Saying she has violated the state’s open meetings statutes, a group in Anchorage has begun the process of recalling Assembly member Meg Zaletel, who represents Midtown Anchorage, including Airport Heights, U-Med, and Taku-Campbell.

Why Zaletel, and not the others on the Assembly?

Evidently she is the most vulnerable for a recall. If she had not been in a three-way race in 2019, she would have barely won her seat. Her current term represent Assembly District 4, Seat F ends in 2022.

A recall is in the works for Assembly member Felix Rivera, but since he was reelected in April, the recall effort must wait until he has served six months.

According to the group, Zaletel committed “removable misconduct by violating the Alaska Public Meetings Statutes at the Anchorage Assembly meeting July 28th, engagingly in willful, flagrant, and obvious collision to limit public testimony inside the assembly chambers. Zaletel conducted municipality business following the barring of public presence within the chambers except those approved by the assembly in a manner not disclosed to the public prior to the meeting.”

On July 28, Zaletel was presiding over the Assembly meeting, to which the public was barred by order of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz.

But one member of the public was allowed into the meeting to testify — Mike Abbot, the former Municipal manager. He now runs the Alaska Mental Health Trust and was brought into the chambers to explain land availability issues to the Assembly. No one else from the public was allowed in.

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has for several weeks barred the public from entering the municipal library building, where the Assembly meets. He is using his emergency powers to order restaurants, bars, bingo halls, and churches closed as well.

“The misconduct occurred with and despite video evidence of ample physical space and availability to comply with the Mayor’s emergency powers proclamation which, regardless of intent, would not override AS 44.62.31’s proscription of actions limiting public participation in Assembly meetings.

“Zalatel disenfranchised both the economically disadvantaged without the electronic means to view the assembly, the 70+ members of the public outside the chambers desiring to be admitted, and the hearing and visually impaired public left without Robert means of participation.”

The group just needed 10 names and addresses of municipal voters to apply for the recall petition. Once the petition is issued, the group will have 60 days to collect the required signatures. The petition must have signatures from enough voters to equal 25 percent of the number that voted in the last election for that office. The group is looking for signature gatherers to volunteer.

The last election was in 2019. Some 9,872 voted for candidates for the seat, so the group will need 2,468 good signatures to force a special recall election.

A group of activists supporting David Eastman have encountered a setback: Their ambush recall effort against challenger Jesse Sumner has been rejected by the Borough Clerk, on advice of outside counsel. Sumner serves on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly and last week a band of Eastman supporters tried to start a recall against him.

Outside counsel said none of the complaints made by the group had anything to do with his office in Assembly.

Sumner is running for House District 10, Wasilla and would have to step down from his seat on the Assembly if he wins.

The recall effort was launched by John Nelson, who himself is a candidate for U.S. House and who is a supporter of Eastman.

But the petition was thinly veiled campaign tactic against Sumner, and is a possible violation of campaign finance laws, according to MRAK sources.

The novel approach at campaigning could draw a penalty from the Alaska Public Offices Commission since John Nelson is an experienced candidate and his collaborators have also been involved in campaigning for years. APOC penalizes experienced campaigners more than novices and it would be hard to characterize Nelson as a novice. But someone would have to file a complaint.

Early voting began in Alaska today and ends on Primary Election Day, Aug. 18.

Bill Falsey, municipal manager for Anchorage, has declared he will run for Anchorage mayor. The position comes open next April 6, and formal filing is in January.

Falsey has worked in city government for five years, joining the staff of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz in 2015 as an attorney.

He played a pivotal role in facilitating the sale of Municipal Light & Power to Chugach Electric and has been a central figure in advising and leading during the 2018 earthquake recovery, the 2019 wildfires, and the 2020 pandemic.

A graduate of Dimond High School in Anchorage, he has a B.S. degree from Stanford University and law degree from Yale University. He clerked for the Alaska Supreme Court and has been in private practice as a lawyer.

His website is www.falseyformayor.com.

Also announced to be running for mayor are former Assemblyman Bill Evans, Eric Croft, Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar, and possibly Assemblyman Chris Constant.

Filing for office opens at the City Clerk’s office on Jan. 15, 2021, and closes Jan. 29, 2021.

PROTEST PLANNED FOR MONDAY AT LOUSSAC LIBRARY

An Anchorage hospitality worker says he can’t afford Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’ Emergency Order 15, mandating closures of bars and restaurants, as well as bingo halls for the next four weeks, starting today. Due to the rising cases of COVID-19 in Anchorage, Berkowitz moved to what he called a “reset” of the economy, which will put thousands of people out of work again.

The petition reads:

“Our economy is already struggling here in Anchorage and this huge hit to the hospitality industry will only further complicate this problem. Thousands of people will be affected by this mandate that seems to have no factual basis behind it. Please sign this petition to let Mayor Berkowitz and the city council know that this is not okay! I think I speak for the vast majority of hospitality workers when I say, “Let us work!” In an industry where many people are living paycheck to paycheck this is going to have severely negative implications on countless families. This is a complete overreach of local government that must be spoken out against!“

By 11 pm Sunday, over 400 people had signed the petition, which can be found at this link.

Also, a protest is planned by Save Anchorage for Monday at 5:45 pm at the Loussac Library, to organize resistance against the mayor’s mandates.

David Nelson, the Republican challenger for House District 15, won a key endorsement this week from the leader of Alaska’s Hmong Community.

After years of supporting Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, Hmong Alaska Community President and Founder Pastert Lee has said enough is enough.

“The Hmong Community trusted Gabrielle LeDoux for many years and voted for her. Not anymore. Representative LeDoux has violated our trust and dragged our community into a growing voter fraud controversy. She is now facing felony and misdemeanor charges,” Lee wrote.

“All of us need a new State Representative that we can trust. That’s why I’m endorsing David Nelson for the Republican nomination in House District 15.” – Hmong leader Pastert Lee

“Please join your neighbors in the Hmong Community in voting for David Nelson in the Primary Election on August 18,” he wrote.

Nelson declared his candidacy in February.

Hundreds of Hmong-Americans live in District 15, which encompasses Muldoon. LeDoux is accused of filling out absentee ballot applications for many of the Hmongs in 2016 and 2018. She later insulted them by saying their English just wasn’t that “excellent.”

Approximately 265 Hmong applications were submitted to the Division of Elections from that district in 2018. This year, only 14 have been submitted to date.

In March, after years of investigation, the State Department of Law charged LeDoux, her former chief of staff Lisa (Vaught) Simpson, and Caden Vaught for voter misconduct. The charges stem from the investigation that was started in 2018 after the Division of Elections identified irregularities in some of the absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots returned for the primary election.

LeDoux has a court date on Aug. 20 for the felony and misdemeanor charges.

There were many bizarre irregularities in that 2018 election, including 17 people having voted from the same address at a tiny Muldoon trailer, and several votes cast by people who were dead.

And then there was the death of Charlie Chang, a Hmong-American hired by LeDoux to help turn out the vote. He died shortly after she visited him in California; she said it was stress.

In the end, the Division of Elections said that 26 irregular absentee ballots were cast for LeDoux, who ended up winning against Republican challenger Aaron Weaver by 87 votes in 2018.

She has since called those criminal charges “fake news.”

Now, LeDoux is encouraging Democratic Party voters to switch parties so that she can get reelected, since she has long ago lost the support of her fellow Republicans, who sanctioned her and endorsed her opponent Nelson.

BUT SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN SAYS HE DID NOT ENDORSE HER

The head man at the AFL-CIO in Alaska was once a harsh critic of Sen. Cathy Giessel, so much so that he even ran against her in 2016.

Giessel is running for reelection in District N, south Anchorage, having served the region since 2011.

Today, AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami is having his foot soldiers go door to door with literature supporting his former foe, who is in a primary race with Roger Holland.

[Read: Giessel gets primary challenger in Roger Holland]

The AFL-CIO literature that favors Giessel this cycle urges people to request the Republican ballot so they can vote for Giessel in the primary. The group is also urging people in District 24 to request the Republican Party ballot and vote in that primary, where Rep. Chuck Kopp is being challenged by Tom McKay.

[Read: Tough on crime? Ralph Samuels says go with Tom McKay]

Democrats and the large unions that represent mainly public employees are attempting to swing the vote in specific seats through this method; undeclared and nonpartisan voters can vote either the Republican ballot or the everything-else ballot, as Republicans have a semi-closed primary to prevent this type of dubious tinkering with elections.

“Paid for by Alaska AFL-CIO” means it was delivered to union households (but also to other households) by paid union workers. It’s hard to say if this helps or hurts the senator, but it’s certainly indication of a new alliance.

There is a Democratic primary in Senate Seat N: Carl Johnson is running against Lynette Moreno Hinz for the chance of appearing on the November ballot against either Giessel or Holland.

That campaign literature curiosity comes on the heels of one of Giessel’s own pieces of campaign literature that blanketed the district, all the way to Girdwood, which brought swift disavowal from U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s campaign headquarters.

On that campaign flyer, Giessel has a congratulatory note from Sullivan from 2019, and a photo of herself and the U.S. senator, and it very much appears as an endorsement.

“Senator Sullivan has a very strong record of working with members of the Legislature. However, he is not endorsing Legislative candidates ahead of the August primary,” his campaign said in a statement.

“Photographs released with candidates and Senator Sullivan have not been approved by Senator Sullivan or his campaign and should not be viewed as endorsements. This mail piece was not approved by Senator Sullivan or his campaign,” the campaign stated.

The statement may have been issued because candidates are starting to use Sullivan in their campaign materials, but he has his own race to run this year. A photo posted by the late Rep. Gary Knopp (who died Friday in a plane crash) that showed him with the senator caused some on the Kenai Peninsula to call the campaign staff to ask if it was an endorsement. It was not, but observers interpreted it that way.