A massive coverup is underway by the leftist majority of the Anchorage Assembly. And it is likely to go to court.
Nine Assembly members on Tuesday night approved keeping over 590 pages of requested emails by a citizen member of Reclaim Midtown, an activist group concerned with fraud, waste, and abuse of power.
Some of the emails being kept locked up forever are addressed to a fictitious person named “Tom Sconce,” with an email address set up for Sconce at [email protected]. Some emails are to or from the leftwing blog The Blue Alaskan and the Anchorage Press, or involve those publications.
Other correspondence are between Assembly Members Chris Constant, Felix Rivera, and Austin Quinn-Davidson to a D.C. advocacy lawyer who had neither a letter of engagement or contract with the Assembly nor a license to practice law in Alaska. Those emails are being kept secret under the claim of “attorney-client privilege.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, the Anchorage Assembly went into executive session for two hours, and when they emerged, on a vote of 9-0 they denied allowing citizen Russell Biggs the ability to appeal their decision to black out reams and reams of correspondence between certain members on the Assembly, as well as former acting mayor Quinn-Davidson. Assembly members Jamie Allard and John Weddleton left the room, rather than voting, since the Assembly’s attorney Dean Gates could not adequately explain to them what they were voting on.
Those believed to be involved in the coverup include Assemblyman Chris Constant, Assemblyman Felix Rivera, Assemblywoman Austin Quinn-Davidson, and Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar. It’s not clear if Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel, Assemblyman Pete Petersen, and Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance were part of the communications that are now being hidden from the public.
Biggs has argued that the documents “were excessively and unlawfully redacted contrary to Anchorage Municipal Code and state law requirements for transparency of public records.”
It appears that the Assembly’s Attorney Dean Gates is involved in the cover-up, as he struggled to explain the rationale during the public meeting.
Of note, the Anchorage Press was last year awarded a $70,000 sole source contract by the Assembly to do Covid-19 outreach.
BACKGROUND
On April 28, 2021, Biggs filed Public Records Request 2021-11, seeking emails to and from the accounts of: All current Assembly members using these search terms. “Tom Sconce,” “[email protected],” “Blue Alaskan,” and “Anchorage Press.” The date ranges for the emails requested were Jan. 1, 2020 through April 30, 2021.
A batch of the records were made available to Biggs in July. A second batch was not made available until Dec. 17, but when they were sent to Biggs, over 590 pages were redacted, many of those redacted in full. There were no “to” or “from” showing, no dates, no subject lines, and no page numbers. What they sent to Biggs were blank pages.
On Dec. 30, Biggs appealed the heavily redacted disclosures to the mayor on six different bases:
- No “slips” were provided to him. These are logs saying what is being redacted that are required by AMC 3.90.060(A).
- Casey Pick, one of the people involved in the emails, is an attorney from outside the state acting as a consultant, not an attorney, and the communication is not privileged.
- Many of the redactions include “to and from” information so there is no way to know if they are actually communications with an attorney.
- The applicable municipal law on attorney client privilege is AMC 3.90.040(A)which only applies to legal questions concerning pending or actual litigation.
- Biggs asked for communications referencing specific names and a specific email address. “I find it hard to believe an email mentioning any of these is a communication for the purpose of providing legal advice,” Biggs said.
- AMC 3.90.010 adopts a public policy favoring “full disclosure” and Biggs believes any claim of privilege as to these specific records deviates from this policy by making privilege claims on an overly broad basis.
On Jan, 12, The Municipal Attorney Patrick Bergt determined the appeal should go to the Assembly, not the mayor. Biggs then e-mailed his appeal request to Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance on Jan. 13.
LaFrance set the appeal for the Feb. 1 meeting, but Biggs was out of the country on vacation, and had limited communication at that point. He asked it be delayed to a later time so he could return. The Assembly leftist majority refused.
In a letter from his attorney, Biggs said he had been given only 14 hours to formulate a response after waiting for many months for the documents he requested.
“Mr. Gates, Assembly Counsel, first provided a privilege log on January 27, 2022. That is nine months after the original request was made. Mr. Biggs is presently out of Alaska, on vacation. He has not had a chance to review the privilege log, compare it to the documents, or consult counsel,” Biggs’ lawyer wrote.
Gates wrote to Biggs that he could provide a statement by noon on Jan. 28. The letter giving Biggs a deadline of Jan. 28 was transmitted by e-mail on Jan. 27 at 10:10 pm, giving him just 14 hours of overnight time to formulate his response.
Many of the emails involving Casey Pick, who is counsel to a LGBTQ organization that advises on transgender youth would not be privileged information, because Pick has no contract with the Assembly.
Pick’s LinkedIn profile says she is a “Senior Fellow for Advocacy and Government Affairs, I help lead our work advancing policies and positions that support LGBTQ youth in crisis by executing the Trevor Project’s advocacy agenda on the federal, state, and local level and in the executive, legislative and judicial branches. This role focuses not just on LGBTQ issues, but also on mental health and suicide prevention overall, with a major focus on leading The Trevor Project’s efforts to end conversion therapy.
“My responsibilities include performing in-depth legal research on questions of state and federal law or administrative policy; managing Trevor’s amicus brief filings; drafting state and federal legislation; and being on-call for rapid-response analysis of new or amended legislation in the states or Congress.”
Assemblyman Chris Constant’s statement on his emails with Casey Pick.
It is likely that the gay members of the Assembly — Constant, Rivera, Quinn-Davidson (then as acting mayor) and possibly two others were using Pick to advise them on AO 2021-65, the ordinance involving conversion therapy bans for youth with gender identify confusion. That controversial ordinance was the subject of much debate in the summer of 2021, when the emails were being sent. It may be also the case that only Constant was using Pick to advise him, as evidenced in his comments in the video clip above.
What’s also becoming more clear is that certain Assembly members are hiding their involvement with a leftwing blog, The Blue Alaskan, which they have been feeding information to for months. The identity of the owner and publisher of The Blue Alaskan is a secret, but insiders believe Chris Constant, Forrest Dunbar, Felix Rivera, and Austin Quinn-Davidson have an arrangement with the blog to use it as a way to shape their message. Such communications to the media are not privileged information and the redactions of those pages would likely be found illegal by a court. Unless, of course, Bill Falsey is involved. He is the former city manager and city attorney who has a contract with the Assembly to work on land issues, and more recently to defend the Assembly in a separation of powers issue.
Biggs’ attorney Sam Severin wrote that the attorney-client privilege may not be appropriately asserted in the case of Pick. “The privilege log states that the e-mails are between members of the Assembly, Mr. Gates, and ‘legal consultants.’ It is unclear what a legal consultant is and who the legal consultants are. The information is likely not privileged. Alaska law speaks of ‘attorneys,’ not legal consultants. At least one federal circuit court has ruled that ‘Hiring lawyers to do consultants’ work does not bring a privilege into play.'”
Severin continued, “For example, the very first e-mail is between Christopher Constant and Casey Pick. Mr. Gates is not on the e-mail, so the privilege would only apply if Pick is an attorney, if Pick is rendering legal advice, or ‘professional legal services,’ and if Mr. Constant is Pick’s client.
“The cornerstone of a democracy is the ability of its people to question, investigate and monitor the government. Free access to public records is a central building block of our constitutional framework enabling citizen participation in monitoring the machinations of the republic. Conversely, the hallmark of totalitarianism is secrecy and the foundation of tyranny is ignorance.”
The redactions are so thorough, there is no ability to tell at all why certain members of the council are corresponding with an attorney, Severin argued.
“The titles should not be redacted. There may be an argument to redact some titles if they contain thoughts or mental impressions, but it is not possible to evaluate whether that is the case,” he wrote.
“Some, such as page 21, 29, 37, 60, do not even contain the names of the recipients or the sender. They are so heavily redacted, it is not possible to even determine what the document is or who sent it. Page 219 is an e-mail from Mr. Gates to unknown recipients. Mr. Biggs cannot evaluate that for whether the privilege was appropriately asserted; neither can the Assembly. Nor can a court. These are but examples,” he wrote.
The Assembly instructed its attorney Gates to answer four of six complaints by Biggs over the redactions. Must Read Alaska filmed and posted the public portion of the unfolding scandal on the MRAK Facebook page on Tuesday night.
