It’s the Anchorage Assembly version of, “You can’t break up with me. I’m breaking up with you.”
Assemblyman Chris Constant didn’t want the two conservative Chugiak-Eagle River Assemblywomen, who were exploring an Eagle River separation question for the April ballot, to get ahead of him this week.
Instead of waiting for the Assembly Attorney Dean Gates to finish work on a resolution already being crafted by Assemblywomen Crystal Kennedy and Jamie Allard, Assemblyman Constant, who represents downtown Anchorage, got Gates busy on his own alternative ordinance. Constant then announced he would have it ready for the Jan. 11 regular Assembly meeting.
It appears the Department of Law or Assembly Attorney Dean Gates may have slipped the information about what he was working on for Kennedy and Allard to Constant, and Constant quickly got busy on his own version, which would have the entire Anchorage Bowl weigh in, rather than just Eagle River, Chugiak and Eklutna. Constant even got it on the same agenda as the two women’s draft ordinance, and made sure an ordinance number was assigned to it.
Constant is offering AO-14, an advisory vote, he first announced on social media last week.
Constant’s proposal would not include Joint Base Elmendor-Richardson in the breakup. JBER would stay with Anchorage.
Separately, the Chugiak-Eagle River Assemblywomen are presenting the proposal they have been working on, which only has the voters of the Chugiak-Eagle River area voting on the matter. The question would ask voters if they want a research and study on the possibility of separating from Anchorage for the purpose of creating a separate governmental unit.
It’s unclear why Anchorage Assembly’s attorney Gates didn’t advise Kennedy and Allard that a competing proposal was in the offing. He does, however, know who sugars his toast on the Assembly — it’s the liberal faction. Kennedy and Allard are the loyal opposition to what conservatives call the Marxist Nine — Constant and Assembly members Suzanne LaFrance, Forrest Dunbar, Austin Quinn-Davidson, Pete Petersen, John Weddleton, Cameron Perez-Verdia, Felix Rivera, and Meg Zalatel.
The Kennedy-Allard proposal has not yet been given an ordinance number on Tuesday’s agenda.
The Eagle River area, including Birchwood, Eklutna, Peters Creek, and Chugiak, voted to incorporate separately in 1974, but the laws determining the new municipality were found unconstitutional, and so the area was soon reincorporated back into Anchorage.
But a group called EagleExit has rekindled interest in separating, and has been meeting and studying the issue for many months.
Both the Constant proposal, above, and the Kennedy-Allard proposal, below, would have advisory votes on the April ballot. But in Constant’s proposal, the entire municipality would vote, while in the Kennedy-Allard proposal, the matter would only be put to those in the Assembly District 2 area.
As vice chair of the leftist Assembly, Constant’s proposal is more likely to advance with the support of his left-leaning colleagues. Only Kennedy and Allard are considered conservatives on the Anchorage Assembly, and with a competing proposal now offered from the vice chair, their draft ordinance is likely to be cast aside.
Opponents of the exit of Eagle River say that a 2007 study shows the new governmental unit could not provide the same level of services as Anchorage now does. But since 2007, the Eagle River tax base has grown by leaps and bounds as population trends moved people further outside of Anchorage proper and into Eagle River, Peters Creek, Chugiak, Birchwood, and to the Mat-Su Borough.
“The question of whether the Chugiak-Eagle River area should be part of the Municipality of Anchorage has been a contentious issue for decades. In 1969 the idea to consolidate the Anchorage Borough with the City of Anchorage took root. The very next year Chugiak-Eagle River residents overwhelmingly voted against consolidating with the City of Anchorage, confirming their desire for local control over matters relating to the Chugiak-Eagle River area,” wrote Craig Campbell, who has been promoting the exit of Eagle River.
“As written by the late Lee Jordan in the November 3, 2016 edition of Echo Magazine ‘Against their will, Chugiak-Eagle River became part of the Greater Anchorage Area Borough (GAAB).’ During formation of the MOA, which combined the City of Anchorage with the GAAB, Chugiak-Eagle River residents again attempted to break from Anchorage by establishing the Chugiak-Eagle River Borough in 1974. Lee Jordan was elected as the first Mayor, while seven borough assembly members and five school board members were also elected, Campbell recalled.
“Formation of the new Borough was objected to by some. As is the American tradition, a lawsuit was filed to reverse the vote of the people. On April 15, 1975 the Alaska Supreme Court found that the legislation which allowed for the secession election ‘was unconstitutional,’ But it wasn’t! I share this history to remind everyone that the idea of a separate Chugiak-Eagle River Borough is not a new concept, but one that has been strongly advocated since statehood,” Campbell continued.
“Regretfully, a chasm between the values of Anchorage and those of Chugiak-Eagle River (Assembly District 2) has grown over the past 15 to 20 years and the belief that both areas still share the same vision of local government no longer exists. Today, the only two conservatives on the Assembly are from District 2. With virtually no allies on the Assembly, they are hand-tied to influence decisions being made in Anchorage that almost solely benefit Anchorage and not the citizens of District 2. Recent actions of Mayor Berkowitz and the Anchorage Assembly confirm to me that the direction Anchorage is heading (more government control over people’s lives with higher taxes and a larger bureaucracy) is not the direction we want for District 2,” Campbell said. “So I ask, if not now, when? The economics support our independence so we should take this opportunity to support EagleExit, take back our government and form our own Borough.”
The Anchorage Assembly meets on Jan. 11, starting at 5 pm in the ground floor meeting room of the Loussac Library.
Constant is known for tactics to move himself ahead of Assemblywoman Jamie Allard and to sideline her. In May, when it became evident that his chosen candidate for mayor, Forrest Dunbar, was likely to lose, he was caught on a hot mic explaining that he wanted to cancel the city’s mask mandate before Allard could offer the same suggestion.
“I just didn’t want to give Jamie the power,” he was heard explaining while his mic was still on.
