Downtown business leaders ask Anchorage Assembly to make police foot patrol permanent

Downtown business leaders asked the Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday to make the Anchorage Police Department's downtown foot patrol permanent. The hotel bed tax money that paid for this year's pilot is nearly gone.

They spoke at the first of two public hearings on the city's 2027 operating budget. The Assembly took no action. As Alaska News reported Oct. 15, the proposed budget does not include money to continue the patrol. Budget director Ona Brause told the Assembly's Budget and Finance Committee that day that the one-time tourism money behind the patrol "doesn't exist in 2027."

The patrol puts two officers downtown from 8 am to 10 pm daily on overtime. The Assembly set aside $650,000 in bed tax money this year for foot patrol overtime in high-tourism areas. The patrol runs on overtime because APD doesn't have enough sworn officers to staff it on regular time, Brause said.

Radhika Krishna, executive director of the Anchorage Downtown Partnership, said the bed tax-funded pilot began in April. "There's only a small portion remaining, and they're due to be spent down very soon," she said.

Between April 8 and May 25, the patrol made 1,832 contacts under the city's ordinance on nuisance and threatening behavior in public spaces, according to a municipal public safety update. More than 1,000 ended in voluntary compliance. Officers took 152 people to care and connected 40 to services. The update also lists 34 arrests, 23 outstanding warrants served and 14 citations.

Krishna said the patrol ran on voluntary overtime, so some shifts went unfilled. She said a full patrol matters for next year, when Town Square Park and the new downtown library branch reopen.

Kathleen McArdle, president and CEO of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, said that when public safety isn't available, businesses pay for private security, harden their buildings and sometimes relocate. "Please fund APD as much as we need it to be, and this program, making it permanent ensuring coverage for every shift," she said.

Sherry Gould, facility services and building manager for Santos Alaska, said about 230 people work at the company's Fifth Avenue office, across from Town Square Park. Assembly member Keith McCormick of South Anchorage asked whether Santos had hired private security. She said it had, including to escort employees to and from their vehicles.

Jon Bittner of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation called the patrol "a great use of resources."

Four of the seven people who testified on the operating budget backed the patrol. An East Anchorage resident objected to the city's police spending, saying "you cannot police your way out of poverty" and "there is money for police. There is not money to help people." Another speaker urged the Assembly to freeze spending for a year and raise the room tax.

The mayor's proposed budget totals $692.5 million, $34,000 under the municipal tax cap. The second public hearing is Nov. 4, and the Assembly is expected to vote on the budget Nov. 17.