Anchorage Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance ripped into Mayor Bronson for his refusal to honor a subpoena, his silence on a recent series of allegations against him and his administration, and an exodus of his top officials.
Assembly members on Tuesday passed a resolution in an 11-1 vote that authorizes Assembly attorneys to begin litigation. The Assembly will ask a court to compel the administration to publicly release its reports on Gerace’s hiring and comply with a subpoena issued by Chair Suzanne LaFrance on Feb. 2.
The February subpoena called for the administration to deliver two documents -- a September 2022 document “styled as an investigation” and a January 2023 memorandum based on the September report, according to the subpoena.on Monday -- turn them over by 5 p.m. Tuesday. In an heated moment Tuesday night, LaFrance ripped into the mayor for his refusal to honor the second subpoena, his silence on a recent series of allegations against him and his officials, and a recent exodus of his top officials.“The municipality, the mayor’s administration is on fire. It’s burning. We get nothing. And it’s a little bit ... hard to be here, in our meetings, over and over, where the mayor refuses to talk to the community. He refuses to share information with the Assembly.
“I understand your emotion. At the end of the day, you need to understand this as a legal issue. The people that need to answer this are over here,” Bronson said, referring to the city attorneys. LaFrance issued the first subpoena to Tshibaka after city lawyers told members a subpoena and closed session was necessary in order to discuss personnel records protected by privacy rights in the Alaska Constitution.On Tuesday, LaFrance and others called that January executive session, essentially, a farce orchestrated by the administration to keep information from the public.
As administrator of the department, Tshibaka was responsible for overseeing the vetting of Gerace’s experience and qualifications and has been at the center of the Assembly’s ongoing investigation into the matter.
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