The ADN opinion page has recently reflected the understandable outrage at the misbehavior of the anti-mask crowd at Assembly meetings, and the role of the Bronson administration in that misbehavior. I would like to add one additional viewpoint that I have not yet seen in print, and that is the connection between these activities and the most recent mayoral election. Let us recall that Bronson supporters last spring intimidated and threatened municipal election workers, which was the most shameful event in this city that I can recall, until now.
Now we see the same people intimidating and abusing elected officials at public meetings over an issue that, in a rational world, should not be particularly divisive.
This thuggish behavior is becoming a pattern. Rather than speak to the issue, the mob makes it personal, attacking individual Assembly members — as they intimidated individual election workers. The behavior is more intensely outrageous when we see the abuse of powerful Holocaust symbols, and then the fact that the city manager, Amy Demboski, who is sick with COVID-19, likely delivered that virus to any number of unmasked people in crowded spaces. Demboski is doing exactly what the ordinance is trying to prevent.
I asked the new mayor, in a paper letter, to act to protect election workers before the next election, through city ordinance and using uniformed officers. Mayor Dave Bronson did not reply.
It is obvious to me that the Bronson-Allard-Demboski trio intends to undermine the democratic processes of this city, and that they will accomplish that by abusing democratic processes in order to undermine them. The rest of us must find a way to prevent that from happening. Using municipal ordinances to protect election workers would be one step forward.
— Clarence Crawford
Anchorage
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