By Katie Pirolt
July 13, 2009

Mayor Dan Sullivan was sworn in as Anchorage’s seventh mayor on July 1. All six former mayors including Sullivan’s father George Sullivan, Governor Tony Knowles, Tom Fink, Rick Mystrom, George Wuerch and Senator Mark Begich were in attendance to witness the swearing in ceremony at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

Sullivan told the crowd, “We will take immediate action to control city spending, including the implementation of an immediate hiring freeze, curtailing all travel, strict management of overtime, and elimination of unnecessary expenses and positions”.

Along with cutting city spending, Sullivan pledged to reduce crime by concentrating police where they are needed. He addressed the “energy crisis” brought on by the dwindling Cook Inlet natural gas reserves, and promised to focus his administration’s attention on repairing and maintaining the massive new public improvements spearheaded by Begich, former mayor of Anchorage.

Sullivan is a fourth generation Alaskan. His father served as the first mayor of Anchorage in 1975 when the city and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough merged into the Municipality of Anchorage.