Published: December 29, 2007 01:58 am      

LEW-PORT: Waiting game for Lilly, Stepien

Lilly, Stepien remain in limbo six months after being voted off of school board

Six months into an appeal process to regain their seats on the Lewiston-Porter school board, two ousted members remain no closer to hearing their fate from the state Education Department.

The school board removed Ed Lilly and Scott Stepien from office during a June 30 hearing. During that hearing, former board members David Schaubert and Louis Palmeri charged the two men with official misconduct for failing to complete financial training within the required one-year time frame from the date they took office, thus making them ineligible to keep office.

The two men filed appeals in July, with the process expected to take two to eight months. Since that time, Lilly and Stepien completed the financial training and have been replaced on the board by Robert Weller and Bonnie Gifford, with the understanding that either or both appointees will lose their seat is the state reinstates Lilly and/or Stepien; district officials said at the time they had to fill the seats within 90 days or risk losing control over who would fill them.

While both men questioned the legality of filling the seats on the grounds that their appeals meant the seats were not truly vacant, state Appeals Coordinator Mary Gammon asked Stepien in a Dec. 20 letter to serve Weller and Gifford with copies of all papers related to the appeal process by Jan. 18.

“I don’t know why (the state) wants them served, but (they’re) ordering it so I’m going to do it,” Stepien said.

Lilly, meanwhile, was told in a ruling made earlier this month that an appeal he made to prevent the hearing was rendered moot by the subsequent appeal for reinstatement. The ruling said that “the commissioner will only decide matters in actual controversy and will not render a decision on a state of facts which no longer exist.”

Aside from that and other occasional paperwork, Lilly has heard nothing pertaining to his appeal. His passion in fighting what he perceives as an unfair action remains, however.

“We had not violated any law or regulation,” he said, citing the fact that the hearing took place June 30 while he and Stepien had until July 1 to complete the training. “It’s not like we did anything that is unconscionable.”

Stepien would not speculate on how the commissioner would rule, but he was encouraged in that the correspondence indicates the state has reviewed the matter.

If the commissioner rules against Lilly and Stepien, the appointments would be effective until May, at which time the appointees would take part in an election to serve the remaining year of the three-year terms. Either way, Lilly said, he may file a class-action lawsuit against four current/former board members involved in this matter.

“It’s likely that the commissioner will realize that we did not violate any law or regulation,” he said. “Regardless, voters’ rights have been violated.

“They came out, they participated in the voting process and they were overruled.”