Published: July 01, 2008 11:36 pm      

LEW-PORT: Ready for a change

Kahn not reappointed; some board members want to change legal representation

The Lewiston-Porter Board of Education made some changes Tuesday in the way the district does business and laid the groundwork to potentially make some more in the future.

At the district’s reorganization meeting, elected members Robert Weller and Edward Waller took their seats, with Weller being voted as board president and Waller board vice president.

Members Ed Lilly and Scott Stepien both pushed for the district to delay the renewal of contracts with Hodgson Russ as legal consultants for the district.

“I’m not satisfied with the status quo,” Stepien said, adding that after what he and Lilly had been “subjected to by (the district’s) attorneys,” he would like to take the time to look at other options for legal representation.

Stepien was referring to the removal hearing where district attorneys represented the board in kicking Stepien and Lilly off the school board for failing to take a training course — a decision later overturned by the state Education Department commissioner, forcing Stepien and Lilly back into their board seats.

In a vote to table the legal contract renewal until the next meeting, members Michael Gentile, Keith Fox and James Sperduti together found themselves on the losing side of a 4-3 vote for the first time in at least several months.

F. Warren Kahn, usually a fixture at Lew-Port board meetings, was not present at Tuesday’s meeting, which served as the mandated reorganizational meeting as well as a regular business meeting.

Lilly told reporters that “Mr. Kahn was not reappointed,” but was unable to comment further. Gentile told reporters he believed Kahn did not seek reappointment.

Stepien also made two motions: That the district clerk provide hard copies of rules for new board members and the board meet twice a month. Stepien argued that if he had been given a hard copy of the rules, the infraction that led to his removal would’ve been avoided. The rules were e-mailed to him, but he said he could not open the document properly.

“It could be a compatibility issue,” he said. “There could be darker issues involved as well. The lack of this information led to an incident that led to voters being deprived of their fundamental rights for seven months and wasted tens of thousands of dollars.”

The board unanimously approved his motion to provide physical copies of the documentation, unless the member waived their right. Only Stepien and Waller requested the hard copies.

His motion to have one extra meeting per month was met with concern from members — Lilly did not want to obligate the board to meet if it was deemed unnecessary. Fox said the board has committees that already meet in between regular meetings, but Stepien said such discussion should be public.

Gentile said until the board decides whether to make the extra meeting a workshop or a regular meeting, the board should not obligate itself to hold the meeting. The board agreed to look at adding meetings individually on a per month basis until something more concrete is decided.



In other news Tuesday:

• The board named a new assistant principal at Lewiston-Porter High School. John Evert, currently serving as assistant principal at Lafayette High School in Buffalo was appointed at a salary of $75,000. He will replace John Diodate who left the post in Lew-Port for a similar position in Wilson.