 Anderson encouraged friends and allies, including pastors and members of the locally influential Anchorage Baptist Temple, to pack the town meeting-style community council elections.By May 2004, six of the nine community council board members, including its president, were friends and political allies of Anderson.While Anchorage's community councils have no real authority, they are influential with the Anchorage Assembly because, according to Dick Traini, then chair of the Anchorage Assembly, "they are the active people in the community that choose to be involved."