Craig Campbell: The Anchorage 2021 Top Worst Politician Awards

By  CRAIG E. CAMPBELL

Politicians love to be recognized.  To them, any publicity is good publicity, unless it’s their obituary.  I thought we should start this year by recognizing the worst of the worst in Anchorage, and thank them for being such worthless bags of bones.

Topping this years award is none other than our former disgraced mayor, Ethan Berkowitz. I know, he resigned in 2020 so why is he getting this award in 2021 you may ask? 

The answer is simple.  

Disgraced Mayor Berkowitz’s second term was to end this summer. He had visions of successfully leaving the Anchorage mayor’s office and advancing to the Alaska governor’s office in 2022. 

That would have meant he would start raising money and gaining endorsements this year. Alas, sexting with female reporters probably wasn’t his best campaign strategy, so bye-bye Ethan.  

The runner-up for worst Anchorage politician goes to our beloved Assembly Chair Felix Rivera. His accomplishments are just too many to list in this award write-up, but some of the highlights include his:

• Inability to run a civil Assembly meeting by allowing people to lay on the floor in front of the dais; 
• Illegally closing Assembly meetings to the public; 
• Violating Anchorage’s Emergency Orders and allowing more than 15 people inside the Assembly chambers (for this he now faces a recall); 
• Allowing people to insult and denigrate a fellow assembly person, Jamie Allard, during testimony and cutting off her microphone because he didn’t like what she was saying;  
• Unethically soliciting to hire Young Democrats for Assembly work privately through their Facebook page with no public notice; 
• Championing the ordinance that unconstitutionally bans counselors from discussing the topic of same-sex and transgender attraction with minors; and my favorite
• Orchestrating the purchase of buildings for homeless shelters after hearing testimony from the public that was 5 to 1 against the purchase. 

Well done, to the leader of the socialist cabal.

With just as sterling a Leftist record as Czar Rivera is the Assembly member and Alaska National Guard officer who believes the US Constitution is a racist-based document, the unremarkable Forrest Dunbar.  His accomplishments include:

• Proudly supporting the creation of the useless Chief Equity Officer in Anchorage;
• Proud his sister and cousin participated in last year’s “peaceful” protests in Portland; 
• Supporting banning counselors from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity change with a minor; 
• Introducing the alcohol beverage tax increase ordinance;
• Consistently voting to support every budget that increased the size and cost of city government; 
• Being one of the first to publicly defend our disgraced mayor who ultimately had to resign because the sexting accusations were true; and 
• In true form following the sterling example of Czar Rivera, verbally threatening political retaliation against assembly member Allard during an assembly meeting last year.  

Dunbar is now seeking to become the next mayor of Anchorage, accelerating the path to socialism. Securing government control over our lives is just a vote away if Dunbar is elected mayor. For this, and all his Orwellian actions, Forrest Dunbar is recognized as the third worst politician in Anchorage.

Honorable mention is bestowed upon her excellency, Caretaker Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson (AQD). Her consistent inability to govern a large complex organization and success at crushing businesses in Anchorage in just her first 90 days in office is remarkable. Her most honorable achievements for this award include: 

• Issuing business crushing mandates that shut-down in-door dining and bars;
• Wasting CARES Act funds on “quality of life” projects while underfunding critical small busines economic sustainment programs;
• Establishing a “Building Equity Co-investment Fund” to bring “social justice” to Anchorage by using CARES Act money to discriminate against non-minority businesses.  Instead of preserving an entrepreneurial free market system, CARES Act funds are being directed to create “equity” in Anchorage. Yup, government picking winners and losers;  
• Providing government-issued food vouchers to create more dependency on government;
• Hiring more Code Enforcement Officers to persecute restaurants and bars if they do not strictly follow her draconian mandates; and
• Giving municipal employees a four additional vacations hour bonus while private sector business are closing and the Anchorage economy is on a steep decline. 

For this, and so much more, AQD is recognized as one of the worst Anchorage politicians for 2021.

 Cabal member Meg Zaletel also earns honorable mention for her noteworthy accomplishment of her dogged pursuit to inject politics into the Anchorage Police Department. Trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, leave that to a leftist lawyer. She relentlessly pushed to require APD Policies and Procedures to become subject to Assembly review and oversight. 

If you like wearing masks all the time, then you will also be excited that Zaletel is sponsoring an ordinance mandating the wearing of masks in Anchorage. I am so appreciative of her medical expertise that masks are the answer. Next thing she may want to have her detectors wear the Scarlett letter. Wait, she already is doing just that . 

Zaletel intends to sponsor a resolution to reprimand conservative assembly member Jamie Allard for expressing her personal opinion, not related to any Anchorage Assembly actions, because Zaletel feels Allard’s comments “do not reflect the values of our community, and go counter to our community’s values.”  

OK, so the lawyer who has codified political control over law enforcement is now the determiner of what others can or can not say.  Forget the First Amendment; under Zaletel’s government, free speech is only what the oligarchy allows you to say.  

By the way, Jamie Allard never endorsed, supported, or encouraged fascism or Nazism, she simply expressed concern about how far the “cancel culture” will go to stifle free speech, the exact action Zaletel plans to implement against a conservative voice on the Anchorage Assembly.  Shameful, but worthy of recognition as one of the worst Anchorage politicians in 2021. 

Least, but by no means last, is that meager, spiteful assembly member from downtown, Christopher Constant. There are just too many examples of his foul mouth disparaging people who testify at the assembly, vilifying public speakers. He tries to shut-down public testimony critical of him. In a bizarre action, he demands that people testifying not be allowed to say his name.  What kind of paranoid, feeble creature is this guy?  

That’s easy to answer. He’s the type of guy that slanders the publisher of this website by saying such garbage as, “She is literally trying to get us killed,” and calling her the C-word on Facebook. What a stand-up guy.

I could go on, but this guy is so shallow and dishonest that a rational discussion between two opposing viewpoints is utterly a waste of time. But it does provide the credentials to make the lower rung of the worst politicians in Anchorage. Congratulations Christopher on constantly being an obnoxious card-carrying socialist.

Due to AQD’s COVID lock-downs, we are unable to hold a banquet to present these honors in person, so each recipient will just have to accept their award virtually. Let’s all give a hardy congratulations to each of these uber-Leftist windbags who have made their mark in ruining Anchorage by voting each of them out of office the next time they appear on a ballot.  

In that way, we will all be giving them the recognition they have truly earned.

Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor.  He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation.  He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).