I recently attended a mayoral forum with an Anchorage Rotary group. It was enlightening, and I appreciated being able to see and hear the four major candidates. I learned something new about each of them.
At one point in the forum, Mayor Dave Bronson responded to a question about snowplowing by saying the mayor isn’t in charge of getting snow plowing done — the mayor is only in charge of the snow plowing budget. Maybe it was just me, but I am pretty sure I heard an audible gasp of disbelief in the room that Bronson didn’t feel responsible for snowplowing. Bronson went on to say that he thought we should get back to a city that gets things done — like we did when Tony Knowles was mayor.
I worked many years for Knowles, and I can say with certainty that as mayor (and later governor), Knowles thought that as the leader of the city and the state, he was absolutely in charge of snow plowing, from budgeting for it to making sure hisdepartments carried out their mission.
I guess I did agree with Bronson on that one point: We should get ourselves a mayor like Knowles who believes she is in charge of snow plowing and who will make it a priority. I’m voting for Suzanne LaFrance to get that job done.
— Leslie Ridle
Anchorage
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