The Anchorage Assembly will have a new face after this April’s municipal election, and it almost certainly will belong to Mark Littlefield.
Littlefield is the only person to file to run in a special election to fill the seat of Kevin Cross, an Eagle River Assembly member who plans to resign by April 1. The deadline to file was Jan. 26.
Littlefield moved to the state from Salt Lake City, Utah in the early 80s and spent more than 40 years working for the municipality in street maintenance and solid waste. He retired last May as supervisor of Eagle River Street Maintenance.
“I decided when I retired, I was just going to sit on a couple of boards and, you know, give the community back my expertise, so to speak,” Littlefield said. “And when Kevin decided he wanted to resign, it opened up a position.”
Though Assembly seats are technically nonpartisan, Littlefield said — like Cross — he’s politically conservative. He said he aims to be a good listener and be open to other perspectives, while respecting the will of taxpayers.
“It’s their money, and we need to take care of it,” Littlefield said. “And we need to spend it wisely. And through conversation in a nonpartisan way, we should be able to do that.”
Littlefield said the biggest issue he’s heard from constituents is the city’s snow removal efforts. In his decades of experience in the field, he said, a major issue has to do with adequate staffing.
“When I came to work in ‘95 for Anchorage Street Maintenance as an operator, we had 95 employees. Now we’re down into the 60s,” Littlefield said. “So it’s not lack of equipment or lack of talent, that people aren’t really good. It’s just the lack of being able to keep people there, putting a body in that piece of equipment to get the job done.”
Littlefield said the other top issues he’d focus on once elected are the city’s homelessness crisis and bolstering the local economy.
If elected, Littlefield would fill the remaining year in Cross’s Assembly term. After that, he says he’s open to running for reelection, if voters will have him.
This year’s Anchorage municipal election will be held on April 2.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
