The Anchorage Assembly on Friday buckled to pressure, but in the end, they showed their political hand.
Dr. Fauci, the White House, Congress, the Department of Defense, and even the Alaska Legislature had revoked mask mandates. Had the Assembly not acted to do the same, it would have had a revolt on its hands.
“It’s time to end the mask mandate, it’s time to end it now,” said Assemblyman Kameron Perez-Verdia, who has voted in favor of the mask mandate for months.
Originally, Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson had kept in place the mandate, which former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz had put in place last June. She said the mandate would stay until 70 percent of the population was vaccinated against Covid-19. While many are vaccinated, it’s only about 50 percent of the population in Anchorage at this point.
But after Friday’s special meeting, Assemblyman Chris Constant quickly moved that the Assembly remove the mandate.
Constant was preempting Eagle River Assemblywoman Jamie Allard, who already had an amendment on the table to do just that. Allard has fought the mask mandate for many months, as the lone champion for opening Anchorage’s economy.
Constant, who has been busy working on the Forrest Dunbar for Mayor campaign, made the procedural move to ensure Allard could not take credit for it.
Constant was caught on a hot mic saying, “I just didn’t want to give Jamie the power.”
“I thought this wasn’t about political posturing, I thought this was about doing what’s right for our community,” Allard said later.
Assembly members and the public must still wear a mask in Assembly chambers until Tuesday, when that order is expected to be lifted.
Louis Imbriani, a citizen activist who attends many meetings of the Assembly, taped Constant in his “hot-mic moment,” and then played it back to the Assembly at the end of the meeting, expressing outrage that the liberal assemblyman had politicized the mask mandate.
Truly what he thinks. He believes he has power to award because of his pile of extra special rights or privileges relative to others. That sort of thinking is indicative of many things but is not in sync with the US Constitution. Typically we are all equal about “$1.47”.
This is such a shock from a progressive.
Ahahahahahahaha! I’m laughing at the people who voted him in. Like leaders, like voters.
Truly there a bunch of liars.
It’s all about there Power
Go Bronson Go
What an absolute dirtball. Totally shameful, yet it is shameless. Sadly, this likely will get no other coverage than this here.
It’s actually ironic that the head trips used to brow beat people into prostrating themselves as subjects to our government instead of living as free citizens were based on “health” concerns. The masks are and were 100% ineffective against an aerosol spread virus and masks are very unhealthy. It is and was a political objective, and this hot mic moment is a rare examole directly illustrating as to the motives. We will see an extreme reluctance to lose this power by incompetent “health” officials and “leaders” and there is sure to be a new “crisis” to build on the cattle like reaction by the public to being herded soon. I will miss the opportunities to ridicule mask nazis as they became contorted in anger when telling them where to shove their Chinese made masks. I never did, or will, wear a mask or conform to blatant flat earth ignorance, by totalitarian “officials” or arrogant and petty people who assume they have power over others for their political objectives.
Only critique is that Christopher Constant is not a liberal assemblyman. He is a far-left or Leftist assemblyman.
How did these children like Constant get elected to the Anchorage Assembly?
This is a prime example of the absolute contempt that the liberal members of the assembly hold for anyone in Anchorage who doesn’t think and act in the manner “they” think they should. To the liberal members of the assembly, Anchorage residents are not intelligent enough to make the “right” decision and must be protected from themselves by the righteous few on the assembly. The good news is that it looks like the voters of Anchorage have sent a message to the liberal assembly members by totally rejecting their agenda in voting down Mr. Dunbar and voting in Mr. Bronson. “Let (personal) freedom(s) ring…”
Show your colors, you godless Communists!
He’s such a creep.
You know! If it wasnt for covid mania I wouldn’t had seen Anchorage actually has a lot of good men. I thought Alaskan men were weak and prone to give-up, you know not really involved to improve relationshops and life. I am encouraged by seeing all the “Louis Imbriani” who didn’t like what they were seeing being done to their community and with their God-given authority being head not the tail they stood up and confronted the problem.
Every once in a while, a politician exhibits a rare moment of honesty.
Sadly, this is almost always only by accident, as shown here, where one is caught on a hot mic, and not because he actually intended to be honest….
Jamie Allard is priceless. Who knew she had the power to scare the liberals into trying to preempt her so she wouldn’t get the credit for doing what’s right and what she has been trying to accomplish for months. Now that’s political power when you can get your adversary to do what you want in order to deny you the ability to take credit for an action that in the end actually accomplishes your desired goal for you. Eagle River/Chugiak should be very proud of Assembly member Jamie Allard’s single leadership ability to get Anchorage opened up again. Well done!
Laughing and pointing at YOU, Chris Constant!
These people hate you. Understand that.
Recall Constant.
Citizens of Anchorage have all the power to take control of this situation, by means of recall.
It is looking like Dave Bronson is going to be the next Mayor and he will lead the charge to reversing all of the bad decisions made in the last couple of years, but it is also going to take the voting public (A.K.A. People in Charge) to get a handle on the Assembly that They elected!
I fully understand that Anchorage has a large population of Liberal-Minded Individuals….We have all seen what that mentality has done to a wonderful city.
Impeach Constant. Self serving plutocrat.
Anyone who listened to Constant in his rambling “personal privilege” moment where he impugned the reputation of every nurse or doctor that ever worked at the old ANS hospital by inferring the patients there were “tortured and worse” should be aware at this point the guy is more than half a bubble off.
He needs to be recalled and barred from any position of authority
I think Constant’s withholding power from Allard backfired on him and Dunbar.
In this particular situation her alone, he only increased her popularity, making her a rockstar.
If Constant and Dunbar went a little more conservative, maybe the race would have been tighter, or even swinged in his favor, and Dunbar wouldn’t have decreased his popularity over the last year, losing his reach over other groups, while All-star Allard increased her popularity because of their pride.
I live in Constant’s district. I couldn’t resist tweaking him. I sent him an email thanking him for following Jaimie Allard’s lead on removing the mask mandate.
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