For most of Alaska, Tuesday is not Election Day. But for Midtown Anchorage, there’s an election going on that ends at 8 pm on Oct. 26.
Voters are deciding whether to recall one of the “notorious nine” on the Anchorage Assembly: Meg Zaletel, who represents an area from Rogers Park to Abbott Road, over to C Street and north to portions of Spenard. The race is said to be razor-close.
District 4 Assemblywoman Zaletel became cross-threaded with conservative voters when she helped manipulate CARES Act funds to purchase the Golden Lion Hotel as a home for drug users. Ostensibly, it was to be used for a drug and alcohol treatment center and was part of former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’ homeless industrial complex plan, a spendy plan that involved purchasing numerous properties around town for ill-defined purposes. Mayor Bronson has instead used the hotel as a center to dispense monoclonal antibodies to those who catch Covid.
As in May, conservatives are not taking chances with this election. The Anchorage City Clerk has shown that she’ll do what she can to back Zaletel, as she did when she fought the recall petition over a year ago through the courts — unsuccessfully.
The Recall Zaletel campaigners have brought in a recreational vehicle to use as an observation station in the parking lot of the Anchorage Election office at 619 Ship Creek Avenue, in order to keep an eye on the Clerk’s Office during the final receipt and counting of the ballots.
During the mayoral election, there were numerous documented irregularities and activities around the building, including people coming into the unsecured building late at night and an unexplained malfunctioning of the fire alarm that sent everyone scurrying out of the building. That happened shortly after Assemblyman Chris Constant signed out, but no other link to him has ever been established. He was a visitor on behalf of the Forrest Dunbar for Mayor campaign, which failed in the May runoff.
The Bronson for Mayor campaign brought in Dave Bronson’s recreational vehicle to use as the command center for the campaign’s effort to monitor the counting of ballots.
The Recall Zaletel campaigners say they are protecting the integrity of the election and ensuring manipulation doesn’t occur.
But this is sure to irritate Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones, who along with the Assembly, is planning to pass an ordinance this year that blocks the public from being able to see what is going on at Election Central. The Clerk works for the Assembly, not the mayor, and she took issue with the observers from the Bronson campaign during the April-May election.
The Recall campaign has four observers on the inside of the facility as of this writing, and there is nothing out of the ordinary going on, they have reported. Voters in the district have until 8 pm to drop their ballots in area drop boxes, or get their ballots hand-postmarked at the Airport Post Office before 11 pm, to ensure it is counted.
It’s important that your signature on the envelope match closely your signature on your driver’s license, as the Clerk has sent reject notifications to those whose signatures don’t match closely enough.
8,669 ballots have been returned out of 36,000 sent out in the district. During the last cycle for the April election, about 10,000 were turned in from Midtown.
