From the Municipality of Anchorage web site, the duties of Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones are defined as follows:
The Municipal Clerk’s Office publishes the agenda; records all Assembly-related actions; and produces the minutes for all Assembly meetings. The Municipal Clerk’s Office oversees business licensing and staffs several Municipal boards, including the Board of Ethics, the Board of Adjustment, the Election Commission, and the Salaries and Emoluments Commission.
She is also hired by the Assembly, which has become a problem.
Jones has a less than cordial relationship with the administration of Mayor Dave Bronson. This started when members of his campaign took a close, relentless look at how ballots were being handled, access to those ballots, and how the count, recount, and runoff were conducted. Given the fraud associated with the 2020 presidential election, mostly in states with mail-in ballots, this was a logical and not unexpected reaction.
For her part, rather than maintaining a strict, neutral position regarding the conduct of the election, Jones allowed herself to get schmoozed by Assembly Member Chris Constant. This included a gift of flowers to her after the election for doing a good job. I bet he does that to all Muni employees. Interestingly enough, Constant was a vocal supporter of Forrest Dunbar, working hard to get him elected. His close, personal relationship with Jones is about to trash her rapidly shrinking reputation for professionalism and independence.
Jones wrote a scathing after action report on the Bronson campaign diligence to the Assembly following certification of the count. In response to that report, the Assembly Majority proposed new limits on how mail-in ballots were going to be “cured” here in Anchorage. Curing a ballot means contacting the voter to fix any questions about name and address on the ballot envelope. Generally, democrats do this really well, giving them a political advantage in mail-in ballot states like California. Here in Anchorage, the Bronson campaign aggressively adopted that technique, much to the dismay of the Assembly majority.
The Assembly is proposing changes in Muni elections that will severely limit curing of mail-in ballots, especially by Republicans. The first of these meetings was scheduled for Sept 22.
There is a special election on Oct 26 for the Zalatel recall. Jones posted a notice of the recall on her web page, though it was NOT on her home page, buried under the Municipal Elections link. Pretty convenient, a woman who is hired by the Assembly conveniently making it difficult for the public to find public notice of an election. I’m sure it was simply an “oversight.” Jones’ decision to place this notice online on Sept 26 also made it too late for any changes to voter registration. I’m sure that timing was just an oversight too.
The administration put a public notice of the election on the home page of the Muni web site on Sept 22. The Clerk’s office didn’t like this a whole lot and followed up with a series of scathing phone calls and letters, the last one from the Clerk accusing the Administration of meddling in the running and administration of an election. Muni Manager Amy Demboski responded in kind and hilarity ensued. There was even a threat of legal action by the Clerk’s office. Suzanne Downing covered the festivities in a stunning Must Read Alaska post Friday, October 1.
Around the same time, Assembly member Chris Constant (there’s that name again) tried to use the Clerk’s office to gather inside information on Mayor Bronson’s future nominations. Must Read Alaska has screen shots of the discussion.
Sadly, this won’t be the last of these exchanges as long as the Assembly attempts to use the Muni Clerk as a tool to attack and obstruct the Bronson administration. And in doing so, they undermine the independence and credibility of Jones and her employees.
I have known Barbara Jones a long time. She is a nice lady. She used to be a professional lady. She was one for a long time. It appears that the Assembly majority are in the process of putting her in an impossible position by turning an office that ought to be politically neutral into a political hack, an office that exists to serve the public into one that serves only the partisan interests of the current Assembly majority. And once you do that, half the people in this town – whoever loses – won’t trust the independent, neutral, transparent conduct of elections in this town anymore.
A possible solution would be to pass an ordinance that makes the Clerk office fully independent not unlike the auditors or ombudsman. Will the current Assembly do this? Unlikely. But they should. Lesson from all this? Once again, liberals (the current Assembly majority), destroy everything they touch, which is yet another reason to never, ever put them in office.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
