A few hours after Anchorage's first real snowfall of winter began, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance reflected on the community's biggest challenges during her annual State of the City address.

Speaking to a crowd during an Anchorage Chamber of Commerce luncheon, LaFrance outlined the actions her administration has taken so far to address the issues, including snow removal, public safety and homelessness. She emphasized her vision of a “reliable, transparent and effective” local government.

“Our challenges are great. They are complicated. They are often related to each other. Homelessness, public safety concerns and our housing shortage are all interrelated, and none of them have quick fixes,” LaFrance said. “Many of our essential services have been failing for several years – in some cases even decades – without the necessary attention, management or funding – from prosecutorial services to snow removal to emergency response.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it – there’s still a lot of work to be done,” she added, also saying her government was “committed to action.”

Snow removal

Next week, the administration will unveil its updated snow removal plan, which will be a “detailed strategy” outlining municipal snow removal policies, processes and procedures, LaFrance said.

The city will soon launch a new snow removal website so residents can get “near real-time information” about snow plowing using GPS data from new devices mounted on the city's snow removal equipment, she said. In previous years, residents could only see plowing progress by numbered neighborhood sectors on a map that had to be updated manually.

Much of the city's snow removal fleet is outdated. Of the city's 30 graders, 17 have more than their expected service life of 10,000 hours, LaFrance said.

“This means that more than half of our fleet is likely to have already been retired, leading to longer maintenance, higher costs and more delays,” she said.

The city is currently in the process of purchasing several new pieces of equipment: four snow blowers, six Caterpillar graders, four Caterpillar plows and a dozen trucks, including 10 with plows – but most of the equipment won't arrive until next season, LaFrance said.

“This is an important reminder of the importance of consistent investment in the system to maintain a reliable and functioning fleet,” she said.

That's why the Assembly administration is proposing a tax levy specifically to systematize the regular replacement of broken and old snow equipment, she said. Voters would see this on their ballot next spring if the Anchorage Assembly approves the proposed ballot measure.

Steps to improve snow removal services this winter include better coordination with the state and school district, as well as streamlining workflows and communications between the 12 city departments involved in snow removal efforts, LaFrance said.

Public Safety

Over the past three years, the city Law Department's criminal division has seen a turnover of more than three-quarters of its prosecutors, and a major focus of the administration has been filling vacancies, LaFrance said.

“We found that the biggest problem was the long-standing lack of management and administrative attention. “The office was too overwhelmed for audits, let alone strategic planning and training,” she said.

The staffing shortage led the county to drop hundreds of criminal cases, including domestic violence, child abuse and drunk driving cases.

The trials are now “back on track,” LaFrance said, adding that four would take place this week.

To lead the criminal division, the administration hired Dennis Wheeler, who worked as city attorney under former Mayor Dan Sullivan, she said. Since June, the legal department has hired eight lawyers, including four prosecutors, and another will start work next month.

In her remarks, LaFrance also noted the implementation of the policy to release police body-worn camera footage earlier this year.

Anchorage police have shot eight people and killed five so far this year, including a 16-year-old girl who was holding a knife.

“After critical incidents, we work with an outside investigator to evaluate APD training and practices,” LaFrance said.

Housing and homelessness

In the administration's city budget, LaFrance proposed funding the fire department's mobile crisis team to operate 24 hours a day, as well as funding for homeless services and shelters.

The city is currently working to open 200 winter homeless shelter beds and is in contract negotiations with an operator for an additional 200 beds.

But the administration's larger goal, he said, is to create a “consistent, effective process” that relieves pressure from local businesses struggling to cope with the impact of nearby homeless encampments and from city departments responding to people in crisis respond, LaFrance said.

“I want us to break the seasonal cycle of increasing unsheltered homelessness in the spring and move to a sustainable pattern,” she said. The city's coordination with nonprofit homeless organizations, shelters, housing and other service agencies will work toward “reliable, year-round solutions,” she said.

The city has cleared out nine homeless encampments in recent months that it said posed a risk to public safety, she said, adding, “We will continue to do that.”

Later, responding to a question, LaFrance said city policies closing homeless camps had not changed significantly in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that allows cities to be more strict and assertive in enforcing camping laws approach to pursue.

“That's a tough question because at the end of the day, when people don't have a place to go or you don't have a way to get people into services, as we've found, the camps just shift .” she said.

To have enough housing for everyone, the city needs to build about 1,000 new housing units each year, and by 2024, Anchorage is expected to have built fewer than 200, LaFrance said.

The administration is looking for ways to encourage residential development by incentivizing construction and repairs, cutting bureaucracy and improving service at the permitting center, she said.

A working group has been convened to address issues in the city's zoning code, and the administration is working on an ordinance to update property tax incentives for multifamily housing, LaFrance said.