On Tuesday night, during a barely noticed portion of the Anchorage Assembly’s July 30 meeting, a well-connected Democrat-owned business quietly secured yet another long-term property tax exemption, again benefiting the owners of Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop.

The exemption grants 10 years of zero property taxes on the improvements to bakery’s building at 2530 E. 16th Ave. The property is in addition to the downtown Fire Island location, which also enjoys a full exemption from property taxes. The deal was passed after being buried in the Assembly’s “consent agenda,” a portion of the meeting where multiple items are approved all at once, often without discussion and rarely with public visibility. Consent agenda items are supposed to be noncontroversial, but in this case it was the process itself that is controversial.

Assembly Memorandum 2025-217, which authorized the exemption, was never posted to the municipal or Assembly websites. It did not include the property address, nor did it identify Fire Island as the applicant. It only listed only a parcel number deep in the consent agenda. The justification offered for the exemption was simply that the building was over 15 years old. There was no public hearing, no fiscal impact statement, and no scrutiny of the fact that the property owner and tenant are one and the same, undermining the core claim that the investment would not have been feasible without the tax break. The owners of the bakery are Democrats.

Even more troubling is that this is not the first such exemption granted to the same ownership. In 2021, the Assembly approved another tax exemption for Fire Island’s 7th and K Street building. That building was purchased and remodeled by the owners to house three tenants, including their own bakery. The owners argued in their application, which was obtained only through a public records request, that they needed a 12% return on investment, despite controlling both sides of the lease. That property (Parcel 001-053-19) is now fully exempt from taxation — again without any public scrutiny or debate.

The Fire Island exemptions are just the latest examples of a growing pattern of opaque, politically selective property tax breaks for for-profit developers and businesses in Anchorage, a system that is ripe for abuse.

Consider the massive commercial building at 601 W. 5th Avenue, a neon-lit landmark owned by the Fang/Chen family(Parcel 002-105-70). It received a 10-year tax exemption under Resolution AO 2023-91, an estimated $600,000 per year loss to city tax revenue. The owners hold nearly the entire block, and the exemption language allows them to apply the tax break to anything they build there in the future. According to the Anchorage Daily News, a $300 million project is now underway on that site, which could result in a $5.1 million annual tax savings for the developer for a decade.

The trend doesn’t stop there:

• A new hotel at 4th and C Street, backed by politically influential figures, received a 10-year exemption.
• SpanAlaska Trucking, a subsidiary of the $4.5 billion Manson Lines, built a $26 million warehouse and received a full property tax exemption.
• New $840,000 condos downtown are being advertised with a 12-year property tax exemption, boosting sales value while shifting the tax burden to other neighborhoods and other residents.

Many residents wrongly assume that when a property is exempted, the city simply collects less money. In fact, under Anchorage’s ad valorem tax system, the total amount of revenue stays the same, meaning everyone else pays more. Every exempted million-dollar property means higher tax rates for homes, small businesses, and commercial properties that are still on the rolls.

It’s like dining out with a group and someone walks out without paying their share, the rest of the table picks up the tab.

These exemptions are granted in closed-door meetings, and then often approved by Assembly resolution, rather than ordinance, which allows them to skip the requirement for public hearings. The Assessor’s Office is excluded from the decision-making and refuses to release details, citing confidentiality. The entire process is now handled by the Chief Financial Officer, a political appointee, and Assembly work sessions on the exemptions are not open to the public.

Though exemptions for seniors, veterans, and nonprofits are long-standing and well-understood, the new wave of exemptions for for-profit entities, often connected to influential donors or political insiders, raises serious concerns.

The Municipality of Anchorage is believed to be exempting over $20 billion in property value out of a $57 billion total tax roll. But there is no way for the public to know just how much is being exempted. It’s a ballpark figure that real estate analysts debate. While some of those exemptions might justified, the latest round of tax giveaways shows how ripe the system is for corruption.