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A member of the Anchorage School Board has been mostly calling in to meetings this year, instead of showing up in person.
Someone recently complained about board member Pat Higgins, saying he needs to do a better job of representing his community face-to-face.
“How can he be in touch with the educational needs of this community and hear their concerns when he is far away in the Marshall Islands? He can’t,” testified David Boyle, an education researcher and writer for the Alaska Policy Forum, a local conservative think tank, during Monday evening’s school board meeting.
Higgins has been working as a human resources manager for an Alaska Native corporation operating in the Marshall Islands, a community in the South Pacific more than 4,000 miles from Anchorage, since April.
He’s been mostly phoning in to the board's meetings from his far-flung temporary home.
Board meeting minutes show Higgins particpated via phone during meetings on nine different dates in 2012. He participated in person during meetings on four dates.
“He was elected to represent the people of Anchorage and he needs be present to do just that,” argued Boyle.
The school board asked an ASD attorney to look into the matter, and a new draft legal report shows Higgins is allowed to work long-distance.
“The board has no authority to remove a member for this under current state law. A member can participate by telephone and is considered present,” explained school board president Jeannie Mackie, Monday, in response to Boyle’s concerns.
In a follow-up interview Tuesday, Mackie said Higgins’ situation is “not ideal, but he continues to be a very engaged board member.”
“It’s a fair question to raise,” Higgins said over the phone Tuesday from the Marshall Islands, “I do my homework and I think if I didn’t feel that I was contributing heavily on the board, I wouldn’t be on the board.”
Higgins says the complaint is mostly politics -- and comes from someone who didn't support him when he was elected.
He says he plans to return to Anchorage in August and does not yet know how frequently he’ll have to participate in meetings by phone, if at all, come fall.
Email Ted Land