Anchorage Mayoral Run-off A Closer Look at Suzanne LaFrance’s Vision
by pedro graterol
As the mayoral run-off approaches, we sat down with Suzanne LaFrance to hear about her vision for the city regarding the housing crisis and language access.
Anchorage is headed to another municipal election, a mayoral run-off, as no candidate was able to gather the 45% of the votes needed to win the election in the first round. Therefore, on May 14th, the city will choose between former Anchorage Assembly chair, Suzanne LaFrance, and the incumbent mayor, Dave Bronson. While we reached out to both campaigns to interview them, we only heard from LaFrance’s team and were able to sit down in an exclusive interview about her vision for the city and some of her perspectives on how to approach Anchorage’s most pressing issues.
In the interview, LaFrance revealed that her decision to run for mayor was not originally part of her career trajectory. She recounted how her initial foray into public service began with a bid for the Anchorage Assembly in 2017, spurred on by encouragement from friends and family: “My brother said, ‘You should run, you’re going to get to meet the community and meet lots of cool people.’” She ended up winning and represented South Anchorage, Turnagain Arm, and Girdwood. However, it was her firsthand experience as chair during the current administration that solidified her resolve to seek the mayoral seat, especially in response to her disagreements with Mayor Bronson: “I had an up-close view of how damaging it is when someone comes in and tries to make everything about partisan politics, and what a disruption that is and how it makes it really hard for people to work together and solve problems.”
One of the central themes of LaFrance’s campaign has been the promotion of a pro-housing culture as a way to mitigate the increasing housing crisis: “We hear over and over that it’s difficult to build in Anchorage, and we know there’s limited land, but we also hear that about some of our rules, whether it’s zoning or just the process of getting a permit.” She later added, “It’s clear to me that there’s an opportunity to do some streamlining and to revise some of those areas.” LaFrance also highlighted the importance of difficult conversations, as to what to do with the Heritage Land Bank and how to find the balance with preserving historical neighborhoods and ensuring the development of new multi-family units.
The candidate also mentioned the importance of assessing, while fostering a collaboration of community partners, state agencies, and subject matter experts about what services are available for substance misuse and mental health, in order to improve them: “The ability to help connect people to those services is important, as is advocating, and that’s a role that the mayor can have. Besides convening people, the mayor can also advocate for a certain vision and be a champion for what residents in our city need.”
This idea of advocating for conversations with stakeholders also was evident in her perspectives about language access: “I think it’s very important for the mayor to have an open door and to talk with folks who are directly impacted in this area to understand how it is not working,” she added. In addition, LaFrance said that she would be committed to providing continuous oversight of the enforcement of the Municipality’s language access policy: “It’s one thing to put money in the budget, which I’m committed to doing, and then it’s another thing to make sure that it’s actually implemented in a way that’s working. I would look to those individuals who are impacted to understand if it is working or not and work together to see what we can do to make sure it is working.”
LaFrance further emphasized that she is excited about the potential of working to implement Proposition 14, which approved the use of the cannabis tax revenues towards childcare and pre-K. Moreover, she highlighted the importance of the figure of the mayor as a role model of democratic values: “I think it’s very important for the mayor to be very respectful and to ensure that the processes are followed and that there is healthy disagreement, too. We can get a good outcome when we have this respectful, productive pushing and pulling of ideas.” The interview concluded with a question about what image she thinks Anchorage should project, to which she replied with a vision of a city with potential: “This is an amazing place and the people here are wonderful and really do care about each other. This is a welcoming place. Come to Anchorage. There’s lots to do. We have wonderful restaurants, beautiful mountains, and downtown. I believe that there’s more work to do, but there’s just so much that’s positive here.”