Photo: Anchorage Assemblyman Jared Goecker, representing Eagle River.
By SUZANNE DOWNING
Feb. 8, 2026 – The Anchorage Assembly’s debate last week over a resolution condemning Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken on a second life, not because of what was said on the dais, but because of what viewers couldn’t hear.
During Tuesday night’s meeting, Eagle River Assemblyman Jared Goecker began offering a rare dissenting perspective in a chamber dominated by sweeping denunciations of ICE and federal immigration enforcement.
But as Goecker started to speak, his microphone abruptly cut out on the livestream, leaving online viewers unable to hear his remarks.
The timing, during the defense of immigration enforcement, immediately raised questions among residents watching remotely.
After the meeting, Goecker contacted the municipal clerk’s office seeking an explanation as to why the audio failure occurred during his three-minute response.
Municipal Clerk Jamie Heinz replied that the disruption was not intentional, calling it an “isolated incident” caused by a technical overload at the A/V workstation.
“I understand there were too many devices plugged into the computer,” Heinz wrote.
She explained that several A/V production devices must remain connected during meetings, but that staff had also left two external hard drives plugged in while backing up recordings from 2025.
“We didn’t unplug those external hard drives,” she said, adding that the backup work should be done during the day and “ideally, not a meeting day.”
Heinz also told Goecker that if he emailed his remarks, she could include them in the next Assembly packet.
The clerk’s explanation may be plausible, but it does little to quiet skepticism, given the politically lopsided nature of the evening’s debate and the domination of the Assembly by Marxists.
As previously reported, the resolution was sponsored by Assembly members Erin Baldwin-Day, Yarrow Silvers, and Daniel Volland, and it became a vehicle for broad attacks on ICE’s mission and legitimacy.
Silvers launched into an extended denunciation of the agency, claiming its expansion is bringing “chaos to our streets” and alleging without evidence that people are “disappearing off the streets” into detention facilities. Her audio was not cut.
The rhetoric escalated into dramatic claims about ICE “waging war on the American people,” language bordered on hysteria rather than municipal governance.
Volland argued Anchorage has seen an increase in ICE-related detentions in Alaska correctional facilities, citing a rise from 13 individuals held in 2024 to 99 individuals held from 2025 through January 2026. His audio was not cut.
Goecker then attempted to bring a different perspective, beginning to speak about ICE’s role in combating drug trafficking, child exploitation, and serious crime.
That was the moment the livestream audio failed.
For viewers, the interruption was difficult to ignore: after extensive uninterrupted condemnation of ICE, the only remarks defending enforcement were the ones that vanished.
To his credit, Goecker later recorded a video repeating what he had said during the missing minutes, ensuring the public could hear the missing portion of the debate. You can listen to it here.
Here’s the original video where his voice disappears.
There is no evidence the audio cut was deliberate, and the municipal clerk’s office has offered a straightforward technical explanation.
Still, in a public meeting defined by partisan intensity and moral grandstanding, the loss of the only dissenting remarks was bound to raise an eyebrow.
Residents frustrated with rising property taxes, crime, homelessness, and basic municipal services may reasonably wonder why the Assembly continues to devote its attention to issues far beyond its jurisdiction. And further, the public may be puzzled when the one opposing voice is the one that disappears from the broadcast.
9 thoughts on “Anchorage Clerk says audio failure that silenced Eagle River Assembly member was ‘isolated incident’”
The ends justify the means to a leftist. As we have seen that now includes cold blooded murder. Occam’s razor suggests they are lying, the simplest explanation is the correct one. They intentionally cut the feed of a conservative voice.
Anyone dumb enough to believe what the clerk said needs to spend a 3-day weekend in a lumberjack’s outhouse.
Under the lumberjack’s outhouse
The only ‘chaos in our streets’ is the chaos perpetrated by violent rioters and inciting leftist politicians. Yarrow has learned the art of psychological projection and gaslighting well. As for the mic – without doubt another lie. I would say the lumberjack outhouse mentioned above is too kind.
Radical leftist extremists like any of the Marxist Nine do not need to learn art of psychological projection and gaslighting — they are born that way. It is part of their inherent psychosis, denial of reality and insanity.
Good point. 😅 nurture, nature? Spiritual genetics.
Someone needs to remind them of the carbon footprint of all their gaslighting
Way too kind. Marxists are among the worst. They want criminal illegals preying on Americans.
Soon marxists will be purged- as they wish to do to normal Americans and without a second thought on their part.
Hmm, I am certainly no techie. However it would stand to reason, when too many devices are “plugged in” the online audience would have seen outages or other issues during the entirety of the meeting. That does not appear to be the case. So forgive me if I do not have great faith in this explanation, considering that in this day and age many “activists” seem to take it upon themselves to silence voices they disagree with, you know to “safe democracy”….