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The Anchorage Assembly did something inexplicable when it approved the Anchorage Community Development Authority’s plan to purchase, for $14 million, the downtown Legislative Information Office building.
Taxpayers, to put it mildly, got hosed by the left-leaning Assembly in the 8-2 vote allowing the deal to go forward, with only Amy Demboski and Fred Dyson giving it a thumbs-down.
The Assembly’s decision to allow the purchase to go forward is a bad one, on several levels. It has a municipal corporation – exempt from asking voters’ permission for bonding – purchasing expensive private land without a vote of the public, and it leaves the city paying far too much. It was poor public policy, and it was a poor bargain to boot. Add to that: Nobody bothered to ask the public.