Easy To Sort Out The Top Anchorage Mayoral Candidates

I'm going to make this as brief as I can and encourage others to find their way to other forums so they can judge for themselves.  April elections tend not to have that many people voting, and with so many candidates, there's a good chance that there will be a runoff in May.  Those have even fewer people voting.  So your vote counts a lot.  On the other hand, the Municipality has a vote by mail election, which tends get more participation.  

 I watched the mayoral forum hosted by about 20 non-profits that one would have to say lean toward protecting the environment, diversity, and those in need.  The zoomed through a lot of questions and it quickly separated the candidates into, what seemed to me, the well qualified and the less qualified.  

Just as any large private or non-profit business would focus on people's experience and knowledge of the organization and or similar ones, when we elect a mayor we should be hiring someone who isn't going to be learning on the job.  So the first thing that struck me about the candidates was:

Knowledge and Experience With the Municipality

Basically, there were four candidates that stood out as reasonably well versed in what's happening in Anchorage and would be reasonably well prepared to start from day one.  These are folks who, unsurprisingly, have been very involved with the operations of the Municipality:

Bill Falsey - is a former Municipal Attorney and the he was the City Manager.  The first position gives you a ring-side seat and the second actually puts you in the ring.

Forrest Dunbar - is a current Assembly member.

Bill Evans - is a former Assembly member.  

George Martinez - has a lot of government experience in New York and has been involved with community organization in Anchorage since at least 2008.  He worked as a special assistant to Mayor Berkowitz so he has a handle on a number of municipal issues.  He's currently head of Leadership Anchorage at the Alaska Humanities Forum

All four were familiar with the various programs and issues that were raised in the forum and were able to speak to the questions with obvious detailed knowledge of the issues.  

In my mind, these are the people qualified to step into the job and be able to do the do real work from Day One.  The others are going to have to learn on the job.  That's not really what we need.

Articulate and Able to Represent the Municipality Well

The four above were all good spokespersons.  I found George Martinez to be the best speaker - very fluent, clearly had his thoughts well organized and articulated, and conveyed a sense of caring.  Dunbar and Evans were next.  I found Falsey about wonky.  He knew the technical details and was able to say a lot, quickly, but I didn't feel a lot warmth.  High on rationality, not so high on charisma.  

I took a lot of notes, but what I've written above is probably more important than the details of the answers which were focused a lot on parks, diversity, outdoors, indigenous issues, and a little on downtown.  

The other candidates really were far behind in both factors above.  They were not people who had any real experience with Municipal government that was greater than any one off the street.  Mike Robbins said he was in the raise in response to how the Municipality handled the pandemic response.  Businesses were badly hurt.  I don't disagree with that, but I lean more to the side that believes they would have been hurt a lot more if the Muni hadn't take the strong action it took.  

Heather Herndon spoke about being fourth generation Alaskan, she said growing up in Alaska she was never aware of people being treated differently because of the race or ethnicity.  She made some cryptic references to indigenous people saying there were some in her family.  

Several candidates seemed to cast themselves as 'normal people':  Anna Anthony is a mother and a little one made noise in the background a couple of times.  Jeff Brown said he represented the 80% of Anchorage residents that agreed on most things.

Another factor might be generational - who best represents the future and will be best able to take us there?   Of the four most qualified, Dunbar and Falsey are the youngest.  At this point in the pandemic, those who kept forgetting to unmute are automatically disqualified.  It's ok for ordinary folks, but not for someone about to lead one of the biggest organizations in Alaska.  They just don't have what it takes to learn quickly to adapt to change.  T

Gender and ethnic diversity will be a consideration for others.  

Click to enlarge

Jeff Brown and Joe Westfall came in late, after I took the screen shot. Julie was the moderator.  Wikipedia lists five additional candidates who did not show up: 

Dave Bronson

Darin Colbry

Reza Momin[10]

Albert Swank Jr.

Jacob Seth Kern