The April 9 meeting of the Anchorage Assembly will give the radical left majority another opportunity to stick it to the mayor during election season.
The question is whether the Assembly will override the mayor’s veto of a resolution that would allow the Assembly to subpoena an agreement signed by Mayor Dave Bronson concerning water rights at Eklutna Lake. The city gets the vast majority of its drinking water from the lake, which also supplies electricity to more than 25,000 homes in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough through the Eklutna Hydroelectric Project.
Last week, Bronson said in his veto explanation that he had already shared the agreement with the Assembly.
“Why are Assembly members spending taxpayer dollars for their attorneys to subpoena documents they already have access to? These threatening subpoenas are nothing more than scare tactics to bully municipal employees into potentially breaching municipal contracts,” he said.
At issue is a confidentiality contract Bronson and the Assembly are bound to due to a contract signed by former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz in 2017. Assembly members want to release the Berkowitz agreement with the public, and Bronson says he cannot release it without attracting a lawsuit.
The matter will come up for a veto override vote during the meeting, and with eight members having voted to subpoena the document and release it to the public, the Assembly appears to have the numbers needed to override the mayor’s veto.
The Assembly meets on the ground floor of the Loussac Library beginning at about 5 pm on Tuesday. You can watch the proceedings on YouTube at this link.
