeless shelter, which prompted a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city, which resulted in a multimillion-dollar settlement. With your tax money.

If someone somewhere thinks more fiscal irregularities won’t be found once Bronson is out of office and a full, competent audit of city finances is completed, I’m available for side bets.

And then there’s the snow plowing. Or lack of it.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Anchorage voters, please do not fall for cynical partisan appeals to vote “conservative” or “liberal.” This mayor’s race is a straightforward question of good or bad government. We’ve had bad. Let’s try good.

Patrick Dougherty is a writer, retired Anchorage Daily News editor, and strategic media and marketing consultant.

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