Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is lamenting that the president’s recent trip to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson saddled the city with an extra $200,000 in policing expenses. The Anchorage Daily News dutifully picked up the mayor’s complaint, amplifying the cost angle while leaving out an important part of the equation: The economic benefit.
More than 800 journalists and thousands of diplomats poured into Anchorage for the summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, filling hotels, restaurants, and rental cars. That sudden demand represents a major shot in the arm for Anchorage’s hospitality and retail economy.
The city’s 12% bed tax alone meant significant tax revenue pouring into city coffers, likely far more than the $200,000 in police overtime. Add to that alcohol taxes, restaurant sales, rideshare fares, taxi runs, and gift store purchases, and the net effect was overwhelmingly positive, although no entity, such as the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, has revealed an actual analysis of that economic benefit.
But while no official economic-impact report has been published for Anchorage’s summit, comparable events in other cities show clear short-term boosts in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Hotel and bed-and-breakfast rooms were going for several hundred dollars a night.
For local hotels, restaurants, and transportation providers, the days surrounding the president’s visit were a bonanza. Long-term benefits are even harder to measure but just as real: Global media exposure, heightened international visibility, and an elevated profile for Anchorage as a venue for future events, investment, and tourism.
It’s also worth noting where the city chooses to put its money. Anchorage was willing to spend $200,000 on team-building exercises for the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility earlier this year, yet it hasn’t invested in cleaning up the downtown homeless wasteland that businesses and visitors face every day. No effort was made to reduce the presence of vagrancy during the summit between Trump and Putin.
Now, City Hall is complaining about the cost of providing a safe environment for the president of the United States — a duty most Alaskans would consider a basic responsibility. Add to that, the city’s annual budget is now a record-setting $639 million. The $200,000 in police overtime represents approximately 0.0313% of that budget.
In other words, while the mayor and her allies in the media paint the summit as a financial burden, the reality is that Anchorage likely came out well ahead. The city gained international attention, collected a surge of tax revenue, and gave its business community a welcome lift at the tail end of summer.
As for the extra money for policing, that money will be recycled right back into the economy of the city.
“The municipality will request reimbursement from the federal government,” the mayor’s spokeswoman (freshly recruited from the Anchorage Daily News) told Newsweek in an email. “We don’t expect to have final numbers from all departments for a few weeks. However, it’s safe to say the municipality’s expenses related to the summit were in excess of $200,000.”
Once again, the mainstream media bit on the Democrat talking points to sideswipe Trump’s effort to forge a peace agreement, as City Hall chooses to focus on government costs while ignoring private-sector benefits, telling the public only half the story.
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