By CRAIG CAMPBELL
The current Anchorage Assembly majority is the perfect definition of an oligarchy in lock-step with Mayor Berkowitz.
I like Webster’s definition of an oligarchy – “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.”
Think I’m wrong? The normal checks and balance between the legislative and executive branches in Anchorage has all but been erased by an elitist group of liberal warriors intent on imposing their radical construct of government on all of us so they can retain political power.
They want to silence conservative views and replace civil discourse with autocratic authority that lacks diversity of thought. Their actions are not about making Anchorage a more inclusive, diverse, safe, and prosperous society. Not at all.
The sad part is, unless some of the current liberals are recalled, which is highly doubtful, no assembly member is up for re-election until 2022. They can do a lot of damage to our community over the next eighteen months.
I am not trying to be an alarmist. But I am sounding a warning that this assembly majority is hell bent on implementing their own monocratic agenda, which will result in the loss of representative government and an erosion of public input by an assembly that continually shows their disdain for the public that elected them to office.
Let me offer a few recent examples to confirm my allegation. Assembly member Meg Zaletel, while serving the Presiding Officer at an Assembly meeting illegally closed to the public, selectively invites just one member of the public to testify on Mayor Berkowitz’s very controversial proposal to purchase four buildings to address homelessness in Anchorage. Your thoughts really aren’t important.
This caused a recall effort against Assembly member Zaletel. But as with any oligarchy, the inner circle must protect their power, so the Clerk rejects the recall based on advice from the Municipal Attorney. Let me connect the dots.
The Clerk, who works for the Assembly, and the Municipal Attorney, who works for Mayor Berkowitz, cannot afford to have the nine member majority assembly disrupted. Regardless that the recall statement was legally sufficient, the bureaucrats must protect their bosses; the law be damned.
Usurping public testimony 5 to 1 against purchasing the buildings, the assembly majority approves the purchases, just as their ideological leader, Mayor Berkowitz, demanded. Then to replicate the Zaletel recall petition denial, the Clerk and Municipal Attorney denied a citizens petition request to repeal the ordinances to purchase buildings to house and treat the homeless. You have to give the ruling class credit for consistency.
Concurrently, the Assembly-Mayor Cabal is intentionally attacking the private sector to ensure we remain dependent on their munificent generosity. Look no further than their allocations under the CARES Act funding. Anchorage received $156.7 Million in CARES funding.
Of that, the Assembly only appropriated $33.0 Million for economic stimulus, while allocating $57.0 Million for homelessness, housing and family support. Of the economic stimulus funds, only $6.0 Million will be spent on small business and non-profit support, two of the sectors most negatively impacted by this pandemic.
That’s less than Kenai and Fairbanks provided to small business. This assembly should be ashamed. Instead, to address one of our city’s more serious problems, they carved out $3.0 Million to build trails, money that could have been used to help restaurants survive, but why should they do that?
Need I say more? Man, I’m going to miss the Perfect Cup Café.
Need more? OK, I will. To show us their blatant contempt of the law, they reserved $49,000 for the Assembly to retain consultant services for which Chair Rivera secretly and unethically solicited hiring on the Young Democrats Facebook, in violation of the Anchorage Municipal Code. This stuff has the makings of a Keystone Cops skit.
One last example of our elitist’s leaders arrogance. Ignoring public testimony against (again by almost a 5 to 1 margin) an ordinance that prevents “licensed professionals – such as therapists or school counselors – from engaging in efforts to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” the oligarchy passed the ordinance.
Those opposed cited concerns about the ban encroaching on freedoms of speech and religion and parental rights. Some called it overreach of the Assembly’s powers.
Freedom of Speech? Civil liberties? Parental rights? Doesn’t matter to this assembly majority, they really believe they are smarter than you and me.
On Oct. 16, the current Anchorage COVID Emergency Order expires. I will wager with anyone that the Assembly will extend it yet again.
Why? Because that is what we all expect Mayor Berkowitz to request, they have the power, and continuing to cripple the Anchorage economy may just be enough for voters to put more radicals in office at the Nov. 3 election. Anybody want to challenge me on this one?
The Leftist Cabal is pushing to radically change our community into an ultra-liberal monocratic society based on their radical view of humanity. Remember, Assembly member Forrest Dunbar tells us the U.S. Constitution is filled with racism, while Assembly member Chris Constant says that Anchorage is a systemically racist city.
Dunbar is the same guy who is proud his sister and cousin are out in the Portland riots participating with the “Wall of Moms” to shield rioters against the police.
This is the Cabal working to take control of our city. Opposing viewpoints, shut up and color. Trust them, for they will lead us to a better place.
Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor. He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation. He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).
Anchorage is circling the drain. The Assembly Cabal has their hand on the flush handle. Recall is the only answer. Wake up Anchorage before it’s too late. Get rid of these fools?
Recall? Did you not read the article? What has changed that will make a recall successful? No, the real answer is more direct than that. But no one wants to talk about that, do they?
Great letter. Those were the days when people like Craig Campbell, John Woods, Kevin Meyer and other greats were on the Anchorage Assembly.
As good as Suzanne’s fine writing, well done with good hard hitting examples.
Never forget the public employee unions that put that majority in place – police, fire and teachers. This is their problem too. Cheers –
So, we’ve identified the problem. Now, how do we fix it, other than wait until 2020 to vote in new Assembly members who more accurately felect the city’s political ideology?
Lisa Murkowski also must be replaced!!!!
Only sane voice is Jamie Allard. Problem is these morons are a product of their constituents. Vote them out and they are replaced with like minded idiots, by “no information, low information voters”. Social zealots. They are DNC Commie wanna bees. Just take a look at Sloppy Joe’s play book. ” if you think it’s bad now, wait til Trump gets re-elected, you ain’t seen nothing yet”. Keep your powder dry!
This is exactly what I have been telling people since the first shutdown of the economy when all the bars had to close at 5PM on that Monday in March. The mayor is operating outside the limitations of an elected official listed in the US Constitution. There exists zero authority of ANY elected official to COMMAND the population to BOW DOWN for ANY reason. Further, 18US242 specifies “Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Great piece!
And this kind of stuff is why we should support the President appointing a new supreme now. And why Lisa M should too. It all ties together.
I hate saying this, but think a lot of businesses are going to close due to Covid no matter what, and any economic help now won’t stop the inevitable. I really hope I’m wrong. If that scenario does come true, the city is going to have a lot more homeless people and no resources. But maybe everyone will decide to wear masks and slow the spread so businesses can reopen.
Kathy, I think you actually hope you are right and you are actually happy businesses are closing due to ‘covid’. Businesses are closed because of unconstitutional rules based on Democratic hijacked hysterical junk science. But you can keep wearing your slave mask honey.
Please provide factual evidence that wearing masks is slowing the spread.
For the first quarter of this article I thought I was reading about President Trump and the Republican Senatorial cabal.
You thought? That’s quite a concept.
I couldn’t agree more. We won’t really know who Anchorage actually is, are we red, blue or purple unless we have better turn out. Conservatives are “values voters”, we don’t vote if our candidates don’t get us excited. The left know this. To the left politics is life. To us, life is life. Conservatives have to wake up, mobilize and become as involved as the left who keep shellacking us at the polls. This is the time Anchorage. No excuses. Everyone must vote. Every. Single. Vote. Counts.
Great post and most comments!
With respect, General, they bad, we good, we already know that!
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Now… you gonna lead the draining of the swamp or not?
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Got your mission parameters squared away, who does what to whom, when and where, what victory looks like?
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We already know the swamp stinks, nothing in it likes us except for dinner, draining’s gonna be expensive, painful, casualties are inevitable.
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But the price of not draining the swamp… we really want to go there?
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You want to smash the cabal, cartel, monocracy, start with what props it up, lets it grow… which is Anchorage’s easily corruptible mail-in vote scheme.
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Now you know why Assembly members were so eager to force Anchorage’s easily corruptible mail-in vote scam on residents.
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If the cancer can’t be voted out because the fix is in, then what else do we have except forcing a financial coma, with the objective of making the cabal, cartel, monocracy too expensive for them to sustain.
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Residents have leverage; they can actively lobby state and federal entities and two-thirds of their congressional delegation to withold revenue sharing until Anchorage’s Assembly eliminates unsolicited mail-in balloting. They can help make Eagexit happen, start secession movements in other parts of town. They can leave Anchorage for greener pastures, causing a recession, like they did in the 1980’s.
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So, where you at, General? Leadng from the front which thank Goodness for you, or preaching to the choir which… whoops! don’t want to get sanctinoned for that!
It is quite obvious that one-size-fits-all doesn’t work in Anchorage. A good start for Anchorage residents to defund the leftist cabal that has ruined our city is to split it up to form distinctly separate, smaller towns – Downtown, South Anchorage, Hillside, Eagle River, etc.. Then each entity could elect its own leaders to decide how to manage its own resources to solve problems.
The Local Boundary Commission would likely get in the way of that scheme.
Ethan Berkowitz and Nancy Burke were in hiding when it came time to discuss alternative solutions to homelessness and enabling the client base to access more than the usual cherry-picked list of service providers.
This extended to turning people away from City Hall even when they had legitimate business there, something which occurred at City Hall before it occurred at the Assembly Chambers. It was only three months later that everything came full circle as far as public knowledge was concerned when you started reporting on AO 2020-58 and 2020-66. In the meantime, speaking of one-size-fits-all, smaller providers are closing or facing difficulty attracting clients while last I heard, Bean’s is planning on staying at the Sullivan for at least the next six months. Because FEMA is footing all or most of the bill, people aren’t asking “What is the community getting for the $800-900K/mo. being spent?”, instead dwelling on a red herring like “When am I gonna get to see a hockey game again?”.
Berkowitz is just one of what should be a wake up call for all Alaskans voters. Voters own a lot of the responsibility for bad candidates being elected. Voters tend to be lazy and don’t understand the importance of researching who they might vote for. Many voters never fact check the many lies they are told but just go with what sounded good at the time. Everyone should value and cherish their vote and most of all show the vote you are about to cast the respect it deserves because if you don’t it will often come back to haunt and hurt you and your family.
Campbell for U.S. Senate 2022? Goodbye Lisa.
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