Third SAD 63-CSD 8 joint board session postponed

HOLDEN – The first time the SAD 63-CSD 8 joint board was supposed to meet was in January. The second time was Feb. 13, and the third was on Thursday.

The Feb. 13 joint meeting was canceled by bad weather, but the other two meetings were canceled because of unanswered legal questions.

At issue are possible legal claims that Superintendent Louise Regan has threatened to pursue against SAD 63 and some of its board members. CSD 8 and SAD 63 split the cost of the shared central office budget, which includes the salary of Regan, who is responsible for the ongoing administration of both school districts.

The separate school boards typically meet jointly only once a year to discuss the budget and evaluate the superintendent.

But during a CSD 8 board meeting in January, Regan advised the members that if they met with the SAD 63 board, she may be forced to include them in her legal claims. The airline school board voted at that meeting not to meet with SAD 63 basically because it doesn’t want to be involved with any possible lawsuits involving the superintendent.

Despite that vote, the SAD 63 board later decided to go forward with the joint board meeting, even if no CSD 8 members showed.

Complicating the matter further, Regan on Wednesday questioned whether the Portland firm of the Drummond, Woodsum & MacMahon, which has provided general counsel to SAD 63, CSD 8 and the joint board, can provide legal advice in this instance. She pointed out that the SAD 63 board voted in November to hire Bruce Smith of the same law firm to represent the board in any legal proceedings involving Regan.

“The [Feb. 21] meeting was canceled because we decided that we needed a little bit more time to analyze some rather complicated legal issues related to the somewhat unusual government situation with SAD 63, Airline CSD 8 and their joint board,” Smith said Thursday.

CSD 8 includes the communities of Amherst, Aurora, Great Pond and Osborn, and SAD 63 is composed of Holden, Eddington and Clifton. Smith said he has been unable to find records that indicate when the partnership between the two school units was created or any bylaws for the alliance.

Regan plans to sue SAD 63 board members Therese Anderson, Karen Clark, Linda Goodrich, Robert Kiah and Dion Seymour, according to certified letters sent out by her lawyer on Nov. 7, and is asking for the statutory maximum of $400,000.

Also in November, she filed a Maine Human Rights Commission complaint against SAD 63 claiming she was discriminated against for being a whistle-blower.

Both legal claims are based on actions that took place in October involving recorded minutes of previous SAD 63 meetings, which Regan reported to police had been removed improperly from the central office. During SAD 63’s Oct. 22 meeting, Seymour read a letter of concern that basically stated that Regan told lies about him concerning the meeting tapes to three other board members.

On Wednesday, Regan wrote a letter to Smith, which was acquired by the Bangor Daily News, asking him to promptly answer 10 legal questions pertaining to the issues summarized in this article.

“I strongly advise that these serious legal questions be resolved prior to the convening of a joint board meeting of SAD 63 and CSD 8,” she states in the letter.

While not responding specifically to the 10 questions, Smith said Thursday that he was working to address the issues before another joint board meeting is scheduled.

“We want to make sure that we cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ to make sure the legal interests of the boards are properly protected,” he said. “And that any individual involved will be treated fairly and legally.”