The Anchorage Assembly has had an increasingly obvious habit of cutting out portions of its official meetings on its YouTube channel that it doesn’t want the public to see. The technician who operates the audio and video recording of the meeting has found ways to delete key portions of the public process. But on Tuesday, it went further, simply cutting the public comments altogether at the end of the meeting.
The Assembly was close to the scheduled end for the regular meeting, and only two people had stepped up to the public podium to make their views known during the final audience participation period. One of them was Irene Quednow, who is often present at Anchorage Assembly meetings, and who often uses her three minutes at the microphone to discuss Assembly behavior.
Quednow’s and the one other person’s comments were cut by the video technician, and a day after the meeting ended, the cut portion had not been restored. Quednow sent Must Read Alaska her notes detailing what the public watching on line was not allowed to see or hear:
Quednow told the Assembly that, in spite of what Assemblymen Chris Constant, Forrest Dunbar, and Felix Rivera had said during the meeting, the Golden Lion hotel, purchased by the former mayor, is not being condemned by the mayor or his staff. It is being condemned by the State of Alaska Department of Transportation, which has for years been planning to take property at the corner of 36th Avenue and New Seward Highway to improve the traffic flow. The eminent domain process was outlined in a letter from DOT to the mayor recently, and had also been sent in writing to previous interim mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson.
Quednow also had some issues with the Assembly’s statements and characterizations of the mayor’s proposed navigation center for the homeless.
“The navigation center would have been in operation last fall if the Assembly would not have thrown a monkey wrench into it every step of the way. The Assembly whittled down the number of beds and now complains that there are not enough beds. Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance said we need a public hearing on this item, yet when the Assembly was discussing the purchase of the Golden Lion and the other three buildings it authorized buying, it physically shut out the public from commenting by closing the chambers. So don’t lecture us about needing a public hearing now,” Quednow’s notes said. The Assembly shut the Assembly Chamber down to the public in 2020 when it was making several controversial decisions that concerned major purchases of properties that would be used as homeless shelters.
Quednow also said the Assembly has not been fiscally responsible or professional about providing information to the public.
“I have stood before you and asked for an operation budget and renovation cost for the Golden Lion numerous times and yet that documentation was never provided. The same with the Alaska Club purchase,” Quednow said, noting that the Assembly never provided those documents to the public. “You were going to purchase the Alaska Club for around $7 million, then for the ‘bargain price’ of $5.4 million when it was assessed the whole time at no more that $2.3 million. You also misled the public about how much the Sullivan Arena and the other hotels cost to operate, and yet you have the audacity to say we need fiscal responsibility.”
Quednow also talked about the Assembly’s attention to the suicide problem. Quednow said that in December of 2020, she stood at the podium and read a letter written by a high school student begging the school board to open up school again because they had had two suicides of high school students by then.
“There were many others that testified to the drastic increase in suicides. And yet most of you sat here and communicated to us in one form or another that we are spreading misinformation,” Quednow reminded the Assembly.
“For those of the public that were not here or watching let me remind you of who the assembly members were that said that: Kameron Perez-Verdia, Felix Rivera, Suzanne LaFrance, Christopher Constant, Meg Zaletel, Pete Petersen, Austin Quinn-Davidson, and Forrest Dunbar. Two years later the CDC is acknowledging what was apparent to everyone who wanted to see. So do not believe them when they say they care for people who commit suicide.”
The second person who approached the microphone for her three minutes was also cut from the video feed and Must Read Alaska has no way to contact her for her summary of comments.
