Assembly Members Seek Answers about Agreement with Bronson Donor-Owned WEKA Medical

Members of the Anchorage Assembly are seeking answers from the Bronson Administration, this time about its business dealing with WEKA Medical, a for-profit business Mayor Bronson announced last October had secured a lucrative contract to provide COVID-19 vaccinations, testing and monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatments inside the former Golden Lion Hotel — a Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) owned building with the capacity to treat hundreds of patients per week.

The Golden Lion was purchased by the city as part of the stipulation for the sale of Municipal Light and Power and was originally intended to be used as a substance misuse treatment center.

On March 14, Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance emailed Municipal Manager Amy Demboski and Anchorage Health Director Joe Gerace on behalf of a member of the public who wants to know:

• Who has paid utility bills such as electricity, water, sewer, and heat at Golden Lion since WEKA Medical began providing services at the hotel last year?
• Whether the Municipality of Anchorage has paid for any portion of the utility cost, and if so, what the monthly amount was?
• Where can members of the public find the contract between WEKA and the MOA?

In an email sent the same day, Vice Chair of the Assembly Christopher Constant added a fourth question to the list, asking what the agreement terms between WEKA Medical and the MOA were.

At the March 17 Budget and Finance Committee meeting, LaFrance presented the same questions to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Cheryl Frasca. Frasca responded during the meeting that she didn’t have any answers but suggested that since Demboksi was in the loop, answers would be provided.

As of March 21, those answers had not arrived, but in an email sent to LaFrance this morning, Frasca said that she had checked in with Demboski, who indicated that the administration was in the process of responding to her inquiry.

The Blue Alaskan has learned that a concerned member of the public believes the city may have footed at least some of the utility costs associated with operating the Golden Lion since WEKA Medical began providing services in the building last year. If true, it would raise serious questions about why the for-profit business would not have been required to pay its utility bills while operating its COVID-19 treatment center at the hotel.

There’s speculation that utility costs associated with operating the Golden Lion for roughly four months may have run in the tens of thousands of dollars, and a member of the public wants to know if taxpayers footed all, part, or none of the associated utility bills.

WEKA Medical is owned by WEKA LLC, whose owners Todd and Crystal Herring, and through their various businesses, donated thousands of dollars to the mayoral campaign of fiscal conservative Mayor Bronson and the pro-Bronson Independent Expenditure group Open for Business Anchorage.

WEKA Medical moved into the Golden Lion last year after their lucrative contract to provide COVID-19 services had been awarded — a surprising turn of events, as Bronson said during the mayoral campaign that he would sell the Golden Lion on “day one” after becoming mayor.

Bronson supporters and conservative Alaska politicians, such as Eagle River Assembly member Jamie Allard and State Senator Lora Reinbold, shared information about WEKA Medical’s COVID-19 services with the Save Anchorage Facebook group shortly after the company moved into the building.

Last month, on February 25, WEKA Medical ceased providing COVID-19 treatments at the Golden Lion, citing a decreased need among the community for Monoclonal Antibody Infusions. Photographs provided to The Blue Alaskan after WEKA Medical was said to have vacated the Golden Lion indicate that the hotel’s former inhabitants left quite a mess.

LaFrance says she is still waiting on the Bronson Administration to produce the information requested last week.