India RPCV Guy Sattley seeks re-election to Fairbanks Borough Assembly
Sattley happy in seat
By AMANDA BOHMAN, Staff Writer
Fairbanks, Alaska - Guy Sattley has been influencing Fairbanks North Star Borough municipal affairs since the 1980s.
His long, scruffy beard is more silvery than when he first got involved, by way of an appointment to the planning commission in 1986 following a zoning dispute with the borough. His philosophy is largely the same.
"We don't need a lot of new laws," Sattley said recently over lunch at The Bakery Restaurant.
Sattley, 61, is seeking re-election to assembly Seat G in the Oct. 7 municipal election. His challenger is Doug Wilson, a custodian for the city of Fairbanks.
"I haven't missed a meeting for three years," Sattley said. "I treat it like a real job. I do my homework."
Sattley was raised in an affluent Chicago suburb the only child of a father who worked as an ad copywriter--Cody Sattley, who had the Marlboro account, died of lung cancer at age 55--and a mother who later worked as a church minister's secretary.
Sattley's claim to fame is that somewhere among the branches of his family tree is W.F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917), the frontiersman and entrepreneur who essentially defined the Wild West.
When Sattley graduated high school, he tried a stint at the University of Illinois then joined the Peace Corps, the experience he regards as the most formative of his life.
His job was to teach farming techniques to villagers in India. Sattley lived in a roughly 100-square-foot stone and mud hut with rats living in the roof.
"It helps put everything in perspective if you have a really stressful couple of years in your younger years," Sattley said. "It makes you appreciate a hot shower."
After the Peace Corps, Sattley drove a Volkswagen bus to Alaska in 1969, stopping first in Anchorage to work for the federal Bureau of Land Management there and in Fort Yukon.
Sattley moved to Fairbanks in 1972 to work as a BLM fire dispatcher.
Today the lifelong bachelor is a self-employed, semi-retired heavy equipment operator who lives on 22 acres off Gilmore Trail.
Sattley's reason for seeking public office is to bring an out-of-town perspective to borough government, he said.
"If guys like me living eight miles from town--guys who know how to run a chainsaw or fix an engine--don't get involved in local government, then, by default, it's going to be people in town," Sattley said. "It's going to be the urban professionals--dentists, lawyers ..."
Sattley is leery of the new development and zoning plan being drafted by the borough Department of Community Planning.
"We don't need another zoning code. We've got zoning code," he said.
This is Sattley's seventh bid for municipal office. He's won three times, beating Mike Prax, Valerie Therrien and winning a three-way race involving Kevin McGehee and Dae Miles. He's also lost three times--to Jim Holm, Bonnie Williams and Dan LaSota.
Sattley said he has no desire to seek a higher office than Borough Assembly.
"I look at Juneau and it looks like the most colossal waste of time," he said. "I don't see much work product. I don't see much result."
Alaska politicians Sattley favors are former state Rep. John Davies and former Gov. Jay Hammond, both of whom he considers statesmen.
"Partisanship really turns me off," Sattley said.
His opponent Wilson's favorite Alaska politician is Sarah Palin, the spunky former Wasilla mayor who burst onto the state political scene last year when she came in second in a field of four seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.
Sattley disagrees with criticisms from Wilson that he is ill-mannered to the public.
"That really hurts when I hear that," he said. "That bothers me. Public input counts a lot, and I work really hard to see that it does."
Sattley has the endorsements of both the conservative Interior Taxpayers Association and the Fairbanks Education Association, which is the local teacher's union.
"That's exactly where I want to be," he said. "I want to have a foot in each camp. I want to deal with things issue-by-issue."
Reporter Amanda Bohman can be reached at abohman@newsminer.com or 459-7544.
RETURN TO TOP
