Audio: Unaware Allard Unleashed!
Audio Credit: The audio used in this piece came from the Polar Press YouTube channel.
A wild video posted to the Polar Press YouTube channel on April 5 appears to contain a January 31, 2022, telephone call between Assembly candidate Nial Williams and far-right Eagle River Assemblyperson Jamie Allard — a candidate for state office.
Williams, a frequent spectacle at Assembly and School Board meetings, has been removed from various meetings for disruptive behavior. He often records meetings and posts videos to his Polar Press YouTube channel.
According to audio taken from the conversation, Allard appears to suggest she called Williams at the behest of Anchorage Mayor David Bronson in an attempt to encourage him to drop out of the District 3 Assembly race ahead of the April 5 Municipal Election — the concern being that Williams' candidacy might pull votes from Bronson-backed candidate Liz Vazquez.
In her conversation with Williams, Allard, ever the team player for the Alaska Republican Party, can be heard telling Williams that she doesn't care much for Vazquez, claiming she talks too much and is annoying!
Twice in the recorded conversation, Allard referred to Anchorage Assemblyman Kameron Perez-Verdia as a "communist" and said he was someone she wouldn't be able to work with should he win reelection to his Assembly seat.
Later in the conversation, when Allard appears to have realized that she would not be able to persuade Williams to drop out of the race, Allard states:
"Alright, I'll let the mayor and them know I can't get you out of the race."
In the same conversation, Allard, clearly not a fan of more moderate-leaning Republican conservatives, appeared to suggest that Williams should consider running for office in Alaska Rep. Sara Rasmussen's district, which after referring to her as "that chick," said, needed to go.
A politico tells me that in 2018, they ran into Allard, who was dropping Rasmussen's campaign literature as a paid helper from the Alaska Accountability Project that was previously led by Scott Hawkins, who has since passed. The individual said they stopped to speak with Allard, who indicated during the conversation that she didn't like Rasmussen but was compelled to help her campaign as a paid employee.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Allard told Williams that sitting on the dais with other members of the Assembly was "torture." Going out on a limb here, I'm going to speculate that most everyone on the Assembly, with perhaps the exception of Members Weddleton and Kennedy, feel precisely the same way.
Later in the recording, Allard laid the heat on Williams, telling him that if he were insistent on running for the Assembly and Liz Vazquez were to lose, she would blame him. ?
"That's why they're asking me to call you; you're not gonna win," Allard stated.
If you've ever wondered how politics worked on the Municipal level, thank Jamie Allard for this insightful behind-the-scenes look at how it all goes down.
As an aside, while I think it's well known that I can't entirely agree with Williams' conduct at governmental meetings, I have nothing to complain about today.
The entire unedited video and audio are available here on the Polar Press YouTube channel.
After publication, Rep. Sara Rasmussen tweeted this in response to Allard's statement that Rasmussen needed to go.
This post was updated with additional information.
