A Dark Chapter in Anchorage History Ends in Divisiveness and Death
Note: This column includes swearing and adult content.
One of the darkest periods in Anchorage history reached its sad and grim denouement Wednesday with the nearly simultaneous passage of a new municipal mask mandate and the death of a prominent antivax/antimask activist at Providence Hospital.
For much of the Covid pandemic, the nation’s northernmost metro area avoided the worst of things, our remoteness and early vaccine adoption helping keep the virus at bay. The city had its share of clashes over masking and business closures, but for the most part Anchorage remained aloof from some of the uglier aspects of the outbreak seen elsewhere.
That all changed when the Delta variant began to ravage the state, and in the past several weeks a bitterly divided city has devolved into a state of sickness and strife the likes of which most living Alaskans have never experienced.
The conflict intensified when hospital beds filled through the fall and members of the Anchorage Assembly began to push for a municipal masking order. This set the stage for a showdown between the pro-mask assembly and the very anti-mask administration of Anchorage’s puppet Mayor Dave Bronson and his boss, Municipal Manager Amy Demboski.
Working in concert with their media partners, Demboski, Bronson and assemblywoman Jamie Allard used social media to whip their flock into a frenzy at exactly the wrong time for the city. The mask debate turned into an all-time shit show, two weeks of insanity that saw an endless stream of sometimes costumed members of the public attempting to subvert the public process with what they termed a “filibuster of the people.”
The hearings were a disaster for Bronson, whose typically bumbling comments in support of anti-maskers comparing mask mandates to Nazism forced a hasty apology and tarnished the city’s reputation nationally and internationally. The administration came across as both inept and incompetent, their only strategy one of intimidation and delay. An Anchorage Daily News photo of Demboski poring over a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order, brow furrowed in confusion, neatly summed up the proceedings. It was a kangaroo court held on a giant trampoline, bouncing wildly out of control.
[Also read: “Alaska: The state that did nothing about Covid — and liked it”]
The Mask Wars had a predictable outcome — the divide in the city grew and people eventually got sick. The list of those catching Covid reportedly includes Demboski and Allard themselves, an occasion that caused many who think mask mandates are a reasonable public health measure — this writer included — a bit of schadenfreude; it’s never funny when someone gets sick, but when that someone spends two years fighting all available public health measures to fight a disease and then gets said disease, well, it’s a hard instinct to suppress.
Among those to catch Covid was a man named William Topel, an antivax activist who attended at least one assembly meeting and was a vocal supporter of the policies espoused by Bronson and Demboski. Topel entered the public sphere when he came down with Covid and quickly learned what others who get the disease do — it’s nothing to fuck around with. He was soon hospitalized at Providence and somehow Allard ended up intervening on his behalf.
A political unknown just a few years ago, the assemblywoman from Eagle River has rapidly raised her profile among conservatives by portraying herself as a freedom-fighting, tough-talking advocate of the anti-maskers. Earlier this week, she announced in a since-deleted Facebook post that she was acting on Topel’s behalf. She then reportedly began harassing members of the Providence staff in an attempt to get them to treat Topel with Ivermectin, a drug not known to help with Covid but which has been touted as some kind of wonder drug by those who also believe vaccines to be akin to Satanism.
Allard obtained the services of Anchorage lawyer Mario Bird, who sent a threatening letter to Providence telling them to treat Topel with Ivermectin — or else (he used boldface, which legally means you’re super serious).
Those on the “left” of the Covid debates (as neatly categorized by those of us with blogs since everything must be black/white, left/right) took the occasion of Topel’s illness and Allard’s bizarre intervention to mock they who would deny vaccine efficacy while touting unproven treatments. That group included me, who posted this ill-conceived bon mot on the Open Alaska Facebook page:
Lol wait so this guy checked into the hospital — where people are literally trained to help you — and then started trying to tell them how to do their job? If that’s how it works, the next time I get on a plane I’m definitely demanding I get some time in the cockpit.
That’s not as funny as I thought it was, and using someone’s misfortune to crack a joke is usually a pretty bad idea. We don’t laugh at toddlers when they touch a hot stove or smokers when they get lung cancer, and we shouldn’t laugh at anyone who refuses to get the vaccine and then gets Covid. I apologize for making the comment, it was inappropriate and mean-spirited.
With Topel’s dire situation as a backdrop, the assembly convened last night ostensibly to work on routine business. The body even said as much, taking the time to put out a press release saying they had no plans to take up the mask mandate. Bronson, Demboski and Allard weren’t in attendance at the Loussac Library, though Allard participated by telephone. Also skipping the meeting were most of the “Save Anchorage” folks who made up the majority of those testifying against the mandate.
The meeting went according to script until around 10 p.m., when an “emergency” mandate was proposed and subsequently passed with little debate. It appears the nine members of the Assembly who have previously expressed support for a mandate coordinated their actions ahead of time, effectively outmaneuvering Demboski and Bronson with a classic sneak attack.
The move sent Allard into over-the-phone-apoplexy, and a speech by assemblyman Christopher Constant that referenced Topel’s predicament put her into near-hysterics.
“You’re a liar!” Allard screamed over the phone as she tried in vain to shut down Constant’s remarks.
Allard eventually cut her end of the call short, with the ultimate effect being the mask ordinance passing 9–1, with Eagle River’s Crystal Kennedy the sole hold-out on the side of the anti-maskers.
(The quietly cagey Kennedy may well be one of the few people to emerge from this mess politically unscathed; her constituents in Eagle River overwhelmingly oppose any mask mandates, meaning her vote was an easy one no matter how she might feel personally, and Allard will take all of the vitriol from mask advocates.)
Just a few hours after the dramatic passage of the emergency ordinance, William Topel died. It’s likely the last people to care for him were the beaten-down and broken nurses who have been on the front lines of this horror since the beginning. They likely did everything they possibly could to help him survive, and when that was no longer possible, worked until the end to ease his suffering.
Meanwhile, outside of the hospital, politicians and pundits pontificated and puffed, people like me crafting lengthy think pieces about “What This All Means” while members of the media latched onto the story with predictable takes — Must Read Alaska zeroing in on Constant’s comments, the Alaska Landmine calling out Allard, the Anchorage Daily News doing their best to stay above the fray. In the days ahead, we’ll hear more about Topel’s death and about who people think is to blame for his passing. There will be more fights about masks (Bronson vetoed the ordinance Thursday, a move that will almost certainly be overridden), there will be more stories about death, more debates over vaccines and more people hospitalized.
All the while the nurses and doctors inside hospitals across the state will continue to work themselves to exhaustion in a vain and often hopeless effort to keep people alive — even those who don’t believe in the virus that’s killing them.
Where will Anchorage go from here? The assembly’s late-night maneuver is already being used as a flash point for conservatives, who have vowed noncompliance and will likely redouble their public efforts. There’s every indication those who oppose them also plan to increase their efforts, with a pro-mask protest drawing dozens to the library before Wednesday’s meeting. Will the most vocal factions of these two sides continue to ramp up their rhetoric as we’ve seen in other cities? Is this mask skirmish the prelude to worse conflict?
For the sake of the city let’s hope not. The best possible outcome would be for both sides to declare a sort of detente as the city hunkers down and weathers the remainder of the Delta storm. If that happens, Anchorage has a chance to emerge from this episode bruised but not broken.
But if the city devolves into more vitriol and hyperbole — if the bloggers continue to incite, if the opportunists continue to pounce, if the deniers continue to obfuscate and the cynical continue to mock their neighbors — then there’s no doubt more people will die, more friendships will be destroyed and we will continue further down a path toward hate we may never be able to walk back from.
CORRECTION: A previous version incorrectly stated Topel testified before the assembly.
This column is the opinion of Matt Tunseth, a former print journalist from Anchorage, Alaska. Write him at matthew.tunseth@gmail.com.
