ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET
We have to ask the question: Why would Anchorage’s placeholder mayor bar an Eagle River assemblywoman from a meeting she is having with restaurant owners today?
It just seems such a terrible idea.
Turns out, Assemblywoman Jamie Allard, intent on reopening the city’s economy, asked about the meeting where it was expected the discussion would center on the whozits and whazits of reopening the eateries with dining capacity set at 50 percent.
Instead of a “the more the merrier” response, Mayor-select Austin Quinn-Davidson invited Allard to butt out.
“Thank you for reaching out to our office; however, the administration feels it is unnecessary for you to attend this meeting,” was the response Allard received, mustreadalaska.com reports.
It should be noted Allard, along with Assemblyman John Weddleton, offered a resolution last week – AR 2020-447 is on the agenda for tonight’s Assembly meeting – that would allow the plug to be pulled on Quinn-Davidson’s emergency order closing the restaurants. The emergency order, to end Jan. 15, is the latest in a series of such orders issued by the city mayor’s office since March 12.
Those edicts have all but crushed the city’s restaurant industry and battered its economy.
The Allard-Weddleton resolution would allow the Assembly to vote the emergency order up or down and also members the option to pick and choose which, if any, elements of the order or regulations should be canceled.
One might think the mayor-select would want the Assembly aboard as she does and says whatever she likely would say or do at the meeting with restaurant owners, and having Allard or others there could be helpful in presenting a full picture – if that is the aim.
We are surprised the city’s faux mayor would be so disrespectful to a sitting member of the Assembly. Nowadays, maybe we should be surprised we are surprised.
