Have law, resignation left school system powerless to pay bills?Wednesday November 29, 2000
By Eric Eyre
STAFF WRITER
Mason County school board members Shirley Gue and Peggy Huff find themselves in a predic-ament this week.
Gue says she can follow state law and risk having electricity shut off to the county's 14 schools. Or she can break the law, and the lights will stay on.
"It certainly puts me in an uncomfortable situation," Gue said.
The Mason school board hasn't paid its electric bills in recent weeks. The school system isn't broke. It has money to pay its bills.
But Gue's and Huff's husbands work for American Electric Power, the company that supplies electricity for Mason schools. No other power company serves the county.
The state Ethics Act prohibits public officials from voting on matters affecting their spouses' employers.
In September, the Ethics Commission issued a formal advisory opinion, saying Gue and board member Peggy Huff must recuse themselves from votes related to AEP electric bills.
And for a while that didn't pose a problem.
The school board could still pay its power bills. Gue and Huff stepped out of the room while the three remaining board members voted.
But three weeks ago, board member Matthew Keefer resigned after accepting a state agency job.
That left four board members.
State law requires three board members to maintain a quorum and take official action. Without the three members, the board couldn't pay its electric bills.
Gue's husband supervises AEP line workers in Cabell County. Huff's husband is a coal miner at an AEP mine in southern Ohio.
"It's not like our husbands are the CEOs of this company," Gue said. "They wish they had that kind of clout."
A $29,000 AEP bill sat on schools Superintendent Larry Parsons' desk Tuesday.
"It appears what was intended to be very good legislation has some pitfalls in it," Parsons said. "It puts us in a precarious position."
A letter last week from Ethics Commission Executive Director Richard Alker may provide a solution to the Mason board's predicament.
Alker wrote that Gue and Huff may stay in the board room to sustain a quorum during the electric bill vote, provided they "remain silent, abstain from voting and engage in no conduct designed to influence the board's decision."
Nonetheless, Gue and Huff remain uneasy about the vote.
Huff plans to stay out of the room.
"I definitely will not be in there," Huff said Tuesday. "We haven't had time to figure this out. "
Gue isn't sure what she'll do.
"My question is, ‘Can the letter overrule the Ethics Commission ruling?'" Gue said. "I know one thing for certain: This letter doesn't give us any legal protection."
Board members have until Dec. 7 to appoint a new member.
If they can't agree on a candidate by then, state schools Superintendent David Stewart will select a board member for them.
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