Anchorage's transit agency answered a records request by filming a computer screen

Asked for footage from a People Mover bus, Anchorage's transit agency produced it the low-tech way: someone pointed a personal device at a computer screen and hit record. The result — grainy, silent, barely watchable — was flagged by the Municipal Ombudsman in the office's 2025 annual report, released Thursday.

The footage was tied to a rider who reported being injured on a bus in February 2024 and paid the department a $50 fee for the recording, which the agency has now agreed to refund. The Ombudsman opened a review after the constituent contacted the office nine times over nearly two years — without ever filing a formal complaint — largely about a denied liability claim and the trouble getting the video. Staff ultimately found the claim had been assessed adequately and its denial supported.

The video was another matter. Meeting with transit supervisors to view the original footage, Ombudsman staff heard the agency acknowledge the improvised method and explain the problem behind it: People Mover runs three aging video security systems that make usable copies genuinely hard to produce, and the department's policies hadn't been updated in more than a decade. The office concluded the request was technically fulfilled but fell short of what the city's records rules intend.

Public Transit agreed to finish updating its policies and to modernize the bus video systems — upgrades the Ombudsman noted will likely require the Assembly and administration to put up money. As Deputy Ombudsman Drew Ford put it, "Ombudsman authority is limited to investigating and recommending changes."