In a third night of testimony, the Anchorage Assembly continued to get an earful about a proposed mask ordinance, that would require all in Anchorage over the age of 2 to mask up — or else. The “or else” part depends on people ratting each other out to the authorities and facing fines of $300 for a first offense.
The Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel proposed penalty for not wearing a mask would also to have a smudge on one’s record for creating a public health nuisance. All of this has been cooked up by the leftist on the Assembly, led by Zaletel, who is refusing to show up to meetings until everyone is masked, and properly spaced to her satisfaction.
At least 40 minutes of the Thursday meeting was spent in parliamentary procedural disagreements, as Assembly Vice Chair Christopher Constant repeatedly attempted to prevent Assemblywoman Jamie Allard from asking questions of the testifiers. Constant said was purposefully trying to slow things down. Allard responded with her own parliamentary procedures, trying to override Chairwoman Suzanne LaFrance, who was siding with Constant.
Constant’s word of the night was “dilatory,” the purposeful delaying of the proceedings.
The matter kept being referred to the Assembly’s Attorney Dean Gates, who was befuddled and unable to answer the questions being asked of him on the ruling of the chair; Chair Suzanne LaFrance sided with Constant at every turn.
In the end, the Assembly had burned up more on the clock debating whether asking questions of the testifiers was dilatory than they would have if they had just allowed Allard to ask the questions, which is a long-standing practice in the Assembly.
Constant and Kameron Perez-Verdia also tried to limit the way that testimony was given, saying that many of them strayed off the topic of the mask and into things like vaccines. Only 35 people were allowed to testify on Thursday in a meeting that stretched six hours.
Assemblywoman Crystal Kennedy argued that the “Whereas” clauses in the ordinance were so sweeping, that people should be allowed to testify on any range of topics that were covered by them, but the leftists on the Assembly continued to interrupt testimony, saying it was not relevant.
Although the testimony was passionate, it was not as raucous as the nights prior. The line remained long at the end of the meeting, which was continued to Monday night at 6 pm for still more testimony.
The reason Chair LaFrance stopped kicking people out of the chamber for clapping is because the Assembly’s attorney advised her to stop doing it. Unlike previous nights, LaFrance on Thursday asked people to stop clapping but she refrained from having security guards remove them for clapping, or having police trespass them off the public property. The attorney warned LaFrance she was infringing on the public’s constitutional rights by throwing them out of the meeting and would not win in court, should someone sue her.
A three-minute clip from the last piece of testimony of the night from a cancer patient’s perspective is a must-see, as Mayor Dave Bronson intervenes to ensure the woman can finish her heartfelt, difficult testimony (many more clips of the week’s testimony at the Must Read Alaska Facebook page:
