H/T to Libby Bakalar, Alaska's most outrageous Tweeter in defense of liberty
Anchorage media and politics did indeed have a fast 72 hours that at times resembled the plot of a Carl Hiaasen comic mystery.
Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, who had served several terms in the state House, where he had been Minority Leader, and made an unsuccessful run against lifetime Congressman Don Young in 2016 before running for mayor, would be ending his successful term in April. He was assumed to be the leading Democratic contender for a Governor’s run in 2022.
At least it seemed that way, until just after noon last Friday (Oct 9th), when Anchorage TV anchor Maria Athens popped onto Facebook with a very rushed unedited video where she breathlessly delivered the message
According to reliable sources Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has posted x rated photos on an underage girls website; details tonight on Fox News @9!
It turns out she also left the mayor a voicemail threatening to kill the mayor and his wife. The Mayor’s office issued a press release saying that her “slanderous allegations are categorically false and appear to be the product of someone who is hostile and unwell”.
Ms Athens, meanwhile, attempted to return to her TV station, where she had an argument with her boss and boyfriend, the station manager. She left the station after he called police, then attempted to re-enter the station with the police, ended up assaulting her boyfriend a second time, and at least one officer, and ended up in jail. #WheresMariaAthens led the Anchorage Twitterverse and Facebook pages when she didn’t show up to anchor Friday nights news, which reran week old stories. The Cook Inlet/Matsu conspiracy nuts were QAnon-connecting the whole escapade. The Mayor’s house had police protection.
So it turns out that Ms. Athens and the Mayor had, apparently in the past, had a sexting relationship which apparently did not end well. She was interviewing a woman Friday morning with a new business making boozy cookies who told her she hated the Mayor because her brother had been one of the restaurant owners who resisted COVID closing rules, and the city had padlocked the restaurant until the quarantine was lifted.
Then she told Ms. Athens that her 18 yr old daughter had been an escort for the Mayor. It wasn’t true -— the daughter tweeted the next day to the editor of the Anchorage Press that she told her mother that she had been a non-sexual escort for a “short man” who “worked for the State”, Mayor Berkowitz had been a State Representative, and the daughter was 18 at the time, a claim she also made in a recorded interview with an Anchorage blogger. She insisted that her mother would say anything to get the attention of the TV station for her business.
The story raged in Anchorage Facebook groups, on Twitter, and on the Alaska Landmine blog and the online version of the weekly Anchorage Press over the weekend.
Monday, the Mayor announced that he had had an “inappropriate online relationship in the past” with Ms. Athens, apologized, and asked that his family’s privacy be respected, and the story finally made the Anchorage Daily News, although it had been discussed online and on rightwing Anchorage talk radio over the weekend.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Berkowitz announced that he is resigning effective October 23. Online discussion amongst Alaska Dems is that we need to recruit a female candidate for Governor so we can avoid these kinds of problems.
