If only we could turn back time. How many times have you wished you could rewind and take back something you said or did?

Nampa City Council candidate Bob Henry wishes he had not said at a public meeting last week that he had to lie to respond to a survey concerning the future of Sunny Ridge Elementary.

We had a reporter at the meeting and we listened to an audio recording. It wasn't reported within the story from the meeting. But with less than two weeks before the Nampa city elections, the Idaho Press-Tribune editorial board raised the matter as a concern.

But having learned more about it, I better understand why Henry said what he said, and I believe it wasn't an attempt to be deceptive. Henry also wrote about the incident on his blog.

Nampa School Board trustee Scott Kido said he also understood Henry's point.

"I knew where he was coming from," Kido said, adding that the survey shouldn't have been limited to only parents.

No question about it, it was and is an emotionally charged issue. There were about 60 people at the special school board meeting Thursday night. The school board heard the testimony and then voted to keep Sunny Ridge intact and locate the magnet school at a new location on Southside Boulevard.

Henry, a 12-year school board member, has a good understanding of the Nampa School District's philosophy of neighborhood schools. Even though Henry doesn't have children in school any more or own a spot on the school board, he said he was compelled to speak to the trustees before they made their final decision concerning Sunny Ridge Elementary and New Horizons.

Henry opposed closing a neighborhood school to turn it into a dual language magnet school rather than move the students from the neighborhood school (Sunny Ridge) to a new location.

But even more than that, Henry said that all the stakeholders — not just parents — should have a voice in the decision.

He told me Monday that anybody in the district should be allowed to respond to the survey, not just parents. To submit his response to the survey, Henry said he had to say he had a student in that school. But he also put his name and address on the survey, knowing that Nampa School District officials knew that Henry didn't currently have students enrolled at Sunny Ridge.

Furthermore, Henry explained that he didn't hide the fact that he had to do that.

In hindsight, however, Henry said he wishes he had not used the word "lied." Henry still has to deal with the parents who weren't happy that he participated in the survey or that he spoke up at the meeting.

As for the Idaho Press-Tribune's city council endorsements published Saturday, although it wasn't stated as clearly as it could have been, both Bob Henry and Martin Thorne received the Press-Tribune endorsement, but with some reservations. We could not endorse one over the other.