This Week In Sanity: May 30, 2021
Allard is ready for her closeup, an Alaska scientist announces her bid to unseat Laddie Shaw, Bronson's 'New Direction is down' and APRIE is just more of the same.
Sorry for the lateness, I've been doing a lot of reading, and with the holiday weekend, catching up on my sleep as well.
As a result of a records request, it was revealed that Assemblywoman Jamie Allard sent an email to a Municipal employee in the Video Center. Allard claimed that when members call in, the cameras recording the Anchorage Assembly meeting quickly turn to other members' seats but not hers. She accused the Video Center of "unfair and biased" coverage. The Video Center employee wasn't putting up with Allard's nonsense and shot back an email denying any allegation of bias and told her, "I will not entertain this conversation and expect to hear no more on the subject."
Wild.
In super exciting news, Alaska Scientist Jennifer Sonne announced her run for the Alaska Legislature next year. Sonne is running as an Independent against 72-year-old incumbent Laddie Shaw. In 2018, Shaw won a three-way Republican primary with 44.9% of the vote and the general election with 62.3% of the vote.
Sonne faces an uphill battle unseating Shaw, who enjoys great support from military veterans, but at this point, I want to know how many dogs Sonne has and what their names are. I hope she named them after elements of the Periodic Table because that would be cool.
I'm so sad we will be talking about Mayor-Elect Bronson for the next three years. Things are already off the rails.
The APOC staff report is due on June 21 and will address the complaint filed by the Dunbar campaign last month. I'll be watching what APOC says about any alleged coordination between the Recall Rivera ballot group and the Bronson campaign.
The Bronson campaign website is "Temporarily Down" after Dunbar Treasurer Paula DeLaiarro brought to APOC's attention that the website was being used to recruit potential hires for Municipal jobs and to solicit ideas and suggestions for Bronson's new administration.
It will be a long and wild three years with Bronson as mayor. McDonald's employees have more managerial experience than Bronson. He will almost certainly seek to rule over Anchorage and its homeless population unchallenged and iron-fisted, with members of the Save Anchorage group wetting themselves like excited puppies whose owner just returned from protesting abortions being conducted in a gay club. Seriously, buck up because the next three years will be ridiculous.
Speaking of Save Anchorage, a member of the 'wonderful' group shared a YouTube link to a Bronson campaign 'How To' video, which seems to attempt to educate would-be election observers on the finer points of election observation. Bronson's campaign dropped the video on the day of the mayoral runoff election. A report by the Anchorage Municipal Clerk says that Bronson's observers knew next to nothing about their responsibilities and that election workers were repeatedly harassed. (I've gotten ten pages of notes and documents from a former Dunbar election observer that I'm going through now).
I watched the Bronson campaign's 'How To' video, which is about four and a half minutes long, and it's a slice of my life I'll never get back. I learned nothing, and I suspect the only thing Bronson supporters took from the video was the statement made at the end that observers were "there to challenge the voting."
An ultra-conservative group — Alaska Parents' Rights in Education (APRIE), has been doing a lot of mouth-frothing over the non-existent critical race theory that's not being taught in Alaska schools. Eagle River Assemblywoman Jamie Allard recently wrote that it was "Time to fully take on the ASD. Get Ready!"
It's all so needlessly dramatic.
Days later, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy tweeted in part, "Critical race theory is a false narrative that ignores our history of striving to improve. It has no place in our schools." The tweet drew the attention of many Alaskans, who shared their opinions of Dunleavy's tweet. It wasn't pretty...not at all.
Anyway, the Facebook page is filled with links to the Epoch Times, pro-Bronson swill, the Alaska Watchman, Dan Fagan, etc. The group recently said it needed hundreds of people to attend the Anchorage School District board meeting held last week. Roughly eight people attended. The Facebook group is one to watch as the group gives off considerable Save Anchorage energy. Who knows what imaginary thing the group will conjure up next?
