Before a KTVA reporter looked at Rebecca Logan’s court records, the candidate for Anchorage mayor had already gone over all of them with her family and her circle of advisers. After all, these were not just parking tickets.
Was her messy divorce over a decade ago, which dragged her into some financial problems and wage garnishment, going to come back to haunt her?
What about the DUI she received a decade ago — would it hurt her chances with the voters?
How would she explain it all without harming her former spouse? Her children? Her husband?
Logan’s family and friends said they were ready and they’d stand by her. She filed her letter of intent to run in September for the mayoral election that occurs starting about March 15, when Anchorage voters receive their mail-in ballots.
This week, KTVA TV News ran a report on these items. It had an edge not typically seen in mainstream media. It scrambled the timeline on events surrounding her divorce and financial hardships. It misstated other events.
Logan found herself having to decide whether to take on all the inaccuracies, one by one, or just hold her head high and stick to the issues facing the city.
“What do you think Anchorage citizens are more concerned about? What happened in my debt and wage garnishment all those years ago, or what’s happening in this city with crime and the quality of life today?” she said this morning by phone.
Rather than relive a traumatic period of her personal life, Logan says the murder, property thefts, and deteriorating conditions in Anchorage are the issue voters care about.
Anchorage experienced 35 known murders in 2017, and more than 3,100 vehicle thefts.
Logan said that crime being out of control was a big motivating factor in her decision to run for mayor:
“Vehicle theft jumped by 73 percent in 2016, and another 50 percent year over year in 2017,” she said. “Everyone in Anchorage knows someone who has had their car stolen.” Meanwhile, there were eight violent crimes per 1,000 residents last year, and residents clearly feel unsafe, she said.
“I just want people to talk to me before making up their minds,” Logan said. “These bad things in life do happen to real people, and I’m no exception. My life is an open book — I’ve not tried to hide anything.
“But we all know that this city is heading in the wrong direction, and that’s what this campaign is all about — making Anchorage safer for families, safer for women, and safer for all of us,” she said.
