After Anchorage Elects a Mayor, Bronson's APOC Headaches Will Likely Continue for Months
Months after we learn who Anchorage's mayor will be, the Bronson Campaign will almost certainly continue to face questions about filings made with the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC).
On September 16, 2020, APOC sent Bronson a Notice of Penalty Assessment, noting that Bronson did not timely file his Letter of Intent due on July 29, 2020. Bronson filed his Letter of Intent on August 25, 2020 (27 days late). APOC assessed a civil penalty of $675.
On May 5, 2021, APOC sent Bronson another Notice of Penalty Assessment related to a late filing of the campaign's 7-Day Anchorage Municipal Runoff Campaign Disclosure Report. The report, filed one day late, earned the Bronson Campaign a civil penalty of $500.
In April, the Dunbar Campaign filed a massive APOC complaint against the Bronson campaign, alleging sloppy and inaccurate accounting, deliberate obfuscation of campaign activity, and potentially tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions. The Dunbar Campaign asked APOC for expedited consideration of their complaint.
APOC lays out the criteria for requesting expedited consideration of a complaint in an instruction sheet:
"Specifically, whether the alleged violation, if not immediately restrained (stopped), could materially affect the outcome of an election or other impending event; whether the alleged violation could cause irreparable harm that penalties could not adequately remedy; and whether there is reasonable cause to believe that a violation has occurred or will occur."
APOC Expedited Complaint Form Instruction Sheet
APOC denied the Dunbar campaign's request for expedited consideration of their complaint, even as some Commissioners appeared supportive of issues raised by Dunbar's Campaign Treasurer, Paula DeLaiarro. DeLaiarro says she has worked on over 40 campaigns and has dealt with APOC on nearly each of those campaigns.
APOC, in their decision, perhaps leaned on the assurances of Bronson campaign attorney Stacey Stone who downplayed what she referred to in April's hearing as "small mistakes," telling APOC Commissioners that the campaign was undertaking an audit and would submit amended reports soon.
APOC Chair Anne Helzer said the Commission would permit the Bronson campaign to address any inaccurate reporting through the amendment process.
DeLaiarro previously wrote and presented an APOC complaint against the Republican Governors Association (RGA), of which Stone was counsel in 2018. The central issue in the 2018 case was that the RGA made expenditures by reserving over $1 million in television time to be used in the Gubernatorial race but never registered with APOC.
The APOC Commission expedited that complaint and found RGA to be in violation. RGA appealed APOC's decision, and the case made its way to the Alaska Supreme Court, which upheld APOC's determination on April 30, 2021.
APOC Aches
The Bronson Campaign, which is now under scrutiny by APOC due to Dunbar's complaint, has inexplicably yet to address questions related to a WAP Intel (WAPI) poll conducted on February 25, 2021. The graphic indicates the poll was paid for by Bronson For Mayor and shared on Facebook on March 31, 2021.
Interestingly, after initially reporting an expenditure to APOC for polling conducted by WPAI on March 30, 2021, for $15,750, the Recall Rivera ballot group amended the expenditure date for the polling to February 18, 2021.
According to the Bronson campaign's own APOC filings, the campaign paid WPAI $1,500 on March 10, 2021, for a "data subscription," and in a recently filed disclosure, lists a $1,000 debt to WPAI for a March 30, 2021 "poll survey question," the pre-amended date Recall Rivera listed on their APOC disclosure.
Remembering that the poll in question was conducted on February 25, 2021, this latest disclosure made by the Bronson Campaign doesn't appear to make much sense when considering dates should be reflective of when the debt was incurred, not when paid. Of course, we don't know at this point whether the "poll survey question" was for a new poll or whether the Bronson campaign attempted to account for the WPAI poll by accidentally reporting the expenditure on the day before the polling graphic was posted to Facebook — March 31, 2021.
In its complaint to APOC nearly a month ago, the Dunbar campaign speculated that Recall Rivera might have paid for mayoral polling and shared it with the Bronson campaign. It's unclear what the $1,500 "data subscription" was that Bronson's campaign paid to WPAI. However, some have questioned whether the campaign paid the "data subscription" to access polling data conducted by the Recall Rivera ballot group, which also enlisted the services of WPAI.
But for all the questions surrounding just one poll, the Dunbar Campaign has said that Bronson's campaign has over $170,000 in non-compliant financial activity across more than 20 problematic donations and expenditures. That list doesn't include any additional concerns that might manifest in the weeks ahead.
