Tim Doran, one of the best school board members Fairbanks has ever had

Unable to criticize his performance, the Republican party has decided to go after Tim Doran by claiming that six years of public service on the Fairbanks school board should disqualify him from serving three years more.

Doran is one of the best Fairbanks school board members of all time, an even-tempered leader with experience, knowledge and good judgement. He is a retired principal who has spent his career doing all he can to improve education. He is one of those rare individuals who knows how to get people of different points of view to work together.

Cynthia Henry, a Republican Party leader, portrays herself as a longtime supporter of school board term limits in a letter to the Daily News-Miner attacking Doran.

She criticizes the school board for not having term limits and says that even as a school board member, she wanted term limits.

This contradicts the position she took on term limits when she was a school board member in the 1990s. She opposed term limits for the school board.

It also doesn’t say much for the quality of Henry’s attack on Doran that she doesn’t know the name of her favored alternative, referring to “Michael Humphries.”

But it is revealing that even Henry doesn’t know much about Michael Humphrey, who had a parade float and is running on right-wing slogans.

Assembly candidate Tammie Wilson, a “program coordinator” whose state job is in Juneau, though she works in Fairbanks, is not the only one to tell supporters that if the three GOP-blessed candidates win, the Republicans will control the school board for the next two years.

Henry made a laughable statement about Doran that he is “desperate” because he has attended what Henry claimed were fundraisers for his opponent.

Doran went to events open to municipal candidates, including one at Henry’s home and one sponsored by local Republican women. He said he was there to listen and to hear what people think to improve his understanding of community issues. I think this is a sign of diligence, not desperation. He deserves credit for meeting with people of all views.

A year ago, Henry wrote on behalf of another candidate: “Any candidate who has some experience as a teacher or administrator has a huge advantage in understanding the actual classroom implications of decisions made by the board.”

She should have repeated those words about Doran, who has a complete grasp of the board’s role in our community. The work of the school board is complex and it requires someone who is capable of creating compromise and cooperating.

Henry was a good school board member for Fairbanks long ago and she knew that it was important to build consensus, not spread dissension. The latter is the approach favored by the Republican party, with Henry doing her part in local and state government.

Henry now says it is to the “detriment” of the school board that it doesn’t have term limits.

She leads readers to believe that when she declined to run for a third term school board term in 2000 it was because she believed that no one should serve more than two terms. And that she was encouraged to run again, but withstood the pressure.

But in 1997, while running for reelection to the school board, Henry opposed term limits. The argument she made then was logical and convincing. It is a shame she has chosen to abandon that point of view as a campaign tactic.

“Few school board members seek office for more than two terms; when they have served longer it has been because the voters endorsed their leadership,” Henry wrote to the News-Miner in 1997.

“There have been many instances where incumbents in municipal office were defeated at the polls; voting is the mechanism for term limits which serves the community best,” Henry wrote.

And in 2000, Henry said she did not run for a third term because six years was enough for her and she had to spend more time with the family business, HOPS Hallmark, which was expanding in Anchorage with a store at the Dimond Mall. She said, “with this new venture in Anchorage, I will need the time away.”

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