LEW-PORT: Past members want Lilly and Weller disciplined for inaction

<table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Rick Forgione</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:rick.forgione@niagara-gazette.com">rick.forgione@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
Niagara Gazette

July 10, 2009 09:14 am

— The newest legal dispute in the Lewiston-Porter Central School District seeks to remove Robert Weller from the Board of Education and block former member Ed Lilly from running for re-election next year.
A petition has been sent to the State Education Department by former board members Robert Laub, James Mezhir, David Schaubert and Louis Palmeri asking the commissioner to rule Lilly and Weller violated their responsibilities as board members — and “willfully disobeyed” a previous ruling from SED — by abstaining from a vote last month that would’ve awarded the claimants district-paid legal services in a separate litigation case.
The claim asks the commissioner to “remove” both Weller and Lilly from the school board, despite the fact Lilly no longer serves on the board. His term ended on June 30 after he failed to be re-elected.
“Only an idiot would file a lawsuit to kick me off a board that I’m not even on,” Lilly told the Niagara Gazette on Thursday after being served with the claim. “I’m not even on the school board and these guys are coming after me because of my philosophy regarding taxpayer money.”
According to the claimants, a formal ruling of removal by the commissioner would, by law, prevent Lilly from seeking re-election in 2010. The petition also asks the commissioner to remove Lilly from his position on the Orleans/Niagara BOCES board, on which he just finished the first second of a three-year term.
The dispute stems from the Lew-Port school board’s June 16 meeting during which Lilly helped orchestrate the denial of indemnification and paid legal services for his four former colleagues. Laub, Mezhir, Schaubert and Palmeri are being sued in federal court by former board member Scott Stepien, who is claiming the foursome conspired with district attorneys to illegally remove him and Lilly from the board in 2007.