The acting mayor of Anchorage says the city will not buy America’s Best Value Inn as part of an overall plan to address the need for additional shelter and housing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson had already backed out of purchasing the Tudor Road Alaska Club building to provide services to vagrants and homeless in Anchorage.

But Quinn-Davidson did go ahead with the purchase of the Golden Lion Hotel on 36th and New Seward earlier this month, a purchase that came in at over $9 million.

The Golden Lion, Alaska Club, and America’s Best Value were part of a four-building purchase authorization by the Municipal Assembly to spread services and shelters throughout various districts in Anchorage, and take the burden off of the urban core, where most of the social problems related to homelessness and drug or alcohol addiction are centered.

But meanwhile, 120 homeless people are being housed at former Mayor Mark Begich’s Aviator Hotel on 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage. Begich acquired the sprawling building earlier this year. Without customers, Begich cut a deal with the city to house homeless, at a rate not yet revealed by the municipality.

The highly controversial Ordinance 2020-66 authorized the purchase of specific buildings as part of former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’ plan to expand the homeless industrial complex in Anchorage.

After he resigned in disgrace, Acting Mayor Quinn-Davidson inherited the project, which she had approved as part of the Anchorage Assembly, which directed some of the CARES Act funds from the federal government for the ambitious project.

The America’s Best Value Inn on Spenard Road backs up to a dormitory-style building that houses youth from villages who come into Anchorage for training. As it turns out, like the Tudor Road building, repairs would cost too much.

“Through the due diligence process, which the MOA uses before acquiring any property, significant costly repairs and mandatory upgrades were identified, including extensive upgrades to the elevators, stairwells, plumbing and electrical systems, and repairs to the exterior siding and roof. While some mandatory upgrades and repairs were anticipated, the costs of these upgrades and repairs were so high as to make acquisition no longer in the best interest of the municipality,” the acting mayor wrote.

“COVID-19 created an acute shortage of shelter space in Anchorage. The Municipality addressed the problem by standing up the mass shelter at the Sullivan Arena, however, that is not a permanent solution. The Sullivan Arena was not designed or intended to function as a shelter, and operating it as one costs almost $1 million per month. This cost is temporarily being reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Providing more housing options will return the Sullivan Arena to general community use, save the Municipality money, and help reduce homelessness in Anchorage, ensuring residents aren’t left out in the cold,” she wrote.

“The Anchorage Assembly previously directed the MOA to create additional shelter space, supportive housing, and support services outside of the downtown area; the MOA will continue vetting properties that meet that criteria,” she wrote.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Josie Garton today reversed her ruling of Tuesday, when she had dismissed a claim by Rep. Lance Pruitt that a last-minute change of polling places in his district had an impact on election results.

In today’s surprise ruling, Garton stayed her previous dismissal. Evidently, after Tuesday’s testimony, the judge believes that there’s enough smoke, and there may very well be fire.

Pruitt lost by 11 votes to Liz Snyder when the election was certified. But the polling place that has always been strong for him was moved with no notice, and that worked against Pruitt.

On Tuesday, his lawyer Stacey Stone showed the court that the last-minute change of voting venue confused voters and likely depressed the turnout on Election Day.

Stone had brought political analyst and election expert Randy Ruedrich, a Republican campaign volunteer, to explain how a drop in at least 57 votes in the district was enough to have given Snyder the win.

That’s because Snyder and the Democrats did not turn out at the polls on Election Day. Their strategy all along was to get everyone on their side of the political aisle to vote absentee.

Today, when called to the witness stand, Dr. Snyder fudged the truth, telling the court that she didn’t even know the polling place had been moved until she learned of the lawsuit by Pruitt.

But lawyer Stone then presented the court an exhibit that showed that on Nov. 3 — Election Day — Snyder had written on Facebook that the polling places were wrong at the Division of Elections website.

When shown the exhibit, Snyder said that one of her campaign staff must have posted it, not her. She sought to put distance between herself and her Facebook page, disavowing the words under her image.

Lawyer Stone also quickly took apart the state’s key witness, an economist at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska.

On behalf of the State, Democrat Ralph Townsend proceeded to explain why he thought Ruedrich’s analysis of Tuesday was wrong.

Stone quickly neutered his testimony, as he admitted he had no experience analyzing elections or performing election data analysis. He did, however, take a few political science classes as an undergraduate, he offered. Townsend is a fisheries expert.

Townsend was discredited as a witness after, at the beginning of his testimony, he said he volunteered to be an expert witness, only to later admit to the court that he had been recruited to testify by Liz Snyder’s lawyer, Jennifer Alexander who also slipped him the Ruedrich written analysis to take a look at. It was not yet a public record.

Another one of the Snyder witness was dismissed by the judge. Snyder’s proposed witness was going to walk the court through how to use the “Way-back Machine” on the internet. The judge ruled the man was not an appropriate witness. The Wayback Machine is a simple internet archive of websites.

No more witnesses were called by the Snyder-State side of the election case today. Closing arguments, due Thursday, will be done in writing.

Judge Garton could rule or proceed to a “fact and findings” for the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

The Alaska Legislative Council is suing Gov. Mike Dunleavy over appointments of numerous public servants, who the Legislature has not confirmed. The appointees were not confirmed because the Legislature refused to call itself into session after gaveling out in May, with its constitutionally mandated work unfinished.

The confirmations of tens of dozens of appointees — from Revenue Commissioner Lucinda Mahoney to members of the Fish Board and Oil and Gas Commission, and even Public Defender Samantha Cherot — were left hanging after the Legislature gaveled out of session earlier this year in a desperate attempt to get out of Juneau ahead of the COVID-19 virus.

 The Legislature suspended its regular session effective March 29 through May 18, 2020. The Legislature then adjourned on May 20.

Lawmakers, in what some see as a failure of the leadership of Sen. President Cathy Giessel and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, never reconvened in special session to finish their work.

The Legislative Council, which manages the affairs of the Legislature when it is not in session, met in executive session on Tuesday before voting 11-1 to sue the governor.

Sen. John Coghill, of Fairbanks, made the motion to sue the governor and was supported by Sens. Tom Begich, Natasha Von Imhof, Cathy Giessel, Lyman Hoffman, Gary Stevens, and Reps. Neal Foster, Jennifer Johnston, Chuck Kopp, Louise Stutes, and Steve Thompson. Sen. Bert Stedman voted no. Von Imhof was not present.

Dunleavy has said in various statements to the media that his appointees would continue to serve, but House Rep. Chuck Kopp, who lost his reelection bid and who is a foe of the governor, calls the governor’s action unlawful “according to HB 309.”

HB 309 was actually signed into law by Dunleavy, apparently to make a good-faith gesture toward the Legislature, which was not finishing its work in the spring. The bill says the any of his appointees who are not confirmed by the Legislature will expire before the next legislative session.

Now, the governor says that as far as he is concerned, those appointments are valid because the Legislature failed to fulfill its constitutional duty.

HB 309 may in fact be in conflict with the Alaska Constitution, which says the Legislature “shall” meet to confirm the governor’s appointees.

HB 309 may have allowed hostile members of the Legislature such as Kopp, who serves as House Rules Chair, to perform a “pocket veto,” a term used to describe killing legislation or an action by simply putting it in one’s pocket. That method of chicanery was something to be avoided in the Alaska Constitution, which set up a form of government that allows the governor to nimbly execute the laws of the state. The Legislature is under a constitutional mandate to perform this duty, but it also cannot be sued if it does not perform it.

Anchorage Superior Judge Josie Garton today heard extensive and detailed testimony from an election expert describing how the Division of Elections had moved a key polling location in District 27 at the last minute, to the disadvantage of Rep. Lance Pruitt. Pruitt then lost by 11 votes to Liz Snyder in the East Anchorage district.

Randy Ruedrich, an election volunteer and former chair of the Alaska Republican Party, said the Division’s mistake cost the election between 57-63 votes from people who just could not find the correct voting location, enough to have swayed the election for Pruitt in the precinct that usually votes more Republican.

He compared the difference between day-of vote and early voting and spoke to how they differed from past years. In House District 27’s Precinct 915, there was a “down vote” compared with comparable precincts, demonstrating how the “day-of” vote had been suppressed in that precinct.

The State of Alaska, defending the Division of Elections, first tried to have Ruedrich dismissed as an expert, and then when that didn’t work, tried to say what he was analyzing was simple arithmetic, when he was doing political analysis, not arithmetic.

The surprise last-minute move of the polling location for District 27, Precinct 915 happened twice from the primary to the General Election. Polling started out at the usual place, Wayland Baptist University in the primary, but was moved to Muldoon Town Center after Wayland didn’t want to be a host to the elections because of COVID-19.

Rep. Pruitt contacted the Division of Election on Oct 21 to confirm that the new location would remain at Muldoon Town Center for the General Election. The worker there told him the contracts were in place for Muldoon Town Center, and it was not going to change. Pruitt used that information to print precinct mailers for the General Election, which he mailed out.

It wasn’t until two days before the election that precinct poll workers themselves learned that the voting location was no longer at Muldoon, but had been moved to Begich Middle School.

Election workers testified in court that there was confusion and frustration by voters they spoke to on Election Day, an aspect of testimony that the State’s attorneys had dismissed as hearsay.

One Precinct 915 voter testified about the extent to which she had to go to find the correct place to vote, and how ultimately she didn’t vote because she ran out of time and had to go to an appointment relating to making a living. One of the state lawyers, Tom Flynn, started to shame the witness to make it sound like it was her fault, asking her why she didn’t use alternative methods to vote, and then started talking over her when she said she didn’t trust alternate voting methods. She has lived in the district since the 1980s.

The judge also heard how the Division of Elections had some correct information on its website for polling places in the district, but that Begich Middle School was not listed properly and could only be found if someone clicked through to a deeper link. Muldoon Town Center was the place that was highlighted for voting for that precinct.

It turned out that the Division fo Elections had called the Muldoon Town Center management on Oct. 22, only to be told that the center didn’t like the way things had gone during the primary. The place had been left a mess, and the Division was no longer welcome to hold the election there.

The only other precinct in the district that had a change of polling location was Stuckagain Heights, and those voters, had been notified by the Division of Elections with a postcard.

As for the 3.66 percent undervote in Precinct 915, Ruedrich told the court, “It is a huge impact,” considering the very robust effort by Democrats to get absentee ballots out of their voters during this election, in numbers never seen before in Alaska.

The changing of the in-person voting location, and lack of notification impacted primarily the Republican voters who, like the witness, are less than trusting of the vote-by-mail methods.

Pruitt was represented by election attorney Stacey Stone. The winner of that election, Liz Snyder, will be put on the witness stand on Wednesday, via Zoom. She was not available today, her attorney told the court.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy today said that the state’s largest bureaucracy, the Department of Health and Social Services, will be split into two.

Dunleavy will make an executive order reorganizing it into the Alaska Department of Health, and the Alaska Department of Family and Community Services.

The reorganization will streamline and improve the delivery of critical programs and services while creating more flexibility and responsiveness in both departments, which should result in improved outcomes, he said.

“In order to obtain a keen focus on each crucial division and achieve the outcomes of each program that Alaskans expect and deserve, I will exercise my constitutional authority and reorganize the department to meet the needs of Alaskans into the 21^st century,” Dunleavy said. “The bottom line is Alaskans will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this reorganization, particularly children, the elderly and other vulnerable populations.”

Department of Family and Community Services

The Alaska Department of Family and Community Services will take on early intervention and prevention to strengthen Alaska families and provide a focused approach to services for individual Alaskans. The department will consist of :

1. Division of Juvenile Justice
2. Office of Children’s Services
3. Alaska Psychiatric Institute
4. Alaska Pioneer Homes

Department of Health

The Alaska Department of Health will promote and protect the health and wellbeing of Alaskans and serve as the eligibility, payment, and data department that will focus on whole person care. In addition to housing the state’s Chief Medical Officer, the department will consist of:

1. Division of Senior & Disabilities Services
2. Division of Behavioral Health
3. Division of Public Health
4. Division of Public Assistance
5. Division of Health Care Services

Each department will include a division for Finance & Management Services.

“The Alaskans served by the Department of Health and Social Services, as well as the employees who provide those services deserve to see this process begin today,” said Adam Crum, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. 

The governor said reorganization will not reduce programs or services to Alaskans who are currently served. The reorganization is intended to establish a firm foundation for each department that will lead to increased focus on services and outcomes for the Alaskans that are served. Governor Dunleavy and Commissioner Crum will engage with stakeholders, tribal health organizations, DHSS employees, and legislators about the executive order and will welcome their feedback as this process moves forward.