House District 11 - Sean P. Rice (D)

Update 10/3/11 You can view the News Miner article for his School Board bid here.

On 10/23/2010 I interviewed Sean P. Rice via phone for about an hour.

Mr. Rice is 1/2 native from Kotzebue. He is a construction worker and is currently serving on the FNSB School Board (Seat F). He also helps run the Juneteenth Celebration that celebrates the freedom of slavery. Some values he grew up learning were to,"believe in self, your people and helping them." His desire is to lookout for Alaskan issues and for the Alaskan people.

When asked about how to interpret the US Constitution he thought it should be interpreted as the founders intended and does not think government should dictate or micromanage, especially what property owners can and cannot do with their property. Mr. Rice specified that he did not support the new regulation efforts of the Borough in reference to the PM2.5 issue (If unfamiliar see the "Proposition A" section of this post). In fact he emphasized to me his belief that forest fires pollute the air more and would support an effort to ensure that any fire within 40-60 miles of the FNSB boundaries be taken care of even if there is no immediate threat to homes, etc. as there is a threat to peoples health due to the smoke. He also stated that the government's purpose is to, "do for the people what they can't do themselves."

Two brief points:

• Pro-2nd Amendment



• Believes Abortion is only okay to save the life of the mother

In terms of the local economy Mr. Rice pointed out the need for another refinery. We could learn from the mistakes from the Flint Hills refinery (pollution of some North Pole water sources) and ensure proper steps are taken from the design up in another refinery. Also the refinery could have "dog legs" (branches) to support distribution and use of the natural gas from this refinery.

I asked him what the purpose of education was and he told me that the main idea is for jobs but learning never stops. He would like to see a satellite UAF school in North Pole and a reinforcement of the RN program. It would also be beneficial to strengthen vocational type training geared toward the oil and mining industry needs in after school programs. In his role as a school board member he has been involved with "Professional Learning Communities" which invites teacher collaboration on students needs. Mr. Rice further supports taking away the 100pt. scale for grading in favor of a rubrics grading system.

My impression is that Mr. Rice is a traditional democrat vs. what is our more common understanding of democrat.