Pssst … want to make Gov. Paul LePage put out an ominous-sounding press release?

Just whisper the word “immigrants.”

“The state has received no formalized plans or information about this alleged plan,” LePage said late Tuesday, reacting to “rumors” that the former Elan School in Poland soon might be transformed into housing for unaccompanied alien children now in the custody of the federal government.

He continued, “As a result, the administration has no assurance from the federal government of the health status of the children or whether they have had proper immunizations, nor have we had any assurance that the federal government would pay for their health care, education, general welfare or safety.”

Maybe that’s because there is no such plan. And LePage, rather than fan the political firestorm that surrounds all things immigration this election season, could have confirmed that with a simple phone call.

It all started over the summer, when Theresa Allocca of Poland began making inquiries of various public officials about the possibility of using the Elan School, which closed in 2011, to house a handful of the more than 60,000 unaccompanied children who have crossed into the United States from Central America in the past year alone.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Allocca is the mother of Timothy Davison, 28, who was shot to death last January in an act of road rage along Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania. Police have yet to find his assailant.

Allocca, in an interview Thursday, said her son’s death fueled her desire to do something for at least some of the unaccompanied alien children now languishing in overcrowded holding facilities in the Southwest.

“They live in warehouses, divided by metal fencing, separated out by age and sex, with nothing but cots and portable toilets in their area,” Allocca said. “Maine people wouldn’t even let stray dogs be treated like that.”

Over the last two months, Allocca said, she’s made several inquiries to various government officials and agencies about what it might take to transform Elan into a residential school for those children who crossed over to the United States from Mexico with no relatives waiting to collect them on this side of the border. Among those she contacted were U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ office, the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

It was, at best, a long shot. Allocca, a counselor at Gray-New Gloucester Middle School, said she was shuffled among an array of low-level state officials as she tried “to get the correct paperwork” for turning Elan into an orphanage school for 120 or so of the unaccompanied alien children.

Word of the plan, undeveloped as it was, eventually reached a working group of state agencies – including the Maine Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services – formed earlier this year to keep an eye on the unfolding border crisis.

According to MEMA spokeswoman Lynette Miller, DHHS Deputy Commissioner Ricker Hamilton last week alerted MEMA staffer Richard Higgins that an Elan proposal was in the works. Higgins, according to Miller, then called the Unified Androscoggin Emergency Management Agency as a courtesy to let them know something involving unaccompanied alien children might be afoot in their neck of the woods.

Unified Androscoggin Director Joanne Potvin then notified Poland Town Manager Bradley Plante, who in turn told both the Poland Board of Selectmen and the local school department.

At a selectmen’s meeting Tuesday, Plante then read a prepared statement citing the heads-up from Potvin “concerning the state DHHS planning to house 120 immigrant children related to the southern U.S. border issue at the former Elan School in Poland.”

The Lewiston Sun Journal covered the meeting and, just like that, a brouhaha was born. Not one based on any actual proposal, mind you, but a brouhaha nonetheless.

Make way for the Big Guy.

“Rumors have been swirling about whether a large number of Unaccompanied Alien Children may be placed at the former Elan School campus in Poland, Maine,” LePage said in his press release. “Despite efforts by our administration, these rumors have not been substantiated by the federal government.”

Wait a minute. Didn’t his administration start those rumors in the first place?

LePage continued, “As recently as last week, Mary Mayhew, commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services, sent an inquiry to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeking information on whether such plans are in the works. So far, we have not received a response or further information from the federal government.”

And what a letter it was.

“I understand that a facility in Maine is being proposed, planned or discussed at the former Elan School campus,” Mayhew wrote in her Sept. 30 letter to the feds. “Is HHS or any other federal agency aware of these plans or any other new facility being planned, discussed or proposed for UAC (unaccompanied alien children) in Maine? We want to be actively involved in any plans for Maine.”

Except … umm … the “plans” begin and end with a good-hearted woman from Poland. And … umm … Mayhew’s own underlings could have told her that.

Had LePage and/or Mayhew picked up the phone rather than communicate via snail mail, they’d have learned pretty darned quick that there was nothing here to get even remotely excited about. Upon receiving LePage’s release at 3:55 p.m. Wednesday, it took this newspaper less than an hour to confirm there is no formal proposal and that the feds, as usual, had no clue what the LePage administration was talking about.

As Miller from the Maine Emergency Management Agency put it so succinctly, “It appears that at every step along the way, the information that started out being very clear became much less clear.”

No matter, at least for LePage. All of Androscoggin County is now abuzz over what’s going on – or not – up at the Elan School. And nothing plays to the Guv’s base like fear of all those little kids, who’ve seen more violence and hardship in their young lives than even LePage can shake a stick at, somehow finding their way to Maine.

Allocca, bless her, will keep pursuing her dream of actually creating a sanctuary for a handful of those kids. But she harbors no illusions about how hard it will be.

“It is layers on layers,” Allocca said. “That’s why obviously it’s not ready for me to roll out a press release.”

Obviously.

That’s the Big Guy’s job.