ANCHORAGE — A group financed by some Anchorage developers and real estate owners is campaigning against three members of the Anchorage Assembly who are at odds with Mayor Dan Sullivan.
The group Fiscal Sanity is airing TV ads that criticize votes by the three incumbents — Elvi Gray-Jackson, Harriet Drummond and Mike Gutierrez — in 2008 favoring union contracts, the Anchorage Daily News reported Thursday. Sullivan has endorsed their opponents.
Six of the 11 Assembly seats are on Tuesday’s city election ballot, as well as two school board seats and some propositions.
Fiscal Sanity is operating as an independent group and says the candidates it backs are not participating in its campaign.
The TV ads show a moose, mountains, buildings and water, plus photos of the candidate in question. A narrator says, “What’s happened to common sense in Anchorage? (Gray-Jackson, Drummond or Gutierrez) voted for union contracts without assuring there was money to pay the costs. There wasn’t.”
Fiscal Sanity has reported contributions of $33,500, including $10,000 each from three building groups: Associated General Contractors of Alaska, Anchorage Home Builders Association and ABC of Alaska. Carr-Gottstein Properties gave $3,500. All of the money came in just over the past two weeks, according to the group’s report with the Public Offices Commission.
The Fiscal Sanity contributors are “people who are very interested in the city not putting itself in a situation” where so much money is encumbered for labor, said Art Hackney, a political consultant leading the group.
The ads urge voters to support Dave Bronson over Gray-Jackson, Liz Vazquez over Drummond, and Adam Trombley over Gutierrez.
Gray-Jackson called it a “smear campaign” and said her record speaks for itself. “No one is more committed to relieving the property tax burden and finding efficiencies,” she said.
Drummond said the disputed contracts fell within parameters set by the Assembly. And, she said, economic information produced by the city at the time of the 2008 contract votes showed they could be paid for under normal growth of the city’s tax cap. City investment income crashed during the recession, resulting in a budget shortfall in 2009.
Gutierrez said he thought the developers financing the commercials were probably more concerned about what will happen with Title 21, the city zoning and land use code that’s being rewritten.
Comments (3)
Add commentUS Supremes screw it up
...and the money starts trickling in. Do you think the top 1% that earn 25% of income and control 40% of all wealth will be supporting anything YOU do? Your dollar goes to paying your electric bill. This is where theirs goes. Ensuring THEY get the America THEY want.
Wise up. Your job will get offshored no matter what if there's a buck to be made. You can either act like a $2 a day slave, or do something before THEY make you one.
Unions matter. Wages matter. Jobs matter. WE did not screw it up, THEY did.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/03/wealth-fare-state-millio...
-Let's recall the debate around Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000, which were eventually extended. Despite making more than five times the median household income of $50,000 a year, these earners didn't feel rich either-
Let's read that a few times. They don't "feel rich". Wow. Well, maybe the real solution shouldn't be to keep giving them money until they feel rich if they are only going to judge it by their neighbors Bugatti. Maybe they should actually have their net income reduced in order to bring back a little perspective. Spending cuts are needed, but tax revenue is needed just as much and over 50% of working americans don't have any more left to give.
Thank US Supreme Court
As we now begin to see the results of unlimited corporate advertising for candidates. Maybe I'm wrong but I see four business giving a total of $ 33,000 to promote their views and find that far above the ability of four Alaskan individuals to make equal contributions.
The 2012 election is going to be an onslaught of corporate back advertising that will completely overrun individual voters ability to compete with. Welcome to Corporate America.