“This is not a homeless camp.” These are words written by Mayor Dave Bronson about the Centennial Park homeless camp. Then he went on to say, “My administration continues to address a critical need in our community by waiving the camping fees for all campers at Centennial Park.” That’s really forward-thinking. I suspect most of the “campers” don’t have the means to pay the camp fees in the first place.
The mayor then had the gall to say his plan has done more to solve homelessness than “any administration in the history of the Municipality.” I’ll agree with that statement, if you include bear attacks and pounds of litter as performance metrics.
Mayor Bronson, stop trying to nuance your way out of a problem you behaved your way into. Set your administration’s collective ego aside. Call back the facilitators who quit because of your hubris to help forge a realistic plan with the Assembly and the private sector to address homelessness in our community. Currently, your so-called homeless plan is much like Woody Allen’s famous line in the film “Bananas”: “a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.”
— David Wigglesworth
Anchorage
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