BANGOR – An overflow crowd is anticipated at this afternoon’s annual meeting of the Eastern Maine Healthcare Corp. Recent publicity over a long-standing dispute between the health care organization and some doctors in the community has ramped up interest several degrees, and it’s a good bet the gymnasium at the Acadia Hospital will be crowded with incorporators, administrators, board members and others whose interest has been piqued by the conflict.

The list of some 600 incorporators printed in the Bangor Daily News on Saturday has added fuel to the dispute. Many on the previously unpublished list – including some prominent public figures – have claimed they were unaware that they were incorporators, while others have pointed out that some on the list are no longer active in the community they represent.

The doctors’ group that calls itself the Good Governance Committee has submitted a roster of names for consideration as incorporators. The group also has sponsored four candidates for seats on corporate boards in a direct and unprecedented challenge to the customary nomination of candidates by EMH board members and senior executives.

Incorporators, officially charged with representing the interests of the broader community, have the unique power to elect board members, 10 of whom have been put forward as candidates for six seats on the boards of EMH and its subsidiary, Eastern Maine Medical Center. It’s the first time in local memory the board seats have been contested, a reflection of the rift with the doctors and some other concerned citizens.

But at least a few of the incorporators on the EMH list can’t be on hand today, because they’re no longer living. Others have moved to Florida, or are living in nursing homes or are otherwise not able to reasonably carry out their charge.

Others, surprised to find their names included, have registered some concern. Among them is Gov. John Baldacci. In a terse e-mail sent to EMH President and CEO Norman Ledwin on Monday afternoon, the governor’s spokesman, Lee Umphrey, wrote, “The Governor was surprised to see his name listed in the BDN as an EMH [in]corporator. Can you tell us how he was selected without knowing it and could you forward a copy of the hospital’s bylaws.”

Another high-profile individual was likewise caught off-guard by the list. Sen. Susan Collins served as an incorporator for a short time, according to her Washington spokeswoman Jen Burita, but withdrew from all board and other affiliations when she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996, in order to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

Cliff Eames, newly appointed chairman of the EMH board’s nominating committee, which approves nominees for all boards as well as for the ranks of the incorporators, said Monday that the list is updated each year as incorporators reach the end of their five-year terms. The list is “cleaned up” to reflect deaths, resignations or relocations, he said, and those who have moved outside the service area are asked if they wish to be re-elected.

“We don’t put anyone on that list who didn’t say, ‘Yes,’ ” he said. Incorporators get several mailings every year, he said, which should alert them to the fact that they are included.

Eames said corporate records show Baldacci has been an incorporator since 1984, and Collins since 1995.

Eames faulted the Bangor Daily News for running the list of incorporators, which EMH had sought to keep private. While EMH strives to keep the list current, he said, there are bound to be occasional errors. He characterized the responses from Baldacci and Collins as a reaction to having their privacy invaded by the paper’s printing of the list. “This is why we don’t make it public,” he said.

According to Umphrey, a telephone message from Ledwin also laid blame on the BDN’s action rather than on inaccuracies in the list.

About 100 of the existing five-year-term incorporators are up for re-election at this afternoon’s meeting, along with an equal number of ex officio members. Ex officio incorporators serve as a condition of their job or other position with EMH or one of its subsidiaries. They have full voting rights but serve only one year at a time.

In addition to its slate of four candidates for the EMH and EMMC boards, the doctors’ Good Governance Committee has proposed seven new candidates to serve as incorporators. They include physician Dennis Shubert, lawyer Ray Bradford, University of Maine professor and English department chairman Tony Brinkley, accountant Jeffry Fitch, Ann Miller of Castine, Unitarian Universalist minister Elaine Peresluha, and physician Dan Cassidy.

Eames said Tuesday afternoon that the nominees were being checked out to make sure they are “legitimate.” Corporate bylaws provide for a variable number of incorporators, he said, so it’s possible that all candidates may be successfully added to the controversial list.

Eames said planners are prepared to accommodate a big crowd this afternoon, but that some attendees might have to overflow into some space other than the Acadia Hospital gym. The meeting is not open to the general public, but a number of physicians, nominees and other members of the community are expected to be on hand.