Anchorage Assembly slinks by open meetings law as it talks shop with Alaska Black Caucus on Sunday Zoom call

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At Sunday’s “Community Conversation” with the Alaska Black Caucus, the majority of the Anchorage Assembly attended and spoke at length about topics that are active agenda items and litigation matters with the Assembly.

The general public had no idea that the meeting was taking place and thus had no meaningful way to participate.

The meeting, conducted by Zoom, was expressly designed by ABC to have Assembly members present to talk about items in active status with the governing body.

Assembly members Chair Suzanne LaFrance, Vice Chair Chris Constant, Felix Rivera, John Weddleton, Kameron Perez-Verdia, and Crystal Kennedy attended the meeting, which was unadvertised on the Assembly’s own web page.

The Assembly put a notice on another municipal calendar, which is a little-known and hard-to-locate page on the Municipal website. The public usually looks for Assembly meetings on the Assembly’s calendar not on the public notices calendar.

The Alaska Black Caucus was awarded $437,000 by the Assembly last year using CARES Act money, so the group could buy a building that will essentially become an arm of the Democratic Party.

The state’s Open Meetings Act (AS 44.62. 310-. 312) requires that all meetings of a public entity’s governing body be open to the public and that the body provide “reasonable” notice of its meetings. This meeting was noticed on one hard-to-find calendar, but not on the Assembly’s own calendar. The topic given on the public notice calendar was “reapportionment,” but other active-status topics were discussed at length.

At the beginning of the meeting, the group talked about redistricting. The Assembly is the redistricting board for the redrawing of the political lines in Anchorage for the new Assembly districts. Assemblyman Constant, chair of the Assembly’s Redistricting Committee, led most of the discussion.

During the discussion, School Board President Margo Bellamy posed the question and proposal that the Anchroage Municipality eliminate district boundaries altogether and have all Assembly members elected areawide, as they are on the Anchorage School Board. That idea was gently dissuaded by members of the Assembly and by Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, who was also in the meeting.

The group also discussed the matter of Emergency Ordinance 91 that has enacted a mask mandate everywhere in Anchorage. Assemblyman Felix Rivera said that if the ordinance were to be continued after December 31, when it expires, he would only vote for it if it was again an emergency ordinance. This constitutes another violation of the Open Meetings Act, as Rivera was telling the others how he will vote in advance of the question.

The Assembly also spoke about Clifford Armstrong III, the chief equity officer who was fired by the Anchorage mayor, and replaced by someone Uluao “Junior” Aumavae. That matter is currently in litigation as the Assembly has sued the mayor for firing Armstrong.

During that part of the discussion, Assemblyman Constant said that the mayor was trying to drive a wedge between the Samoan community and the black community by appointing a person of Samoan heritage to the position as he replaced Armstrong, who is black.

In the summer of 2020, the Assembly passed Emergency Ordinance 15, which closed all the Assembly meetings to the public, and drew a lawsuit against the Assembly, which is still being negotiated with the Alaskans for Open Meetings public interest group.

Again in October 2021, the Assembly passed a rule that cuts in half the number of people allowed in the Assembly Chambers, to control public participation during a time when the Assembly has been under pressure by disgruntled citizens.

There seems to be little remedy to the violations of the Open Meetings Act, especially since the Assembly can tuck notification for it meetings in unexpected places on the municipal website, and then claim that the meetings are in compliance with the term “reasonable notification.”

Watch the meeting at this link:

47 COMMENTS

    • ROBERT RUBEY: Don’t use words if you have no idea what they mean. The correct word to use is “flout,” not “flaunt.”

      • Actually, Sophie, they are doing both, flouting (the municipal charter in numerous ways) AND flaunting (their despicable and totalitarian Wuhan Virus mandates).

  1. Never has there been a better reason for Assembly District 2 to detach from the MOA. Chugiak/Eagle River, if you will, please look at the potentials Eaglexit can offer our community.

    The time is now.

  2. Enact tighter controls on who can post where n the muni website. If the assembly wants to post any other place other than their own page they must get prior permission

      • I think LAL was talking about controlling the *Assembly’s* speech on the muni website. This is appropriate, especially given that they are not forthcoming when they should be accountable to the people that elected them. The Assembly must be forced to publish notifications in a predictable place, rather than hiding notifications from the public on various apparently random sites.
        I don’t read that LAL was trying to suppress public speech by individuals; in fact, that’s what the Assembly’s duplicitous behavior is doing, by hiding their open-by-law discussions from all but a select few.
        But really, the muni website should not just be open to anyone who wants to post anything on any subject.

  3. Something I notice in common with all these participants. They have absolutely no color in their lives. No wonder Anchorage looks so damn ugly as a city. The only saving grace is nature and some young artist murals on downtown buildings.
    Our leadership is drab. Our architecture is drab. No wonder they are so invested in the pandemic scam, they have nothing good going on in their lives. Crisis gives them purpose. Poor poor souls.

  4. More deception by the assembly. As they glad-hand and hob-knob introducing themselves and behave so, so cordially, they ignore the will of the people. They ignore the city charter, they fight the mayor at every step of the way, all the while pretending to be so nice. Not nice people. Not good people. Deceivers with their own special interests in mind.

      • Sophie, more to the point, when can we expect the Anchorage Assembly to lavish the Ostrogoth community with money to purchase a building?

        • Alaric, you should be eschewing politics and just going for the jugular here — the Great Sack of Anchorage!
          .
          While you are sacking Anchorage, however, please concentrate on municipal buildings and the houses of the Marxist Nine.

          • Jefferson,
            Your thought above would be well within Alaric’s instructions given to his people while sacking Rome some 16 centuries ago. He put limits on who, where and how the destruction was to be accomplished. A very disciplined and reasonable approach, especially in light to the meat axe destruction the Leftist on the Anchorage Assembly have pursued over the last 20 months.
            Their collective actions give Barbarian a whole new meaning.

          • Theodoric, wise words from a student of history! Now, if only Anchorage had its own Belisarius to stem and reverse the tide of radical leftist barbarianism.

  5. They relatively purr to each other in utter (illegal?) coziness as long as the public cannot participate. Sick of the jokers.

  6. What loathsome, contemptible creatures!
    “Rules and laws are for the peons, NOT for us, the overlords!”
    .
    Power-mad sociopaths, every one of them (with the exception of Allard and Kennedy).

      • She apparently did, Murry, but Crystal Kennedy is most definitely NOT one of the ‘Marxist Nine’, nor does she vote with them nor agree with them on almost anything. She is simply much more reserved and less confrontational than Jamie Allard (and saying that is not intended as a criticism of either Crystal or Jamie).

  7. We don’t even flinch anymore about the fact there is a racial identity movement that is talking to the assembly with exclusive access. It’s only an issue that it wasn’t public. We as a nation will get what we deserve.

    • DINO: Why flinch?

      Race is the the gift that keeps on giving. The most Machiavellian, cruel “gift” the “Masters of the Universe” (White Western so called “Civilization”) bestowed upon themselves — and inflicted on the rest of humanity.

      White society, American and European, deliberatively established racial identity “groups” when it created the societal construct of Race as its declaration of self-anointed supremacy over every other world cultural population. Hence, White Western society ensconced itself at the apex of a monstrous “hierarchy of Power.” Thus has the White social order excused itself for denying the humanity of African, Indigenous, and Asian populations across the globe for centuries.

      White society “imperialized” populations:
      enslaving millions upon millions; committing genocidal acts across the globe time and again against indigenous populations, stealing countries and continents from their rightful possessors — all for economic and political power.

      Yet, you have the monumental temerity to complain of the “racial identity movement(s)” White civilization’s forebears created? Would it be…because the “law of unintended consequences” has finally made White society’s “chickens come home to roost?” The answer is “Yes.”

      • So it appears you think that certain racial identities can have special privileges, as long as it’s not certain others. That’s no better than the behavior of the ones you’re criticizing.
        None of us alive have had any hand in “enslaving millions upon millions; committing genocidal acts across the globe time and again against indigenous populations, stealing countries and continents from their rightful possessors — all for economic and political power.” Unless, of course, you want to talk about the genocide perpetrated on black and minority populations by abortion purveyors and activists, of which it’s true, are in large number – but not exclusively – rich white folks.
        In any case, being happy to trade one version of prejudice for another is insane and perpetuates hate.

        • MMD: So, it appears you can’t face truth.

          You won’t accept that Whites — as creators of racial classifications, and the concept of the White Race as supreme — are the SOLE owners of the noun “Racist.” As in: White society, modern and ancient, is PROVEN racist –by word and act from the 16th century to the present day.

          Other cultures can be prejudiced or bigoted. NEVER racist.

          • I have lived as a minority among various cultures – among four different races, though I will not name them since I do not want to participate in further perpetuating hate – and I can assure you, they were very definitely racist, according to the definition of racist: “A person who believes a particular race is superior to others; a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others.” And I do not mean that certain individuals were racist, rather that each those cultures AS A WHOLE held that they were superior to others.
            You’re making up your own definitions of “prejudiced, bigoted and racist.” Just claiming that one race is “the SOLE owner of the noun Racist” does not make it truth. Your statement belies its own falsity in the very fact that there is no such thing as a white race. Peoples you call white “from the 16th century to the present day” are from various races themselves; there is no “white race.” And there are numerous cultures composed of persons with colored skin that firmly believe – as evidenced by word and act historically and presently – that one race (theirs) is superior to others. That’s racist.

          • Sophie, this hysterical, nonsensical, ridiculous bilge that you are spewing here is so over-the-top that I refuse to believe that you, or anyone else, seriously believes it. Nobody could be that profoundly ignorant and stupid.

        • MMD: Dictionaries are a perfect example of the cultural relativism of Western so-called civilization that elevates and upholds White ethnocentricity while heaping etymological scorn on all other cultures. For example:

          Definitions of Black
          A.
          of the very darkest color owing to the absence of or complete absorption of light; the opposite of white;

          B.
          of a period of time or situation) characterized by tragic or disastrous events; causing despair or pessimism.
          “five thousand men were killed on the blackest day of the war”

          C.
          (of a person’s state of mind) full of gloom or misery; very depressed.
          “Jean had disappeared and Mary was in a black mood”

          D.
          (of humor) presenting tragic or harrowing situations in comic terms.
          ““Good place to bury the bodies,” she joked with black humor”

          E.
          full of anger or hatred.
          “Roger shot her a black look”

          F.
          ARCHAIC
          very evil or wicked.
          “my soul is steeped in the blackest sin”

          I’ll stop there for now.
          – – – – – – – – –

          Even then, as befits any defender of White supremacy, you neglect including the WHOLE of your cited definition from OED:
          “…typically one that is MINORITY or MARGINALIZED.”

          • So what color should Evil be represented by? You know Evil has been represented as Dark, and Darkness. That person had so much darkness in them. Darkness can’t subdue lightness, lightness subdues the darkness. Those last two are scientifically proven factual statements.
            Maybe we should choose another color like that person had such blue in them! Or they were so gray! Or the deepest coldest shade of blue of the ocean! Hahahaha
            You don’t know what you are doing! But you know what you and whatever groups you think as good information are doing? You all are participating in the devil’s work to get people to see His Darkness as good using confusion setting up arguements between something as shades of physical skin color totally unrelated and irrelevant to His spiritual darkness.
            The whole goal set up behind yours and your kind of peoples thinking is an old age tactic of forces unseen they do to confuse us innocent people into thinking what use to be called evil is now good, and what was once called good is now evil. One tactic is changing how we view Dark and Light.

          • Cont… until oneday we all start believing Evil Darkness doesn’t even exist which is a deceptive tactic to avoid accountability by one unseen. Because! how can there be evil and darkness if Darkness and the Devil himself doesnt exist? By our naivety removing the term darkness existence which is The best thing for spiritual darkness to flourish is peoples removal of its existence by people saying there is no devil, there is no angels, there is no demons, there is spiritual warfare going on around us. We are miraculous meticulously amazingly created complex beings floating in a space of matter. Then we remove the answer why bad things happened to us and the devil didn’t have to be held accountable for why so and so murder your relative or why your family members aren’t getting along with one another. Why does it feel your whole community is driving around like irritable. We are left in limbo facing unanswered questions why such an such unfortunate happened without knowing who led the perpetrator up to such heinous actions and why things around us are off balence- If we get rid of Darkness’ existence by removal of such terms representing it.

      • Sophie, you need to replace the word “white” with “psychopath”. The folks who enslave others do so not because of their color of skin. The ones who enslave do so because they all share something with each other. They are psychopaths. They put their own illusion of power above the well being of others.
        ***
        The ones who pushed “christian” crusades across the lands did so not because they were Christians, but because they were psychopaths who used God as a scapegoat.

        We do not need racial equality/equity movements. We need a movement that takes power back from psychopaths and gives back to the people. The same folks who oppress minorities are also oppressing us white folks.
        ***
        Social justice movements in general are a trick, a tactic of division. The system will create a “problem” and then agents will campaign and promise you they will solve the problem if you vote for them. If you watch closely, the problem never gets solved, but a whole lot of money goes towards the movement. People get used to having free money thrown at them that they find ways to perpetuate the problem.
        ***
        White people are not the problem. Black people are not the problem. We the People usually get along with each other. The problem is psychopaths who seek to control others.

        .

      • Sophie! Whoa girl, I think you might want to consider enlarging your understanding about human nature before you go pinning every act of inhumanity upon a particular race.
        BTW, given your view regarding white/ European people and genocide, what can you tell us about Bill Gates ?

        • I can always tell when I hit the mark, Suzanne. I know too, too much about political dirty linen in this state — and you know it.

          • Sophie, you admonish others about their choice of words. You know too , too much…? I have no doubt! It appears that you hang a bit left in your thinking which means you must be familiar with lots of linen soiling leftist weasels. Do tell all Sophie!

  8. Our lawlesslature isn’t called before the scales of justice over it’s theft of YOUR PFD.
    Why, then should the lawless assembly have any fear?

    Alaska needs a new sheriff.

    Also a flock of new hudges who respect the law.

  9. This seemed to be a strategy session, don’t let the casual dress and scruffy appearances of some fool you.
    Notably absent was Jamie Allard. I guess she was not invited or could not locate the “public notice”. Margo Bellamy:
    Had to listen to her question several times to understand what she was suggesting. It appeared to me that she was attempting to gain support to prevent a potential charter change( to have school board representation follow the political districts) by suggesting to change the assembly instead…..sadly for her apparently no joy and comfort there.
    As an aside when a member of the public mentioned the Constitution, Mrs. LaFrance uncomfortable reaction (minute 49:50) was truly priceless!

  10. Nothing will be done because they’re libs and because they’re in the majority. If this had been a conservative assembly, the ACLU would have been all over this. Rules for thee, but not for me.

  11. Just curious, when are they planning on meeting with the Alaska White Caucus? Or do they meet with only certain racist organizations?

  12. During the Assembly meetings they always state that Assembly Members can not make statements or assumptions regarding another Assembly member’s motive. Yet Chris Constant clearly speculated about the Mayor Bronson’s motive, “Assemblyman Constant said that the mayor was trying to drive a wedge between the Samoan community and the black community by appointing a person of Samoan heritage to the position as he replaced Armstrong, who is black.” Apparently that same rule does not apply when making statements or assumptions about the Mayor’s motives.

    • Sounds to me Constant is trying to begin driving a wedge between the city’s samoan and black communities just by his using his elevated position to circulate the wrong thinking thought around. I hope the Samoans have better things to do than fight with the blacks or blacks fighting with Hispanics as Biden said to a private group of NAACP leaders oneday They will be dealing with the ever increasing Hispanics than the declining Whites. That sounds like Biden was trying to stake a wedge between the blacks vs. Hispanics. I hope black community have better things to do than fight with Hispanices.
      More Racism coming from Democrats. What else is new?

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