GBOS Co-Chair Attacked for His Position as Head of Anchorage Council

Mike Edgington, has come under fire as having roles Girdwood GBOS co-chair and as co-chair of the Anchorage’s Federation of Community Councils. (Photo by Soren Wuerth)

By Soren Wuerth

TNews Editor

A co-chair of Girdwood's Board of Supervisors has come under fire in social media posts and in local meetings for a position he accepted as chair of Anchorage's Federation of Community Council. 

Mike Edgington, who was elected as chair of the FCC a year ago, was not chosen by Girdwood residents to lead the group on the community's behalf, critics charge. Others are critical of bylaw changes the council is seeking under Edgington's helm.

The FCC is a non-profit that administers Anchorage's 37 community councils, including GBOS. A temporary officer was elected to run a Board of Delegates special meeting Wednesday night.

In an interview last week, Mike Edgington denied accusations against him as baseless, saying his position as chair of the FCC is to help manage the nonprofit and that the board doesn't make policy decisions.

"I think some of it is originally a misunderstanding, but it's been explained to these people and they don't care. They're going with conspiracy theories and lies," Edgington said. "And you know, with most things, what you do is, first of all, you try and attack the people, then you attack the process, then you actually look at the substance."

Edgington said he fell into the position of treasurer for the nonprofit as he had experience with organizing spreadsheets, and, when the position of chair opened after a resignation, he "was asked to do it" when no one else volunteered. 

He called the position a "time sink" which hasn't benefited him personally. 

Complaints about Edgington's position at a Land Use meeting led the committee to vote for Brice Wilbanks, vice-chair of the Land Use Committee, to serve as Girdwood's delegate to the FCC.

Wilbanks called FCC's proposal to change its bylaws a "complete re-write" and would limit the number of officials that could participate in the organization. 

An editorial in the right-wing blog site, Mustread Alaska, called the bylaw change a "power grab" by FCC's executive staff "that would eliminate the voting power of every community council delegate and consolidate control under a small, unelected Board of Directors."

GBOS co-chair Jen Wingard, who cited FCC rules that a community council has to identify a representative and fill out an application form said she "was very surprised to hear that it was a Girdwood delegate that was leading (the FCC Board)."

"I'm reaching out to the community to please let me know what I missed when, where and how we appointed a delegate and then why that delegate has not been reporting to us for the last three years," Wingard said. 

Others said they were surprised to find out a Girdwood GBOS co-chair was also co-chair of the FCC. 

"I'm sitting here confused on how a delegate we never elected is making rule changes to an FCC as the chair," said Wilbanks. 

Margaret Tyler, a secretary for GBOS, said there was an LUC agenda item for three to six months for the appointment of a Girdwood representative to FCC, though she didn't know when, and "nobody came forward is my recollection of that". 

"It was kind of a non-event event," she said.

Brian Burnett, who is also a GBOS member, said he went to 20-30 FCC meetings over the years. "FCC serves as a support function for community councils that don't have a staff to help them. The services we get from (Girdwood's service manager) Kyle Kelly, and (Tyler) are kind of what FCC provides to community councils. They don't have much of a policy or advocacy position per se."

"In my opinion, the Wednesday FCC meeting is just another meeting and it's a lot of talk and I don't know how much we need to participate," he said. "... I'm not really interested in what the FCC is doing. I'm interested in what GBOS is doing in managing our relationship with the Assembly."

The matter came up again a week ago as new business in the last five minutes of a three-hour GBOS meeting. 

Edgington decried the LUC vote to assign Wilbanks to the FCC as Girdwood's delegate as hasty and uninformed.

"It was quite disturbing how basically someone can come into the (LUC) meeting without any notice, put an item in there, and spread a lot of misinformation. It's never challenged, never questioned, it's just been taken pretty much as if it's true and it's not," Edgington said at the GBOS meeting. 

That meeting ended without a resolution to the issue