Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson accepted the resignation of Solid Waste Services Director Dan Zipay.
Evalu Filitaula, was named Acting Director of SWS by Mayor Bronson effective immediately. Mr. Filitaula has been with SWS since 2005, and most recently worked as the General Foreman for the utility.
The search for a permanent director will begin immediately, Bronson said.
On Tuesday, Bronson’s chief of staff resigned suddenly and Mario Bird was named acting chief of staff.
The mayor has lost several of his senior members of his team in the past year and a half.
Seems the theme song for the Bronson administration is “Another One Bites the Dust”
He probably realized that the grift is over and it was time to move on.
That is what happens when you are doing the right thing. If I am not mistaken one has to vet their prospective people very well and sometimes time does not allow for that to happen. So, it is an ongoing process.
I agree!
Bronson walked into a swamp. There are still reptiles roaming the halls of City Hall, wreaking havoc wherever they can.
I’m sorry to see Mr. Zipay and others resign, but I always wonder what might be “the rest of the story.”
Has the media, outside of MustRead or The Watchman, ever reported a single thing Bronson has done in a positive light?
Deep state is alive and at work to destroy a elected mayor!!!
GFM, let’s not get carried away and blame all of our municipal “shortcomings” on the “deep state.” What we’re dealing with regarding Bronson is none other than profound ignorance!
Edit: “What we’re dealing with regarding Bronson is nothing other than profound ignorance!”
Is there money being offered for these people to resign?
I thought Zipay was actually a good appointment. He was qualified. I also wondered why he took the job. He looks in good shape, had active interests, I imagine he has enough money. So why would someone in their late 60’s want to go to a job and answer to someone else everyday. I would of thought a guy like this would rather spend his healthy years enjoying his interests like riding his snowmachine when ever he wanted. Looks like it took him a year and a half to wise up.
law suits
Leo,one could regularly find him hauling sludge in a tractor pulling side dump from the AS&G flock pond to the Sand Lake fill sight, for years.Also lots of local small jobs as well as other drivers.Ask me how I know.
Sounds like an unglamorous job doesn’t it, but then,dont have to deal with the slow motion train wreck that has been Team Bronson from near day one.
The leftists will have you believe that “people being mean” to transgenders encourages the transgenders to act out and murder people. But they see nothing wrong with vilifying anyone who agrees with or works with Mayor Bronson.
I don’t equate the two, but it’s a serious double standard.
Assault and government redress are not the same Tamra. Maybe start there.
Zipay knows knows how to run a program in a cost effective way and the deeper you go into the Muni operations the more you realize how deep the bureaucracy has embedded itself in our town. Not a prayer of pulling it out without a full dismissal and starting over.
Much as I would like Mayor Bronson to succeed, he is just not working out.
I saw M. Bird, D Zipay & A. Trombley all in church during this Easter week.
These are professional, competent family men and the fact that they all (among others) are quitting is telling.
I didn’t think much of Mayor Wuerch years ago, another military man.
His 1st act was to sign away lots of our money in MOA union contracts, no questions asked.
Some conservative.
I’m beginning to think that military officers are just not cut out for politics.
They are basically lifers in the Federal government, from a place where EVERYONE follows orders.
Civilian life is nothing like that.
When the military wants something, the gov funds it, plain & simple … more $ …. more $ ….more $
We like them because they are military & conservative, but they just don’ get it really.
We are better off w/ conservative business people.
People who have grown & operated real businesses, know how budgets, cost cutting & gov work.
And know that getting things done might require compromise.
Agree a great deal with this George!
Except the call for conservative business people to run government. The government is not a business as such, and the business person will be limited in their ability to be affective in government if bringing only that.
Further when strident conservatives demand limited government-why do they keep attempting jobs that will cause them to live on our gov’t teat?
You dislike smaller gov’t because you’re a liberal democrat and a consistent paycheck is the spawn of your parasitic reliance upon gov’t largess. Your final sentence is a non sequitur; strident conservatives do not live on the our gov’t teat.
I was talking about conservatives interest in smaller government. Your comprehension skill appears in need of some focus.
Conservatives sure do live off the government teat when they take a government job.
And PS I don’t believe in political parties, never have and have never in some near 50 years of voting EVER registered as something other than non-partisan.
Uh-oh …..you’re gonna give me a bad rep around here Maureen ….lol.
Where should the conservative leadership come from, if not the biz world?
College professors ….. journalists … gov lifers …. social services …. ?
The gov may not be a business, but a good business person would adjust accordingly.
That’s what makes them good biz people.
Governing,again, is not business. Do you normally ask your dentist to fix your car because they are a good dentist?
100% George.
The denial from Anchorage conservatives is deep, blind, and crippling. It’s going to take sanity, pragmatism, and clear eyes to turn this thing around.
Trombley would make a great mayor.
Did anyone report so rigorously on every single departure or addition to City Hall during Berkowitz’s time in office?
The Media has pummeled the mayor with the “incompetence” insult since Day 1.
That’s all they want you to believe, all they’ll focus on, and soon enough, everyone believe it is true because that’s all they hear.
Don’t forget: the mayor received A STANDING OVATION when Trump visited last summer. That ticked off the media and the Left more than anything, and they immediately turned up the heat.
They’ll stop at nothing. Good men need to stand up and fight during times like these. We’re one mayor away from losing representative democracy forever in Anchorage. Let’s not let that happen!
I was there. I stood & clapped.
When Mayor Bronson took the standing ‘O’ ; Sarah Palin (& her hockey crush) remained seated. She is that clueless.
As far as the standing ‘O’ goes, it was a pretty partisan crowd, half of them from the Valley.
So not actually representative of our 60/40 liberal town.
The executive has got to execute the people’s will. Perhaps inexpertly but he is trying. The worthy public employees have a hard time dealing with the woke ideologies on the assembly who want to absorb executive functions to return to an entrenched dictatorship they loved during cold season a few years ago. Sick of the assembly’s good for nothing woke ant-uS Constitution woke⁹ nonsense.
I often wondered what Anchorage would be like with liberal public servants. It is mere dictating. I’m in the no thanks department.
Turn the Floride off, no wait I’ll do it myself…
This all makes me wonder if these people quitting are being asked to actually do some work and show results rather than just punching the clock, kicking the can and collecting paychecks. Maybe they are all pissed that they are expected to something where as the previous administration was a little more “liberal” in their definition of work. I feel as though mayor Bronson is from the real world where excuses don’t matter and results do and as he manages the team as a captain and not as a “buddy”. He’s hurting the feelings of these softies, which is leading to their embarrassment, resentment and anger. So in todays woke society instead of digging in and proving their worth they’re quitting in an effort to save face and retain what little employability they have left. I’m sure they’re hoping for another easy paper pushing assignment with an empty suit administration that won’t bother them so much about actually doing their job.
Sure, it is all the people who Mayor Bronson hired to do these jobs and not Mayor Bronson at all.
Dude, most of the people who have resigned were chosen by Mayor Bronson. Yes, there are a few from prior regimes who quit because they refused to work with Mayor Bronson, but most of these folks were hand picked by the mayor or his advisors.
Niki Tshibaka, Amy Dembowski, Adam Trombley, Joe Gerace, and so many more were picked by the Mayor and have quit.
Seems like the problem is in the Mayor’s hiring practices and not in the work ethic of people who have left.
And nobody has commented that they both are going out within a couple days of each other. After the Assembly refuses to pay Bronson’s latest contractual mess. I’m open to hearing from all players in this, while kinda wondering my aforementioned, too.
Isn’t it weird that so much attention and scrutiny were never applied to any previous mayors contact agreements? Certainly not for Knowles, Begich or Berkowitz. Nope just Bronson.
Ask Traini he was on the assembly for years and I think with Begich. And at least partly through Berkowitz.
Ask Traini what? I hear he may know a little about ethics where printed material is concerned. How might he know anything poignant to your perspective?
I have no idea how much of this is actual inherited mess, resistance from the Politburo, or Bronson’s not being up to the job.
But I do know this. People don’t quit jobs. Even when the jobs suck. People quit bosses.
I held together crews in crappy situations by putting my people first, and them knowing it. Before I learned HOW to manage I lost people left and right.
Staff know when you’re sincere and when you’re blowing smoke. They also know when you’re in over your head and drowning.
Fair enough.
But Joe Gerace did not quit he was forced out after the assembly went deep six on his resume. Something they have never done for one of their picks. Amy quit because she was knocking heads with the female pit bull who acts as mayor Bronsons $#%+ screen. I’m pretty sure Adam quit as he has dirt on him regarding the hickel contract, didn’t he used to be in real estate? Maybe he overplayed his knowledge on the subject and has now left the mayor in a lurch with the mess. As far as niki goes…..I think pg13 is too raunchy for him, so once the expletives started flying regarding the assembly he probably grabbed his he>I coffee cup and headed for the door. Just sayin’. But then again, where I work you leave your feelings at the door, every other word begins with F, results matter, excuses don’t and opinions are like….well everybody’s got ‘em.
Suffering, hardship, disappointment is the resistence needed to strengthening faith.
If our mayor leans into God he’d finish with stronger faith than on day 1 and with one gold of a testimony tried by fire.
Jen, you’re a gem! “If,” where have I heard that word before? Yeah, and “if” Eve had only taken a tiny nibble…!
He’d be a more religious man still in over his head running a dysfunctional mayoral office.
“The mayor has lost several of his senior members of his team in the past year and a half.”
The above sentence is misleading.
Anchorage went through a period of absolute trash leadership from July of 2015 when Berkowitz took the helm up to the point that he resigned in disgrace. The lesbian subsequent to him that became ‘acting’ mayor was a striking disaster even against Berkowitz’s backdrop. Can you imagine what it would have been like to take the helm when the entire system would have been riddled with disappointing individuals that had been cronies of either prior crap administrations?
I wonder if Mr. Zipay ever considered the ethical issue when he opted to become a 25% owner in Denali Waste? Another good question would be that if you already owned a trucking company and you already owned a solid waste disposal company, how might anyone also expect that you’d make a good muni employee?
A leader needs to have a team that shares his values and sometimes he can’t know there’s a turd in the punchbowl despite reasonable effort. There is no room for a legacy trash on the new ship and there’s no reason to mourn the cleaning of the bilge as a loss when it’s clearly not.
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