Executive Director of Anchorage Equal Rights Commission Departs

Anchorage Equal Rights Commission (AERC) Executive Director Mitzi Bolaños Anderson has resigned, having taken a new job in the Lower 48. Anderson will work with the city of Des Moines (where they provide employees with paid parental leave) as civil and human rights director.

Last year, former Acting Anchorage Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson instituted a paid parental leave program that provided some city employees with four weeks of paid time off upon the birth of their children. The policy was revoked by supposed family man Mayor David Bronson last August when he claimed that the policy "would have led to a massive financial liability that the Municipality could simply not afford.”

Bronson's administration never provided details about the policy's alleged "massive financial impact" on the city, leaving many city employees to suspect that his revocation of the policy was intentional and personally motivated.

According to Anderson, whose last day with AERC was today, one of the more senior investigators, Marie Husa, now serves as Interim Executive Director of the Commission. While Commissioners will appoint someone to the position of Executive Director in the near future, the appointee must still be approved by Mayor Bronson.

The city just lost another of the good ones.