Fairbanks will retain school mask mandate; right-wing assembly candidates lose
The mask mandate in Fairbanks schools will remain in place after voters rejected school board candidates Tuesday who called the health policy “tyranny” and “torture.”
The voters also rejected candidate Lance Roberts, who said God opposes the wearing of masks, and candidate Patricia Silva, who endorsed many lies and baseless conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon.
Educator and writer Kristan Kelly handily defeated GVEA engineer Roberts in one assembly contest. Former State Rep. David Guttenberg defeated Kevin McKinley in a second race, while attorney Savannah Fletcher defeated Silva in the third.
In the school board races, incumbents Erin Morotti and Chrya Sanderson won. Morotti beat Andrew Graham and Sally Gant, while Sanderson beat Jeff Rentzel,
Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Bryce Ward easily won reelection.
A right-wing Christian political group run by Jim Minnery in Anchorage said it had “dozens and dozens” of partner churches backing what it sees as “Biblically-aligned candidates” in Fairbanks. Nearly all of them lost.
Roberts complained on Facebook late Tuesday that “all of the progressives” running for the assembly and the school board were elected or reelected and the conservatives lost. He said the only conservatives in the community who won were Jerry Cleworth for the city council and Ward for mayor.
The Alaska Watchman, a right-wing website in sync with Roberts, claimed that “hard-left candidates” won the assembly, school board and one city council race.
Part of the problem with the Roberts interpretation of the local political scene is that he sees it as an epic battle between good and evil. He sees cookie-cutter candidates who are either good—conservative like him—or evil—progressive. Roberts is wrong. The situation and the community are far more complex than he realizes.
“Fairbanks will once again have to fight against the progressive agenda one ordinance at a time, and taxes will be increased next year,” he wrote after his loss.
The imaginary monolithic “progressive agenda” is a convenient strawman for Roberts that consists of whatever he doesn’t like at the moment. He lost not because people took leave of their senses, but because Kristan Kelly ran a good campaign, worked hard and voters preferred her ideas about what we need to do. She will be a good assembly member.
The fact is there are people who want government services in Fairbanks and see the “Whatever it is, I’m against It,” vision promoted by Roberts and others as too narrow and rigid for the community. There are people who don’t agree with calling someone who disagrees with you a “traitor.”
There are people in Fairbanks, including many conservatives who won’t vote for guys like Roberts, who support public schools, realize education is vital to the survival of the community, want to have parks and recreation, a solid library and sensible rules about land use. That’s most of what the real job is about.