A few feisty exchanges and some pointed questioning from former Anchorage mayors Rick Mystrom and Mark Begich made for a rousing final debate between the major mayoral candidates on the eve of the city election.
The late-evening debate Monday was hosted by KTVA-TV Channel 11 and focused on a range of topics offered by Mystrom and Begich and culled from social media. Moderator Joe Vigil disclosed at the start of the debate that Mystrom and Begich might be partisans: Mystrom donated $500 to Dan Coffey's campaign on Sunday, and Begich attended a fundraiser for Ethan Berkowitz last month.
The former mayors weren't shy about trying to pin down the candidates -- Berkowitz, Coffey, Amy Demboski and Andrew Halcro. The ex-mayors also seemed unable to avoid sprinkling advice into their questions.
Mystrom asked Coffey what he would do as mayor to let people of different cultures know he was approachable; Coffey said he's been meeting with members of ethnic communities in his campaign for mayor and he would continue to do so.
In a different section of the debate, Mystrom probed Berkowitz about his stance on education bonds. Berkowitz the state should be held to task for trying to cut the bond reimbursement program. He said using bonds was "one of the ways to bridge the fiscal gap."
Mystrom then asked Berkowitz if he would ever consider vetoing a school district budget.
"I think there's only one mayor in history who has vetoed a school district budget and he's asking the question," Mystrom said.
Berkowitz said he would work with the Anchorage School Board on a budget that "reflected … budget realities." He added that he didn't generally support cutting school budgets.
In another exchange, Begich pressed Demboski on where she would find the money to boost police staffing. He said it would cost between $8 million and $10 million annually to pay for between 40 and 60 additional officers.
Demboski said she would work to eliminate nonprofit property tax exemptions currently being awarded to properties that don't qualify for them as one means of generating revenue.
In a section of the debate that focused on tax abatement and revitalizing downtown, the candidates sparred over Assembly management. In posing a question to Halcro, Mystrom said his main advice for a new mayor involves creating a vision for the city, then putting it in place. Mystrom asked Halcro which forces he would "line up" to make improvements downtown.
Halcro said he would look to nonprofits like the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. to examine tax abatement tools. Coffey, in a rebuttal, noted that the Anchorage Assembly last summer designated the Fairview neighborhood a "deteriorated area" to spur redevelopment as a potential option for the future.
"I love the Fairview overview plan … but the Assembly doesn't have the capacity to do it," Halcro said.
That left Demboski, a current Assembly member, bristling. She led off her response by saying that "the many thousands of people who voted for me (for Assembly) don't think I'm not smart enough to deal with the issue." In a later response, she said some Assembly members work 60 to 70 hours a week.
Halcro said it was a question of whether the Assembly had time in its committee structure, and he said a professional firm would be better suited for looking at tax abatement tools.
Coffey, a former chair of the Assembly, pointed to McKinley Tower on Fourth Avenue downtown as a successful redevelopment project that occurred during his term. He said that project included information from financial experts.
"We didn't operate in a vacuum," Coffey said.
Toward the end of the debate, Begich asked about the candidates' support for a sales tax, which led to a back-and-forth between Coffey and Demboski.
Demboski said she does not support a sales tax. She said the only way she would support one would be if it offset property taxes dollar-for-dollar and passed with a 60 percent vote.
Coffey said he'd tried and failed at passing a sales tax while on the Anchorage Assembly, and then he said that the "sales tax Ms. Demboski supports would give tax breaks to a bunch of commercial property owners" by shifting the tax burden to homeowners. Demboski, who has made a point of saying that she does not support more taxation, shot back that Coffey had "mischaracterized" her statements when she said she would only support a sales tax that reduced property taxes.
Berkowitz said flatly that he doesn't support a sales tax; Halcro said he thinks it's premature, but he said he expects the discussion to come sooner than later.
The entire debate has been posted here.
CLARIFICATION: This piece has been updated to clarify Amy Demboski's position on property tax exemption for nonprofits. Demboski favors eliminating the benefit for organizations that don't qualify, but not eliminating such exemptions altogether.