A new ‘pop-up’ group with a familiar address sends out a glowing report card for City Hall

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Anchorage voters are seeing mailers from a new advocacy group calling itself Commonsense Alaska Fund, but while the name is new, much about the operation is familiar.

The flyer, titled “Anchorage End of Year Progress Report,” is a glossy, professionally produced report card praising the performance of Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration across housing, homelessness, public safety, and “good government.” It presents charts, bullet points, and photographs designed to convey momentum and success — without mentioning any opposing viewpoints or unresolved outcomes. In other words, it’s propaganda.

According to the mailer itself, it was paid for by Commonsense Alaska Fund, listing an address of 721 Depot Drive, Anchorage, the address that is a hub for Anchorage’s progressive political infrastructure.

It is the same address associated with:

• Ship Creek Group, a Democrat political consulting firm that has worked extensively with labor, progressive, and election-reengineering causes.

• Alaskans for Better Elections, the ballot-measure group that pushed ranked-choice voting and open primaries in 2020, backed by millions of dollars in dark-money Outside funding.

• Other short-lived or issue-specific political committees formed around ballot measures and election cycles.

Ship Creek Group works for Democrat candidates and organizations including the Alaska AFL-CIO, Unite America, and national advocacy groups such as The Fairness Project, which helped fund Alaska ballot campaigns from outside the state.

Labor organizations including NEA-Alaska, SEIU 775 AK PAC, Teamsters Local 959, and ASEA Local 52 have also contributed to campaigns managed by the firm in recent cycles. Republicans have no such operation working for them in Alaska.

Commonsense Alaska Fund has AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall serving as its treasurer. Alaska’s AFL-CIO is associated with years and years of pop-up political entities, such as Putting Alaskans First Committee, Yes on 1 / Better Jobs for Alaska (2024), and Alaska Jobs Coalition (2024).

Sam Gottstein, a Democrat political attorney associated with Democrats, registered the new group earlier this year with the State of Alaska. Amber Lee (Amber Lee Strategies, Lottsfeldt Strategies), a regular political figure for Democrat operations, is the president, and Ivy Spohnholz, former Democrat House member and now state director of The Nature Conservancy, are president and vice president. David Hemstreet was briefly listed as secretary.

Both Spohnholz and Hall served on the LaFrance transition team when she took office in 2024. Now, they are part of a side group that is serving as a booster club for LaFrance.

It’s all very familiar to politicos in Alaska: The Commonsense Alaska Fund is part of a long list of what are called pop-up advocacy groups, entities that appear suddenly, push a narrowly tailored message, and may dissolve after an election or issue campaign. They often dissolve before the public can even source where their money comes from.

The flyer that hit voters’ mailboxes is not tied to a ballot proposition, a recall, or even a current election; Mayor LaFrance is not up for reelection until 2027.

Instead, the mailer reads like neutral civic information, highlighting achievements, minimizing shortcomings, and showcasing the mayor’s administration as broadly successful across all major policy areas.

This kind of early narrative-setting is common in modern political campaigns. Funding usually comes through independent expenditure groups that can operate outside candidate committees.

Who is paying for Commonsense Alaska’s work, and whether funding is local or national, will not be publicly known for months due to reporting timelines for independent groups, but the flyer production and mailing will run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Historically, similar pop-up organizations connected to Depot Drive have drawn heavily from Outside funding sources, including national “dark money” nonprofits such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Arabella Advisors, and allied organizations.

What the Flyer Claims — and What City Data Shows

The flyer’s claims curiously track closely with the Anchorage Assembly’s October 2025 Progress Report & Workplan, which assesses progress against priorities adopted by the Assembly in February. The messaging is aligned.

A closer look at the city’s own report reveals a consistent pattern: High activity, lots of spending, no real outcomes.

Housing

The Commonsense Alaska Fund flyer emphasizes zoning reform, permitting changes, and housing incentives, all real legislative actions.

The Assembly’s October report echoes those steps:

• Citywide legalization of two-family dwellings

• Expanded accessory dwelling units

• Transit-supportive development incentives

• Updates to Title 21 and Title 23

Neither the flyer nor the Assembly report document any new housing units built, whether rents declined, or whether affordability improved for working families. There are, of course, the 30-odd mobile mini-units the mayor has had built on Tudor Road for people who have no homes.

Homelessness

The Comonsense Alaska Fund mailer highlights shelter operations, hotel conversions, and funding commitments. The city’s own October report shows extensive spending and program activity:

• Emergency and year-round shelter operations

• ARPA-funded housing projects (money that is expiring)

• Planning summits and pilot programs

But there’s no data on reductions in unsheltered homelessness, exits to permanent housing, or cost-per-person outcomes. There’s no data showing number of deaths among those living outdoors.

In other words, there’s been spending, but there’s low transparency on results.

Public safety and quality of life

The Commonsense Alaska Fund flyer points to:

• Mobile Crisis Teams

• Police staffing efforts

• Public space improvements

The city’s own report says there have been incremental improvements, including body-worn cameras and wildfire mitigation. But there’s no evidence of citywide safety gains.

Good government

This section is where the Commonsense Alaska Fund flyer essentially mirrors the Assembly’s own October report most closely. It’s almost a support documentation for the LaFrance talking points.

Commonsense Alaska fits a well-established Anchorage pattern: It’s A new group appears with a neutral-sounding name that operates from the same address as Ship Creek Group, and has a polished message praising Democrat leadership. Funding sources for this operation won’t be known until it closes down, due to the lag in reporting requirements.

Whether the goal is ballot measures, issue advocacy, or early candidate positioning, the model is effective — particularly when voters are presented with selective data framed as a “report card.”

The question for Anchorage residents

The real question is not whether Anchorage has passed ordinances or allocated funds — it has.

The question is whether daily life has improved:

• Is housing more affordable?

• Is homelessness visibly declining?

• Do residents feel safer?

• Are costs coming down?

• How many homeless have died this year out of doors?

The Assembly’s own October report does not yet provide evidence to answer “yes” across those measures.

Commonsense Alaska’s flyer offers a confident conclusion: Everything is fine.

And as with past pop-up advocacy groups tied to Depot Drive, voters may not know who paid for the message, or why it arrived now, until long after it has done its work on the election cycle.

In this case, the target may not be the LaFrance reelection but some other play, such as LaFrance aiming for higher office, or the April municipal election that may contain a 3% sales tax in addition to Assembly seats that will be on the ballot.