Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson today named Judy Eledge as the new director of libraries.
Last week the Anchorage Assembly refused to confirm Bronson’s first choice for Anchorage librarian. As an answer to their insult, the mayor made Sami Graham his chief of staff, and told the Assembly that her office would be located in the Z.J. Loussac Library.
But evidently that was a short-lived idea.
Instead, Bronson appointed a Republican activist to be his choice for libraries. Eledge is the president of the Anchorage Republican Women’s Club and has long been active in campaigning. She was one of two electors in the recent presidential election, and ran for school board this spring.
Eledge, like Graham, doesn’t have a master’s of library science degree, which the liberal members of the Assembly say is an essential requirement. Like Graham, Eledge is an educator by training and experience.
Eledge has lived in Alaska for over 40 years and spent 16 years as a teacher in the Anchorage School District.
While her children were in the school system, Eledge was was Chugiak High School PTA president and was honored as the Chugiak High School Volunteer of the Year. She also served on the Alaska State Board of Education, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Education Committee, Municipal Health Commission, board of directors for Learning Disabilities Association of AK, and was recognized in the American Registry of Who’s Who in Education.
Since retiring as a rural principal in 2003, Eledge has worked all over Alaska in school improvement under four commissioners of Education. She was appointed the Alaska State Reading Council Coordinator to spearhead an Alaska K-3 Reading Plan. She has her bachelor of science in elementary education from Sul Ross State University, her master’s in teaching from Alaska Pacific University, and her administration certificate from the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Eledge most certainly will be rejected by the Anchorage Assembly’s leftist majority.
Expecting a different result with another candidate who clearly does not meet the Anchorage Ordinance is counter productive and a distraction from getting Anchorage’s economy going and addressing the homeless problem.
What “ordinance” is that, exactly, Frank? And is it the same ordinance that the radical leftist extremist Assembly has already blatantly violated, more than once, when THEY wanted to ram through their own chosen candidates?
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Hypocrisy, thy name is leftist.
Distracting liberal assembly members while simultaneously running a city is sorta’ like running a city while chewing gum at the same time. Don’t be distracted. Pay attention. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.
Thank you Frank Rast, a voice of reason.
Nasty Rasty is the voice of reason??!! That is Hilarious! Lady, every single one of your posts I literally LMAO.
Like Rush used to say: Liberals are funny when not in power and dangerous when they are.
Seems to me that the Anchorage Assembly should be more concerned with the lack of nursing staff than whether a library’s director has a masters in library science.
Mayor Bronson and the Assembly have no authority over the hospitals’ nursing hires, only a library director.
Besides, without any possibility of a city mask mandate, why would nurses care what Bronson thinks. They are busy trying to save lives.
LibraryFeline, you are more than welcome to wear a (useless and virtue-signaling) mask if YOU so choose, but you have no right to DEMAND and FORCE anyone else to share, and comply with, your hysteria and irrationally unscientific fears.
My rights do not end where your cowardice and paranoia begin.
And, Frank, bow is a library director going to get “Anchorage’s economy going”? The current Assembly is, and has been, the stumbling block to that process. Oh, feel free to throw the homeless situation at their feet while you’re at it.
Thank You Mayor Bronson for showing what true Leadership is unlike at the State Level where the Governor capitulates his immense power as Chief Executive officer of the State.
That’s right. Go ahead and pat Bronson and Campbell on the back. They cleverly put their conniving coconuts together, concocted a new title for Campbell ( the titular “Mayor”) and made the ersatz Library Director “Chief of Staff.” So, now she gets the cushy political patronage position being a “special” Bronson supporter merits.
Did he announce this at today’s special session, setting Zacatels recall election date? What sweet icing that would be
The Mayor may have another trick up his sleeve….let’s hope. This Assembly needs to get out of the way!
The Mayor is in charge of the MOA’s Human Resources function. I think I could rewrite the class specification and minimum qualifications for the Library Director in a half hour or less. This sort of credentialing is a disease in government and to some degree in corporate business. It is mostly about people banding together in interest groups such as ALA or SHRM to make their worthless participation degrees or “professional” certifications the only entre into a particular line of work. In the case of libraries, the essential qualifications seem to be being a lesbian and a leftist.
This, as you put it, credentialing disease, keeps so many good people out of many many professions. It is currently contributing greatly to staff shortages all over town.
Yes, I agree! Right now I’m waiting for my MD certification from the School of Life.
Coming to Must Read Alaska is a good first step for you to recieve your MD certification from the school of Life and branching out of your current life circle. Maybe 20 years from your birthday you will have your certification, if you can humble yourself accepting defeat when your ideas don’t work and adopting someone else’s ideas that do work, instead of arguing and defending a failed plan.
Thanks Art – some sense in a string of out-of-the-ballpark comments. I applaud Mayor Bronson for his vision to make some necessary changes in line with what he was elected to do.
And, another question: Why in Hell should the library director be a political appointee subject to confirmation? It is a routine technical/professional job and if it is policy-making, it shouldn’t be.
I agree. You could with ease analyse and rewrite public servant job descriptions in accordance with: US and State of Alaska Constitutions and applicable Charters and serve the community directives. It would be fun see the Muni Org chart these days. Some units are functioning well and are the goose laying golden eggs while “carrying” this disharmony, sniveling, ignorance of one’s place in the emoluments. I would love it if they put out a contract to a military vendor to teach the US Constitution and Confederate Republic to those who accept a stipend and yearn to lead and rule each day and each sneeze along long life’s journey of “freedom” in the last frontier.
As if ordinances matter to the Left?! They are only rejecting her because she’s a conservative. It’s so obviously a power play. Others have been appointed to positions in the city without technically meeting requirements (Amy Demboski, city manager, for one). Eledge is more than qualified in other ways; how many people do you know with a Master’s in Library science, anyway?
Yep remember Heather Harris, former Anchorage Health department director. Berky appointed her. She had a degree in public administration and zero medical background.
According to her job description:
“Assures that assigned staff makes appropriate recommendations to clients and other professionals regarding control of specific diseases. Serves as the on-call public health staff after hours”
Back then she was confirmed and none of the assembly members whined about qualifications, even though she replaced a person with a degree in public health.
Ergo: No actual knowledge for the health department A OKAY, no library degree unacceptable…… go figure.
My sister has a Masters Degree in Library Science and managed school system libraries for over 30 years in Iowa. Past administratio ns have had no problems filling this position with qualified candidates that meet MOA requirements. I believe Amy Dembowski is well qualified to be City Manager as she is good with numbers. Conservatives seem to be selective when it comes to law and order
Following your logic that Amy is good with numbers, I would like to point out that Judy “was appointed the Alaska State Reading Council Coordinator to spearhead an Alaska K-3 Reading Plan”. That according to you makes her good with books and therefor in your way of thinking more than qualified!
Right-wingers think laws were written to keep EVERYONE ELSE in line….They can do whatever they damned well please …..and woe be it unto anyone who says otherwise.
Kumbaya Sophie! Where is your tolerance and acceptance of diversity? Isn’t that what librarians are preaching???
The assembly are not the putative HR Director. They aren’t the HR Officer. The state reviews applications for interested candidates to see if they meet minimum qualifications. In certain job classes different experience may be qualifying. Each assembly person is not an adjunct HR Director or adjunct Mayor who executes the people’s will. Their own job class is all they are paid for. We don’t want other services such as public health aide 80 percent and reading bills 15 percent and 5 percent telephonic attendance. We have one person to execute the people’s will in the city. Please be mindful of your own limitations emolumentwise and things will run more smoothly.
What is so distasteful about employing a person with the RELEVANT academic credentials, knowledge, experience, and collegial network for the position? Only a Master’s Degree in Library Sciences is appropriate to this position. Anything less is either: 1) A Right-wing propaganda gatekeeping gig; 2) A cronyism payout perch; Or 3) 50% of ‘1’ and 50% of ‘2’
Tired of Dems over regulating. It is oppositional to freedom. The city has chosen smaller less oppressive styles in local government. Stamp your foot.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.
WHOM ARE YOU TAUNTING?
Was the library at Alexandria set up and run by a person with a Masters of Library Science? What about Harvard University’s library, or Yale’s? Was Aristotle taught by properly credentialed “teachers”? How about Newton and Galileo, were their teachers capable of teaching without being certified?
Really? And the left is using that position for honorable and noble causes for the betterment of humanity and especially our community. Sophie, you are so full of sh!t, you don’t know what your talking about.
Yes! I was a librarian for 30 years in Anchorage. It’s beyond absurd to require professional librarians to have Master’s degrees but not demand the same of the head of the library system. The mayor doesn’t want a librarian. He wants a fawning crony.
First, you can tell us why any librarian needs a Master’s degree. The job has some technical and process demands, but it doesn’t require independent judgement and discretion nor does it have policy responsibility. Library Science is just another “studies” degree to impose a credential requirement to limit access to the field to those who have a suitable ideological indoctrination.
Holding a degree doesn’t make you smart or qualified. Degrees are nothing more than rubber stamped participation ribbons, acknowledging your paid attendance and approved conformity, handed out by machiavellian institutions.
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The creation of original ideas in colleges has been dead for at least a century. Our academia is as stale as a two month old loaf of bread, parroting the same messages of self loathing garbage while stifling new ideas every semester. Colleges have handed their students coloring books and told them to stay inside the lines and use only one crayon. Unfortunately, aside from that being a metaphor, that’s about what aptitude they demonstrate as well.
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That you, Jane, stand there proclaiming it’s exceptionalism and superiority is certainly an example of its fall from grace and its conversion into production factories, turning out graduates who measure themselves and others by their degrees, sadly not humble enough to see that many who didn’t attend college are smarter and wiser than you.
Masters of Library Science is an exclusionary degree designed to block Republicans as a matter of right. It is also a useless degree designed to over-credential a simple job. Again, to protect a political class and to line college professor’s pockets.
I believe that if a Democrat without a MLS were nominated for the position, the assembly would not accept that candidate either. Your point is?
And when were you selected to determine the necessary credentialization for a particular profession, with which you obviously have no knowledge, the School of Flat Earth, where everything that isn’t immediately obvious isn’t real?
I get the part about following the money. If you think librarians are cleaning up, you are barking up the wrong tree. Politicians? That’s a different story.
Your reading comprehension is a bit off.
More like his life experience is a bit off, or he is here trying to continue the tempo the Democrat drum had been drumming all these decades, while new players have entered the band and are screwing up the tempo.
I think the generations had gotten snobbier requiring all these specific credentials, while it has not improved America’s work ethic and performances in all industries. Much loved childrens author Laura Ingalls Wilder was a school teacher at 16. All she needed to do was past a test showing she was proficient before becoming a teacher in Brewster town.
My favorite childhood book Miss Rumphius , the lupine lady based on author Barbara Cooney’s grandmother, who had become a librarian; I think she did not have a master library of science degree considering the time period.
It appears that there be many short lived ideas in the Bronson administration. Carry on.
So those with an MLS got baked into the position.
Make everyone write down what they do. There maybe emolument creep. We can’t afford that. It is uktravires if someone is acting outside of one’s emolument one loses ALL immunity.
A profoundly, profound comment! I feel muchly enlightened.
It may be an original idea, but since the people have spoken and Mr. Bronson is now the mayor, shouldn’t he be given the fair opportunity to be successful at his job? What is the Assembly scared of other than his success? And if they are denying him success aren’t they also deny the citizens of Anchorage success? It’s not the Assembly’s job to hamstring the mayor. Their job is to represent the citizens of the districts the come from by not unilaterally make judgement based on their personal agendas. Their stance is 100% against Mayor Bronson and therefore 100% against the people of Anchorage.
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I pray that the Anchorage citizens see what is happening and take the appropriate action next year to remove those from the Assembly that have been stealing freedoms and prosperity from Anchorage.
leftist is better than ‘liberal’…but it’s ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ majority on the assembly!
Congratulations, Judy Eledge. I am sure you will do a fantastic job managing the library. BTW, what the H is library “science”? Does a Masters degree in Library “Science” mean one has to memorize the Dewey Decimal System? Does one have to be able to bind a book? Does one have to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction? Seems to me Library “science” is kinda like Political “science”!
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