Group wants to oust three liberal Assembly members

Sullivan wants to unseat Elvi Gray-Jackson, Harriet Drummond and Mike Gutierrez, and early on endorsed an opponent of each one.

His push was joined this week by a group led by political consultant Art Hackney, Fiscal Sanity. The group is airing television ads that criticize votes by the same three incumbents in favor of controversial union contracts back in 2008.

Gray-Jackson called it a "smear campaign" and said her record speaks for itself. "No one is more committed to relieving the property tax burden and finding efficiencies," she said.

Six of the 11 Assembly seats are on the Tuesday city election ballot, as well as two School Board seats and some propositions.

Fiscal Sanity is operating as an independent group and says the candidates it backs are not participating in its campaign.

This kind of independent spending on candidates would not have been possible before the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2010, said Alaska Public Offices Commission director Paul Dauphinais. The court ruled that corporations could spend unlimited sums to elect or defeat candidates, as long as the money was spent independently. The decision threw out national and state laws, including the law in Alaska, that restricted corporate and union donations.

Fiscal Sanity has reported contributions of $33,500, including $10,000 each from three building groups, Associated General Contractors of Alaska, Anchorage Home Builders Association and ABC of Alaska. Carr-Gottstein Properties gave $3,500. All of the money came in just over the past two weeks, according to the group's report with the Public Offices Commission.

The TV ads show a moose, mountains, buildings and water, plus photos of the candidate in question. A narrator says, "What's happened to common sense in Anchorage? (Gray-Jackson, Drummond or Gutierrez) voted for union contracts without assuring there was money to pay the costs. There wasn't."

The Fiscal Sanity contributors are "people who are very interested in the city not putting itself in a situation" where so much money is encumbered for labor, said Hackney.

Sullivan, if he stays in office for six years, will have to spend most of that time cutting budgets to make up for the contracts, Hackney said.

The ads urge voters to support Dave Bronson over Gray-Jackson, Liz Vazquez over Drummond and Adam Trombley over Gutierrez. They do not talk up the challengers, though.

Drummond said she hadn't seen the ads, but said, "Those contracts fell within parameters of the 2007 Assembly," which passed a resolution setting out general terms for upcoming contracts.

And, she said, economic information produced by the city at the time of the 2008 contract votes showed they could be paid for under normal growth of the city's tax cap, which is a limit on how much taxes can increase each year.

City investment income crashed as the recession hit that fall and winter, resulting in a big budget shortfall early in 2009. "But we didn't know that until long after the contracts were approved," Drummond said.

Gutierrez said he thought the developers financing the commercials were probably more concerned about what will happen with Title 21, the city zoning and land use code that's being rewritten, than about the labor contracts.

"I'm not exactly on the opposite side of the fence. I want a good product," he said.

Reach Rosemary Shinohara at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.