Bronson Audio: Assembly Members Are Cramping My Authoritarian Style
The man who brought us Fluoride-Gate, APD-Gate, and perhaps not too far off in the future, Golden Lion-Gate, today accused the Anchorage Assembly of cramping his authoritarian style.
Anchorage Mayor David Bronson, who, with Municipal Manager Amy Demboski running the city, appears to have some extra time on his hands, called into the Louisiana-based Dan Fagan show to complain that the Anchorage Assembly was working against him and attempting to take management of the city away from him.
"I just want to remind your listeners that I'm in a lawsuit with the assembly precisely because they're not working with me. They're trying to take my control and management of the city away from me, so it's a case of Bronson versus the assembly," said the mayor, whose choice of verbiage sounded eerily familiar to that of testimony given by his supporters at Assembly meetings.
The lawsuit Bronson referred to is the one he initiated after a series of events related to his firing of former Anchorage Chief Equity Officer Clifford Armstrong III, who sued the city over his firing. Assembly Leadership said Bronson's firing of Armstrong violated city code because the mayor fired him without the assembly's consent and cause. The Bronson regime has poorly argued that Armstrong's firing was allowed under the city charter.
Bronson settled the lawsuit brought by Armstrong III this past January to the tune of $125,000.
Still, Bronson persisted with his attempted power grab and sued the Anchorage Assembly, arguing that he could circumvent the Assembly and fire the chief equity officer.
As a matter of fact, in a recent reply to Mayor Bronson's opposition to the assembly's motion for summary judgment, Bill Falsey laid out pretty well that Mayor Bronson holds a novel interpretation of the Anchorage Municipal Charter that is "sweeping and without limitation" and suggested that Bronson believes he possesses the "illimitable" power to dismiss appointed officials.
The Assembly has shown nothing but good faith in attempting to work with Bronson's administration. In December, they voted unanimously to set aside $6 million to design a possible homeless shelter and purchase two hotels. The plan was formalized through compromise between members of the assembly and Mayor Dave Bronson's administration, who had worked with a third-party facilitator.
On Fagan's show today, Bronson also accused the four reasonable and rational incumbents seeking reelection of voting "time and time again" to shut down the government. Still, it's unclear what government he spoke of as assembly meetings and local government remained open to the public during the coronavirus pandemic.
Bronson's time on Fagan's show was nothing more than an attempt to drum up support for his far-right Assembly candidates, who appear to have a different understanding than most Americans about what transpired on January 6, 2021.
That's all Bronson has — stirring the pot over COVID-19 mandates and business closures enacted to keep people safe during a pandemic he said was over long ago and whining about the assembly doing its job.
