Assembly picks Doty

PALMER — The borough assembly appointed Barbara Doty to the vacant District 6 seat formerly occupied by Jim Colver at a special meeting Thursday.

Doty, a medical doctor, was announced along with three other finalists this week. Colver was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives District 9 seat in November, and resigned his assembly seat as a result. Doty will hold the District 6 through at least the local elections scheduled for October, and said she intended to campaign to keep the seat in those elections.

Doty and the other candidates were informed after an open vote following interviews Thursday night, she said.

“I think it was all done very professionally,” she said.

Sitting board members interviewed the finalist candidates prior to taking the vote. While the quality of the candidates made selecting from them easy, selecting among them was more difficult, said Assemblyman Jim Sykes.

“Everybody was so impressive,” he said. “You’d think as we went through the interview process, some of the candidates would reveal themselves to be something other than what they said on their resumes. Everyone just improved.”

Doty inherits District 6 as top-down budget pressure from the state government materializes, driven by steep declines in the price of oil. Fees collected from North Slope oil fields account for the overwhelming majority of state revenues. Local governments, like the borough, rely on the state for capital project investment, educational funding, and other financial support.

Doty acknowledged that pressure in an interview.

“We have some tight budgets coming up here in the next few years,” she said.

The assembly also has a responsibility to keep property tax rates — typically explained in terms of the mill rate — low, Doty added.

“I think it’s important to keep the mill rate as reasonable and affordable for the budget as possible,” she said.

At the same time, the borough must examine opportunities to foster collaborations among local institutions, particularly in the field of healthcare, Doty said.

“I’d like to address the resources that we desperately need,” she said.

She listed substance abuse counseling and several other shortage areas. Officials with the Mat-Su Health Foundation have also listed mental health treatment as an area of concern. In addition, the assembly should seek opportunities to build partnerships between the Mat-Su College and the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, Doty said.

For the moment, however, Doty said she was going to focus on learning the ropes of the assembly. As part of her orientation, she’s attended assembly meetings for the last two months, and said she was pleased with both the recently passed tall towers ordinance, as well as the Arcos Ridge school vote taken in conjunction with the school board.

“I’m here to learn,” she said.

Doty also said she doesn’t have a strong opinion on marijuana, other than that legislators and assembly members should carefully consider the issue.

“I have a feeling we really need to be prudent about how we approach it,” she said. “There’s many aspects of marijuana. It has a lot of implications for other things you also need to address.”

Assembly members chose Doty over Gregg Hanson, Neal Lacy and Robert Williams. She was sworn in immediately following her appointment. Her first regular assembly meeting is scheduled for Feb. 17.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.