Allard: "This could be an ethics violation"
An email obtained by the Recall Jamie Allard group via a public records request appears to have shed light on the interesting connection Eagle River Assemblymember Jamie Allard has with the notorious "Save Anchorage" group that backed David Bronson's mayoral campaign.
The email was sent to Allard by Paul Berger last October, shortly after David Bronson announced his mayoral campaign. Berger was a "Save Anchorage" moderator when the email was sent.
The email, sent to the municipal email account of Allard, appears to contain tips intended for the Bronson campaign.
The email contains his assessment of a Spenard Community Council meeting he attended on October 7, 2020. In his email to Allard, it was suggested that then-candidate David Bronson should request to be on the agenda at "every" Community Council meeting so that the mayoral candidate could share his vision and take a few questions.
According to the email, Allard was told to take the information he provided and "pass [it] on to the powers that be," and wrote that there were council members who needed to be "emboldened" and that having candidate Bronson at the Community Council meeting was one way to do that.
The email sent to Allard stated that there were only 23 people in attendance at that meeting, telling her, "We had four...... it's a start."
The email concluded, "They are not used to this :-)"
In her response, which she copied to her iCloud email account, Allard thanked Berger for his email and asked that anything related to campaigns or anything not directly relevant to Community Council or Assembly issues be sent to her personal email account.
"This could be an ethics violation," Allard responded.
Assemblymember Allard has long enjoyed a close relationship with the secretive "Save Anchorage" group and is known to use the group to rally its members for political gain, frequently encouraging them to testify at Assembly meetings in an attempt to influence other members of the assembly.
Last year, as COVID-19-conscious private citizens avoided Assembly meetings, opting to provide written or telephonic testimony to the assembly, members of the group mistook that as a sign they represented the vocal majority of the city. However, in many instances, on matters seen by the public as important, emailed testimony far outweighs in-person testimony provided by group members.
The "Save Anchorage" group has been a dark stain on Anchorage politics since it appeared on the scene last July and has not received any favorable mainstream news coverage. Last October, a naked homeless woman was targeted by the "Save Anchorage" group after one of its members saw a picture of a woman bathing in the street off Third Avenue and shared it to the group with a troubling caption.
Last November, after former president Donald Trump claimed that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him, Allard sent an email to Anchorage Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones and asked several questions about "Dominion Voting Machines." Jones responded to Allard and the entire assembly in her response.
In a social media comment made earlier this year, Allard alleged corruption surrounding mail-in ballots was real and stated that what she had learned from "Muni rules" was "alarming."
The Bipartisan Policy Center says that not only are rates of voter fraud extremely low, but even before the pandemic, all states allowed some form of absentee voting, with the majority of states allowing no-excuse absentee or all-mail voting.
It's unclear why the Eagle River representative continues to associate herself with a group that has contributed to the spread of misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, election fraud, city public health measures, and homelessness.
