Brigham absences raise questions for Board of Education
Alfred Brigham Sr. was the top vote-getter in 2014 when he sought re-election to the Board of Education.
Alfred Brigham Sr., a member of the Shelter Island Board of Education has colleagues questioning his commitment since he has missed a total of nine meetings since January.While the Reporter doesn’t have an exact count, Mr. Brigham appears to have missed about a third of Board of Education meetings held in the past three years.
No other member comes close. Mark Kanarvogel has missed five meetings since January, but most were instances when he was called away just before a meeting by an emergency related to his work as an EMT, so they were recorded as excused absences.
Elizabeth Melichar missed three meetings and Linda Eklund, two since January.
Board president Thomas Graffagnino has not been absent this year and the two new members, elected in May,have been at all meetings.
By-laws for the Board deal with excessive absences, indicating that if a member misses three successive meetings “without satisfactory cause,” the Board “will proceed to declare that office vacant. A person removed from the Board is ineligible to be appointed or elected to any office in the district for a period of one year following the removal.
But despite Mr. Brigham’s absences, he hasn’t yet violated the policy because two of the last three meetings he missed were special meetings at which the Board agreed anyone who couldn’t commit to all three shouldn’t participate in any.
Mr. Graffagnino acknowledged awareness of Mr. Brigham’s absences, but noted that while he has missed the last three meetings on August 17 and 25 and September 2, two were special meetings that included interviews with candidates for district jobs. Since they fell within the agreement not to attend any of the interview meetings, they couldn’t be counted in terms of violating the policy.
“I’m looking forward to working it out with Al and the entire Board,” Mr. Graffagnino said.
Mr. Brigham said family obligations and his teaching some night classes in Hampton Bays have caused him to miss more meetings than he would like, but that he’s always in touch and available to his fellow Board members.
But he reiterated his commitment to serve on the Board and said he expects his attendance will improve this year.
Mr. Brigham first ran for a Board of Education seat in 2010 and was defeated. But in 2011, he chose not to run because his wife had just given birth to the couple’s third child. But he won a seat on a write-in vote, garnering 44 votes to Kenneth Lewis’ 41. Mr. Lewis had opted not to see re-election. Mr. Brigham said at the time that when he heard about the write-in campaign, he decided to serve if elected.
In 2014, he sought re-election and was the top vote-getter, garnering 208 votes to 191 for incumbent Elizabeth Melichar and 180 for incumbent Linda Eklund.
