Brusgul faces off against incumbents Coffin and Dozier

VOORHEESVILLE — Three candidates are running for two seats on the Voorheesville School Board.

Petitions were due on Monday, and Justin Brusgul will make his first run for the board while the two incumbents, C. James Coffin and Cheryl Dozier, will run to keep their seats.

Brusgul hopes to bring more public participation to the district and improve communication if he is elected, he said this week.  He’s lived in the district for over 15 years and has a 10-year-old daughter in fifth grade.  A graduate of Guilderland High School, Brusgul has a bachelor’s degree from the University at Albany and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School.  He runs a solo law practice from his home.

“I like thinking about how… to continue the important work that the district is doing,” Dozier said last month.  Dozier, who is an assistant professor at the University at Albany in the Department of Reading, has lived in the area for 11 years and has been in the education field for 27 years, she said.  This will be her first campaign for school board since she was appointed last September to fill the unfinished term left by Paige Pierce.

When he was preparing to run five years ago, Coffin said that he was doing so because he enjoyed the work and saw it as his way of giving back to the community.  Coffin, who serves as the board’s vice president, worked for the State Education Department in the Division of Educational Finance and Management Services for 32 years, before retiring in 1999.  He and his wife, Betty, have two children, both Voorheesville graduates.

Last year, the board put up for vote, and the public overwhelmingly passed, a proposition reducing the term for the unpaid posts from five to four years.  The reason was to encourage more candidates to run.  The election will be held on May 19.