Bronson's deplorable, predictable humanitarian crisis isn't so bad, just ask Bronson
Don't trust your eyes, Bronson argues, trust him when he tells you that he's doing a great job.
Good evening, Alaska. It’s Monday.
In this edition: Faced with a seemingly unending escalation of bad headlines about his administration’s handling of homelessness, Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson took a victory lap last week to essentially pat himself on the back and divert blame for any failures to the Anchorage Assembly and the media. On homelessness, he claimed no one has done more to address homeless more than him… and then things at the campground predictably got a whole lot worse. In much more wonky news, the Alaska Legislature has approved a “friendly” lawsuit against the Dunleavy administration over an oil tax accounting issue that pre-dates the Dunleavy administration.
Current mood: 🌧
In other news: Dog rescues couple from charging brown bear (and lives)
Next time: Let’s look at some campaign finance data
A deplorable, predictable humanitarian crisis
Shortly after I posted my last piece on Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, he took a victory lap for his first year in office. Everything’s great because of me, was the gist of it, and if not, then it’s the fault of the Anchorage Assembly and the media. On the issue of homelessness, he wrote, “This administration has done more in regards to helping solve homelessness in the history of the municipality.” How dare the press, the Anchorage Daily News and the Anchorage Assembly dare suggest that the Bronson administration doesn’t care about people experiencing homelessness?
That night, his administration no-showed a community council meeting where community leaders were hoping to get more information on Centennial Campground—a car camping site at the edge of town adjacent to what a wildlife expert called a “bear factory” where the Bronson administration had bussed people following the closure of the Sullivan Arena shelter at the end of June—and its future.
Despite his apparent best-in-the-history-of-Anchorage response to homelessness, the Bronson administration has repeatedly claimed that the camp is not part of the city’s response to homelessness and therefore the city and the Bronson administration has zero responsibility to provide even basic services to the 200-some people—including children—they put there. Talking to the public, then, wasn’t his responsibility.
“You know, this administration is just gaslighting the public,” community council President George Martinez said, per Alaska Public Media. “You don’t move people from a homeless shelter into a park and then call them campers… and think no one sees that. We know what it is.”
That following day, news broke that a woman died at the of an overdose at the camp just hours after that community council meeting. It’s unclear what, if any, emergency services were available onsite.
A weekend of rain has only made the situation there more dire.
Community organizer Kendra Arciniega posted on Sunday about the experience dropping off sandwiches and other supplies at the campground:
“We witnessed children outside barefoot + in sandals w/only soaked sweaters as a source of warmth. The area is flooded. No umbrellas. Hardly any tarps. Everyone soaking wet & shivering, standing in line for food, frantically searching for coffee as a means to stay warm,” she wrote on Twitter “One gentleman told us that he woke up in the middle of the night to some guy he didn’t know going inside his tent & laying next to him just to sleep. The rain is incessant. Campers are so desperate for dry shelter that they’re willing to breach other people’s tents.”
What little services there are at the campground has been provided by a patchwork of volunteers, groups and community members like Arciniega. Even that has its limits, leaving the campground without a clear plan, direction, organization or dependable resources. Per the ADN’s reporting:
Some of the social service providers and volunteers who have scrambled to help meet campers’ basic needs say they will have to stop working in the camp because of safety concerns.
…
Homeless advocates and providers who have spent time on site, including Branson, say drug use, theft and violence are all on the rise. People with disabilities, families with children and other vulnerable people residing inside Centennial are at risk, they say.
“Not all of these folks are going to make it,” (Houseless Resource Advocacy Council Chair Roger) Branson said during Thursday’s meeting. “This is rough. This is hardscrabble inside there.”
Other headlines since the last newsletter
Bean’s Café funding for Centennial Park has run out — “We do not have any designated funding for this. There is no contract for this we are here using community sourced funds to feed people every day,” Bean’s Café CEO Lisa Sauder said.
Community council dismayed by no-show from Bronson team at meeting about homeless at Anchorage campground — “You know, this administration is just gaslighting the public,” Martinez said. “You don’t move people from a homeless shelter into a park and then call them campers… and think no one sees that. We know what it is.”
What’s next for Anchorage’s sanctioned campground? Assembly leaders call on Mayor Bronson for homeless plans — “We did not have to close the Sullivan — the administration chose to, and chose to open this camp up,” Assemblymember Kameron Perez-Verdia said. “And so now we have to figure out a way to fix it.”
‘Deplorable,’ dangerous conditions at East Anchorage campground, homeless advocates say — “It’s a different experience having this large of a group, all new, in one location,” said Rob Marx, who is in charge of supportive housing efforts for the Rural Alaska Community Action Program. “It’s a substantially bigger homeless camp than we’ve ever had.”
Fight at campground repurposed for homeless ends in assault on officers, police say — The campground has drawn frequent police presence since it was repurposed at the end of June. By Monday morning, there had been 83 calls for service at the campground, according to data provided by the police department.
If this is at all alarming, it should be.
But skim the responses of Bronson supporters on social media, though, and you’ll see a grim trend start to come together. It’s not Bronson’s fault. It’s the fault of the Anchorage Assembly, most argue, but in some cases the blame turns to the unhoused people themselves. Their homelessness is the consequence of their actions, they argue, or people are choosing to live like this. The woman who died, they argue, could have died in any random camp and it wasn’t anything that Bronson should be concerned about. It’s not Bronson’s responsibility, is the common thread you’ll see among his supporters, and certainly not his fault.
It’s a revealing bit of cruelty—an underlying belief that the people stuck in this situation, including the children, deserve this kind of treatment—that is more informative than the whiny statements like this one from the Bronson administration:
“This administration has done more in regards to helping to solve homelessness than any administration in the history of the municipality,” Bronson said in the statement. “To state the administration and our amazing departments in the Municipality did not have a plan is a slap in the face to every single employee who has worked countless hours to help those in need over the past year.”
So… what, I ask, is the plan?
For people who’ve seen it first-hand, who’ve sought to help their neighbors rather than buy into the alternate, responsibility-free narrative put forward by Bronson, it’s impossible to ignore the failure of leadership.
“The situation at Centennial Park is a humanitarian crisis. Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson failed these adults, elders, teens, children & veterans in the gravest terms,” Arciniega wrote. “Character is how you treat people who can do nothing for you. This is a portrait of Mayor Bronson’s character.”
A predictable veto
Remember that ordinance the Anchorage Assembly passed in hopes of reining in the Bronson administration’s regular breaching of the public trust?
The Anchorage Assembly, which passed the ordinance with a veto-proof majority, is certain to override his veto.
A friendly lawsuit
The Legislature’s Budget and Audit Committee last Thursday approved a “friendly lawsuit” against the Dunleavy administration, seeking to settle a long-running dispute between the Legislature and executive branch over where the money from a decision on how oil taxes are calculated should be deposited.
It’s an issue that pre-dates the Dunleavy administration—something that legislators were sure to reiterate throughout the discussion on the lawsuit, which was approved for up to $100,000—and deals with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decisions that limited how much of the expenses from the trans-Alaska Pipeline System oil companies can deduct against their tax bills (therefore increasing their taxes).
“This is a friendly lawsuit,” said committee chair Sen. Natasha von Imhof. “It is just trying to determine interpretation of an accounting process. This is not antagonistic. That’s not the sense of this committee.”
The issue centers around whether the additional revenue—which so far totals about $1.5 billion—should have been deposited into the Constitutional Budget Reserve, as the Legislature and its auditor believes is the case, or whether the Walker and Dunleavy administrations were right to deposit them into the state’s general fund. The practice started in the last years of the Walker administration and has continued under the Dunleavy administration.
It has resulted in several years where the audits from the Legislature’s auditor have been delivered with the “qualified” status, which von Imhof said could scare away potential investors.
The difference in accounting not only impacts the amount of money available for each year’s budget because the general fund is much easier to spend than the Constitutional Budget Reserve, but how much money is owed to the Constitutional Budget Reserve.
That last bit is important because the Constitutional Budget Reserve—which takes a 3/4 majority in both the House and Senate to spend—has a provision that requires the any withdrawals be eventually paid back. That figure is north of $12 billion thanks to the decline of oil prices through most of the 2010s, and legislators are concerned that this $1.5 billion could add to that figure even more.
“The Legislature feels that we owe the $1.5 billion roughly to the CBR,” said Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka. “It will have an impact at some point in the future when and if we ever pay back the CBR. We would have to actually pay back more, and we need to clarify the issue.”
When the Constitutional Budget Reserve is owed money, the Alaska Constitution calls for most funds left over at the end of the year to be swept up for the repayment. It became a source of several not-so-friendly lawsuits with the Dunleavy administration, which unilaterally expanded the scope of the sweep to liquidate funds that fueled programs like the Power Cost Equalization program, the state’s scholarship program, Alaska Marine Highway System’s vessel replacement funds and several others. (The courts eventually found Dunleavy was technically right to liquidate some but wrong to liquidate the PCE fund.)
While issues with the sweep have largely been settled with the courts, who ruled that the funds could be spared from the sweep by the Legislature essentially passing legislation that says they’re exempt from the sweep, it’s now up to the courts to play referee on the state’s savings accounts.
“This is not a political spat between the two branches of government at all,” Stedman said. “It’s a technical discussion and technical disagreement on the balance of the Constitutional Budget Reserve that goes back to the previous administration. We just need to move forward, and have it settled by the third branch of government so we can have an agreed-upon set of books.”