BIDDEFORD — After much debate, Mayor and School Committee Chairman Joanne Twomey made an “executive decision” on Tuesday to remove School Committee member Peggy Bean from the School Committee’s transportation committee.
Bean missed three consecutive meetings during the current calendar year, which requires the dismissal of the offending committee member, according to the Biddeford School Department Policy.
“From now on, things are going to change,” said Twomey.
Some members of the School Committee did not want to implement the policy to remove Bean, but instead wanted to review the policy first. However, a motion for that action failed.
The policy committee will review the policy in the near future, however, and if the policy is changed, Bean could be reinstated to the subcommittee.
Bean said Friday that although she would follow whatever decision was made about the attendance issue, she is “very disappointed and rather insulted” that the issue was raised, especially since it was so long after it occurred.
The three consecutive meetings that she missed, said Bean, occurred between Jan. 15 and April 15. Bean is a tax accountant and said part of the reason she missed meetings for the transportation subcommittee was because that period was the busiest time of year in her line of work. In addition, she said, her mother was sick during that time period.
Bean also noted that until this year, for the previous 12 years she was on the subcommittee, the meetings were held before the Tuesday evening School Committee meetings. This year that changed, and it made it more difficult for her to attend meetings. She wasn’t consulted, said Bean, when the meeting schedule was changed to benefit another member.
Despite her reasons for missing meetings, Twomey said the policy doesn’t distinguish between excused and unexcused absences.
Some of Bean’s fellow School Committee members spoke against implementing the policy in this case.
“I bet more than one of us has missed more than three committee meetings,” said School Committee member Alexandra Clarke. “I’m positive that there are others in the same boat.”
So far, no one else has missed three consecutive meetings, said Twomey, although some School Committee members have missed two meetings and were on the verge of facing removal from some of the subcommittees to which they belong.
“If this is the route we want to take, that’s fine,” said School Committee member Laura Seaver. “Then a lot of us should remove ourselves from committees.”
Seaver, who said she had already missed two consecutive meetings for a subcommittee on which she serves, said she was removing herself from that committee because she didn’t want to face forced removal. However, Twomey told Seaver she wasn’t allowed to remove herself and that if Seaver missed the next meeting the issue would be dealt with at that time.
School Committee member Anthony Michaud spoke in favor of implementing the policy, “It is important that we attend those meetings,” he said.
Meeting schedules should be discussed ahead of time to make sure that they fit into members’ schedules, said Michaud. He added that he removed himself from the building committee because he was unable to make many of the meetings.
Committee members had some discussion on the procedure of how Bean was being removed from the subcommittee. Some of the issues included: Whether the School Committee had to vote on Bean’s removal, since it doesn’t call for a vote in the Policy Manual; whether Bean could vote on the motion (that ultimately failed) that would have allowed her to remain on the subcommittee and send the policy back to committee, since a vote in the affirmative was in her interest; or whether Twomey had the right to make an executive decision to remove, as that isn’t stated in the policy.
The school district’s policies are overdue for a review, said Superintendent of Schools Sarah-Jane Poli, because they were last revised in 1999, and they should be revisited very five years.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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