OPINION: More Assembly overreach — why Anchorage should not pay to be a Welcoming City

The Anchorage Assembly’s plan to have Anchorage recognized by Welcoming America as a “Certified Welcoming City” does not foster a sense of harmony in our community. The recent actions of the Assembly to increase its oversight of the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) and Office of Equity and Justice (OEJ) only serve to prove this fact. Welcoming America is an organization that requires metrics demonstrating how well a city cooperates with their criteria, mostly pertaining to federal immigration laws with parts of it calling for support of illegal immigration. The data and benchmarks set forth are unrealistic, and ultimately, decisions such as these will only serve to hinder the OEO and OEJ, the work that they have done, and the work they will continue to do.

In 2014, the Municipality joined the Welcoming Cities project, created by the national nonprofit organization Welcoming America. This nonprofit is a grantee of the Open Society Foundation and received $700,000 in 2021. Its mission is to persuade cities around America that welcoming immigrants is key to political success. One of the current board members of Welcoming America is Mara Kimmel, executive director of the ACLU of Alaska. As far back as 2017, Assembly member Felix Rivera and Ombudsman Darrel Hess published the Welcoming Cities Roadmap. In other words, this is an old idea from old interests.

Now, the Anchorage Assembly wants to seek “Certified Welcoming City” status with Welcoming America. This means enshrining data collection in municipal code and requiring the OEO and OEJ to report “equity baseline data targets, performance indicators, and progress benchmarks” to the Assembly and mayor twice a year. Additionally, the Assembly anticipates hiring contractors to assist with this data collection.

Mind you, the Assembly recently spent $90,000 to hire an outside law firm to investigate whether the Anchorage OEO and OEJ offices met local and federal requirements. They do, and yet the Assembly wants to add more reporting metrics for those offices to fit its agenda to become a Welcoming City.

This is wasteful spending. Amid budget season, with record inflation staring taxpayers in the face, there is no need for additional bureaucracy and government contracts to prove our diversity and being a welcoming city.

Let’s look at Chula Vista, California, as an example. City leadership was originally in favor of the Welcoming Cities initiative. Later, their mayor, John McCann, became uncomfortable with the criteria set forth for certification. He now finds himself in a heated disagreement with his city council on matters to do with the sharing of information on privacy, policing, and immigration. Anchorage doesn’t need another protracted fight over pet policy goals from previous administrations.

My administration supports the OEO, OEJ, and Human Resources departments with everything needed to do their valuable work for Anchorage. This includes fostering legal immigration, not spending taxpayer money collecting diversity data newly prescribed by the Assembly.

Anchorage is already a welcoming community. Why would we waste taxpayer dollars to pay an outside organization to give us the title?

Dave Bronson is the mayor of Anchorage.

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