Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance took a victory lap on social media this week, celebrating the cleanup of Davis Park in Mountain View, one of Anchorage’s most notorious homeless encampments.
Sporting a bright safety vest, gripping a trash grabber tool, and holding an empty garbage bag, LaFrance staged photo-op and posted cheery remarks about the city’s efforts.
“Davis Park is getting a fresh start!” LaFrance wrote on Facebook, praising the work of city crews and volunteers who had earlier this month removed an eye-popping 744,000 pounds of debris, trash, and stolen goods from the area. “It’s been incredible to see the transformation of this park over the last month… While there’s still more work to do, I know that together, we can help reactivate this important community space for Mountain View.”
The post comes after heavy equipment, dump trucks, and work crews clearing out the sprawling encampment, where many Mountain View residents had complained of open drug use, crime, and deteriorating conditions. The “Healthy Spaces Team” was commended by the mayor for what she described as years of overdue cleanup. LaFrance has been part of city government for those years, first on the Assembly and now as mayor, although she carefully pushed off credit for the conditions at Davis Park.
While Davis Park may be getting a “fresh start,” downtown Anchorage residents are noticing that the problem hasn’t disappeared. It just moved.
New encampments are mushrooming along the Delaney Park Strip near 9th Avenue and C Street, with one hotspot being around Anchorage’s historic Locomotive 556, a stationary train display meant to educate children and honor the city’s railroad history. At least one individual has been camping inside the historic train, turning the educational exhibit into his own crash pad.
What Mountain View lost, downtown Anchorage gained, with a noticeable uptick in tents, trash, and visible drug activity along the Park Strip in recent days, as our photo tour shows below.
LaFrance’s office did not address the displacement issue but emphasized the importance of “activating” community spaces and promised more cleanups in the future. The administration is playing a high-stakes game of encampment whack-a-mole.
The Delaney Park Strip is where a large encampment was staged during the Ethan Berkowitz Administration when a group of anarchists took it over as an occupation.
The Anchorage Assembly will take up a camping ordinance during the Tuesday, July 15th regular meeting, to further discuss the idea of criminalizing the homesteading of public property. The item is 11D on the agenda. The Assembly meeting begins at 5 pm on the ground floor of the Loussac Library at 36th and Denali Street. The entire agenda is here.
Our tour of the 9th and C Street section shows that from the train to the tennis courts, there’s a new crop of vagrants, druggies, and lost souls.
Is it time to abandon downtown and midtown? It seems like that to the casual observer. Property owners are forced to fence in their high visibility property for security reasons. What happened to quiet enjoyment? The city owes the property owners due diligence, no? You can’t poison the well, force me to drink, and condemn me for getting sick, can you? It really is a war zone, not a city you want live in. Thank you Democrat Party. For destroying good once again. You got it down to a science.
One residual benefit of Anchorage not doing diddly about this festering problem: If it ever was solved, those of us in the Mat Valley and Kenai Peninsula, would suffer an already worse problem of the “summer re-location camps” that are found in hidden niches in our community. Most — not all — disappear come October.
One would think that La France would at least have had enough intelligence to put some sort of offal in that bag, and shown her holding a tin can in the grasper. This faked photo-op will make a good anti-La France campaign meme in the future.
Haha… the empty commitment.
That’s good! It approaches Clint Eastwood speaking to the empty suit Obama.
“……..If it ever was solved, those of us in the Mat Valley and Kenai Peninsula, would suffer an already worse problem of the “summer re-location camps” that are found in hidden niches in our community…….”
This deserves recognition. And this is not a new reality. Anchorage and Fairbanks have always been the magnets for this social scourge. I’ll even go as far as to thank the voters of Anchorage for being so socially confused as to fail in solving the problem so we don’t have to be burdened with it………so since I really hope it remains this way, I guess I need to praise Anchorage voters for their superior moral votes.
It was just a matter of finding out where they moved to. Thanks for letting us know, though I bet there are other spots as well. After COVID restrictions killed off a bunch of downtown businesses the “homeless'” may be the final death blow. Nothing like driving tourists and locals away from downtown. Great job Ms. LaFrance!
Unfortunately, homelessness is a problem that’s just going to get worse. Just wait until AI starts taking middle class jobs! Wonder how the doctors and lawyers will cope?
AI is the ultimate disruptor. The tidal wave hits soon.
Yeah, electricity, cars, and the Internet destroyed the lantern mfrs, buggy whip mfrs, and the postal service.
C’mon, harness the new opportunity before your eyes, you can be way more productive!
The real piece of trash is what you see in the photo pretending to pick up trash.
Empty bag just like her head, Taking credit for something she was forced to do
Parks and Wreck!
Best headline description, ever!
Now that they are on Delaney Park, a big percentage of folks who have voted in this joke of an administration can now look out their downtown home windows and enjoy the fruits of their actions. Unfortunately our tourist have to see what a travesty our city has become. It’s sad and embarrassing.
I will bet you that the Park strip camp will disappear soon. Just like last time, these are the mayor’s (and Mr. Constant’s) voters after all. If memory serves Camp Berky lasted less than a week and it was way more orderly with rows of tents and kumbaya.
As for the phony photo, it makes it clear that it is all about Mayor LaFrance, not about the residents she supposedly serves. She should be ashamed that she and the assembly allowed the community to be abused like that.
I cant help but thinking she stole the pants and shirt and shoes off a homeless person. The vest, brand spanking new with creases. Nothing on her shtick. Pure staged bs. Kick em out of one place, take pictures, kick em out of the next, rinse and repeat. Good pr I guess.
I bet the Delaney family would be turning in their collective graves if they found out that their downtown land donation would now morph from a beautiful park to urban blight w/ bums and worse defecating on what had been groomed lawn. The bonus? You won’t have to view them do their business directly as they’ll be dropping that deuce amongst another 744,000 pounds of stolen goods. 9th Ave will work as an xlnt fire break too, so there’s that.
Forget finding your kid’s bike in the driveway when you get up the next morning. It’ll have been shared.
Good coverage MRAK. Thank you. Keep it up.
This is just a return in investment.
Homelessness is Anchorage’s growth industry.
Moving the problem from one park to another is not solving it. It is the opposite of solving the problem.
LaFrance should be embarrassed to do this photo op. It is self serving and empty, much like her administration.
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Next year’s clean up after the homeless photo will be on Denaley Park Strip.
A horse is a horse of course, of course. And no one can talk to a horse of course. That is of course if that horse is the famous Mayor….
Well you get the idea.
When did homesteading equate to being homeless?!
That vest makes her look fat.
This is what happens when dishonest elections happen.
I live in the area, and you are correct. The vagrants have taken over the Strip and the immediate area within a matter of the past month, mostly concentrated on the Train block between C and E, but they are camped everywhere from A Street west to the rose garden, and you’ll find them passed out around the Denaina Center and the All Saints Episcopal Church as well every night. There used to be one that would pass out in front of the Church’s door maybe once or twice a week- now there’s two or three every night and one on the stoop pretty much every day all day and night long, and people bring it food and drink. There is one camped out under every tree on the Strip and on most benches. They commute from the Strip to the bus station, the Town Square, Peratrovich Parch every morning then make the afternoon commute back (after stopping by the Denaina Center’s free plugs on the west side of the building to charge their phones) to get drunk and high and fight and scream at each other all night long in the park. I’ve seen a few broken car windows in the area this past month as well- one right in front of the Atwood building, a couple in the state parking lot on 9th and a couple on 8th- all in between the Delaney vagrant camp and downtown. Take a walk through the Delaney vagrant camp after ten or so every night and you’ll see them shooting each other up with drugs, fist fighting, puking, buggering each other under the streetlights.
But you will never, ever, ever see a police officer there.
Hinky, Thanks for the descriptive commentary! Best one on this thread. Please continue your reporting, I appreciate it very much.
I wonder where the Police went?
What a smile! What is going on there?
Studying the mayor’s photo some more I find it supremely ironic.
If you knew nothing and just saw this picture, you would wonder what this was all about. Here is a lady in a brand new out of the bag vest, holding an empty trash bag while sticking an obviously empty grabber in same, in front of a PRISTINELY CLEAN PARK! You would wonder why she is in this get-up, as there is clearly nothing to pick up (and her empty bag proves that).
I would give her kudos if she had pictures of her in the midst of clean-up with others and loads of trash around, but this picture makes it clear that she is too important to get her hands dirty and the fake photo is supposed to convey a hands on, in the trenches image….
WE ARE NOT FOOLED Madam Mayor!
Thank you Officer Combs & your team for your hard work in eradicating the vagrants in my neighborhood, Mt. View. Keep up the good work, as we here in Mt. View, are extremely appreciative as well as absolutely delighted to see the clean up finally happening!!! 😍🥰😘