State campaign laws allow candidates to collect money early if they submit letters to the state ahead of time saying they intend to run. Many candidates filed those letters last year.
The Assembly is Anchorage's legislative body, and five of the 11 Assembly seats are in play this year. However, two incumbents -- Eagle River-Chugiak Assemblywoman Debbie Ossiander and South Anchorage Assemblywoman Jennifer Johnston -- appear unopposed so far. That could easily change. Filing to run with the city clerk's office, the only way to actually get on the ballot, started Friday and continues until Feb. 12.
Three other races look interesting, and Sullivan is taking a hand in all of them. A swing in the makeup of the Assembly could give Sullivan a six- or seven-vote majority of the 11-member body in support of his policies, not just the four votes he needs to sustain vetoes.
WEST ANCHORAGE
Incumbent Assemblyman Matt Claman faces Ernie Hall, a fairly well-known and likely well-financed businessman who ran for lieutenant governor as a Democrat in 2002 but for the most part has been registered as non-partisan or "other," as he currently lists his political affiliation with the state Division of Elections.
Assembly races are non-partisan by law, but in practice they have grown increasingly partisan.
Hall launched his Assembly campaign with a December fundraiser sponsored by Sullivan and former mayors George Wuerch and Rick Mystrom, all Republicans.
Claman is a Democrat, and holds the Assembly seat in a district once represented by Sullivan. Claman is an attorney who was first elected in 2007, served as chairman last year and took over as acting mayor when Mayor Mark Begich stepped down in January 2009 to be sworn in as Alaska's new U.S. senator.
Claman's first weeks in office saw him announce an unexpected $17 million deficit in the just-passed 2009 city budget, setting off an on-going series of service cuts and layoffs. Taking over as the temporary mayor also gave him the opportunity to show voters what he could do as leader of the city as a whole, and Claman says he thinks that experience and profile will serve him well in the Assembly campaign.
"In the past when I ran, a large portion of my support came from people that I knew ... and in this campaign I'm seeing a lot of people come forward and offer to help out, who I've never met before, people coming out because they appreciate the work I did as mayor," he said.
Claman chairs the Assembly's public safety committee, and notes that he tried, unsuccessfully and against Sullivan's objections, to restore funding in this year's budget for police and firefighter academies. He thinks his opposition to some of Sullivan's cost-cutting may serve him well when April rolls around.
"It's very possible the public would say ... they would rather have someone that doesn't always see eye to eye with the mayor than having six or seven votes that always" agree with him, Claman said.
Hall says he might not always agree with the mayor, either. But he's approaching his campaign echoing some of the same things Sullivan has been saying for a year: That after several years of new buildings and public service growth, it's time to scale back and focus on maintaining the roads, trails and facilities the city already has.
"I asked Dan Sullivan why it was that he wanted to endorse me, and his comment was, 'Ernie, you've always been a moderate, somebody that keeps his word, and I can work with that.' "
"The Assembly needs to work together, it needs to work with the mayor," Hall said. "There's a large difference between how Mayor Sullivan is thinking and how some of the Assembly is thinking."
Some friction between the two branches of city government is healthy, Hall said, but so is cooperation.
"There is a shortfall in the city budget, and I would hope we would all be able to sit down as an elected group and make decisions on what we can afford," he said.
"We've got an amazing community here. We've got venues (Sullivan Arena, the performing arts center, the Dena'ina Convention Center) that other cities our size would just give anything to have," Hall said. "The time is here, for a while, that building new edifices like that is going to be at a standstill. It's very important that we take very good care of what we've got."
EAST ANCHORAGE SEAT
Incumbent Assemblywoman Sheila Selkregg is not running to keep her seat for a second three-year term. She's thrown her support to Paul Honeman, a long-time Anchorage cop who retired as a lieutenant to wage an unsuccessful campaign for mayor last year. Selkregg was also in the mayoral field that lost to Sullivan last spring.
Selkregg said her political obligations on the Assembly were too time-consuming. "At some point I just realized that the demands of the Assembly were so large that it was crowding into my professional life, my family life, every aspect of my life," she said.
She and Honeman said they talked late last year, as Selkregg was making her decision.
"Paul is different from me," she said, "but I think the things we share are a real commitment to the public. Paul will put the public first. He's independent and hardworking and trustworthy."
Honeman belongs to no political party, and says the partisan atmosphere around City Hall and the Assembly chambers hasn't served citizens well. He says he agrees that spending needs to be controlled, but thinks Sullivan goes too far sometimes.
"One of my biggest concerns is in the areas of public safety," he said. Sullivan's decision to forego training academies for new police officers and firefighters this year could come back to haunt the city as both departments lose manpower to attrition, Honeman said.
"I'm glad to see he's at least trying to consider looking at costs and some cuts -- things that are necessary in any bureaucracy -- (but) in some cases I think there are cuts for the sake of cuts, rather than where they're really needed," Honeman said.
"But we certainly are living in different economic times than, say, two years ago, and we need to pay attention to those things."
Another candidate trying to claim Selkregg's seat is Adam Trombley, a Republican, an oil field services worker and a Sullivan appointee to the city's budget advisory commission.
Trombley said he wants an Assembly job because the city is spending too much and delivering too little.
"I saw my property taxes going up and up and up, bloated government getting bigger and bigger and bigger," and complaints about not having enough money for buses and parks and other services continue.
A lot of services might be delivered better by private contractors, Trombley said, citing grass mowing and maintenance in city parks as one potential area.
"Put it out to bid ... with some sort of satisfaction clause," he said. "We're gonna get great service for a lower price."
Sullivan has also helped raise money for Trombley, and the candidate agreed that he and Sullivan probably look at a lot of issues similarly.
"If an individual considers himself a conservative, and I'm a conservative, we're going to align on certain things," Trombley said. "But at the same time ... my first responsibility is to represent the people of East Anchorage."
MIDTOWN SEAT
The other contested race is in Midtown, where incumbent Assemblyman Dan Coffey, an Assembly ally of the mayor's, has chosen not to run for a third term.
"Six years is enough, really," Coffey said. "It's time for some new blood; let somebody else give it a whirl."
The campaign to replace him, so far at least, is between Dick Traini and Andy Clary.
Traini is a former Assemblyman who held the Midtown seat for a dozen years in two stints in the 1990s and from 2001 to 2008. The charter limits Assembly members to three consecutive three-year terms, but former members can run for office again after being out of office.
Coffey said he's not endorsing anyone in the race, but Clary clearly has Sullivan's support. He held a December fundraiser at the downtown pub Sullivan co-owns, McGinley's, and Sullivan's image is a regular feature on Clary's campaign Web site.
"I do have his endorsement and my opponent does not," Clary said. "This is a time we're going to see a conservative swing on the Assembly and I'm looking forward to being a part of that."
He echoes Sullivan's criticism of labor contracts passed at the end of 2008. "They went through with haste, without care," Clary said. "That ... is something I don't want to see happen again."
Clary is an IT professional and served on Sullivan's transition team. His father, Glen, is an assistant pastor at the politically active Anchorage Baptist Temple, but Andy Clary says he hasn't been a member of that church for years.
"People have got to judge me as my own self," he said.
Clary said his background in computers and programming would bring a new kind of expertise to the Assembly. During the transition review, Clary said, he heard a lot of complaints about the type of software the city uses for payroll work and other financial data processing purposes.
"That is one area I'd like to see the Assembly be able to approve changes for ... at some point down the road," he said. "I'm somebody that would be willing to work ... to try to bridge the gap between the Assembly and the administration in those technology arenas."
Traini says he shares similar concerns with the mayor on most issues, and particularly wants to trim the budget, which has been Sullivan's main emphasis.
"I think the budget is out of control. They don't have enough money for their needs."
The Assembly could use someone with his level of expertise to scour the budget for cuts, Traini said. "Watching this Assembly, they don't have a lot of longer term membership on there, somebody that's been on there as long as I have."
One reason Traini says he is running is to get rid of vehicle emissions testing once and for all. The Assembly at Traini's urging did vote to cancel the testing in 2007, but then brought it back after some new members took office in 2008. "The first thing I'll introduce is a repeal of it completely," Traini said. "We don't need I/M any more."
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