She’s known at Anchorage City Hall as the “pre-eminent rice krispie envoy” in the administration of Mayor Suzanne LaFrance. Amanda Moser, who has served as LaFrance’s external affairs director since July 1, has a new role today: Special Projects in the Office of Management and Budget.
The mayor didn’t say exactly what the special projects would entail other than “help expand the office’s capacity to plan, support, and execute the Municipality’s work across priorities.” It appears from the sudden switch that something isn’t working well in OMB, something that requires Moser’s special touch. Or perhaps something isn’t working well in external relations.
Moser, who was communication director for former Gov. Bill Walker, also ran the Downtown Partnership briefly and was also briefly appointed deputy municipal clerk for Anchorage, where she briefly helped manage municipal elections and helped engineer the mail-in voting used in Anchorage.
Political commentator Jeff Landfield said this about Moser last July: “But appointing Amanda Moser as head of external affairs is a major misstep. She’s one of the most caustic and off-putting people in Alaska politics. It’s like making me chaplain.”
LaFrance, however, says Moser has a cult following due to her Rice Krispie diplomacy. Evidently Landfield isn’t one of the Krispie cult members.
Taking over in the communications function for LaFrance will be Berett Wilber, who lists herself as a she/her on her LinkedIn details. Wilber served as deputy press secretary for Gov. Walker during his last year in office, 2018 and is now “point of contact for communications and media relations going forward,” the mayor’s office announced.