Lisa Roberts, center, speaks during a West Gardiner selectmen’s meeting Thursday in the town’s Auxiliary Hall in West Gardiner. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

WEST GARDINER —  Following the resignation of a Gardiner-area school board member, the Board of Selectmen said it needs more time before appointing a replacement after hearing from the public about both candidates.

With no action taken, West Gardiner will be short one representative when the School Administrative District 11 board of directors meets Thursday.

Selectman Steve McGee speaks Thursday during a West Gardiner selectmen’s meeting at Auxiliary Hall in West Gardiner. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

The few residents who attended Thursday’s board meeting said they want a candidate who will represent all students in the district, and they urged the selectmen to create criteria for selection, which the selectmen say they do not have in place.

The appointee will fill the seat vacated by Sean Focht and serve until the next town election in June. Focht resigned from the school board in July after moving out of the town for a work opportunity, his resignation letter said.

“We are looking to see what’s wrong in the schools and what can be helped through the candidates running,” Steve McGee, one of the town’s three selectmen said, without citing any research or providing any reference about what is wrong in the schools.

Kate Merrill and Ervin Morrison II have both said they are interested in being appointed.

Merrill said she jumped at the chance to serve and immediately told the select board when she heard about the vacancy. She ran for a spot on the MSAD 11 school board in April, but dropped out of the three-way race to avoid a split vote. 

Maine School Administrative District 11 board candidate Kate Merrill, center, speaks Thursday during a West Gardiner selectmen’s meeting at Auxiliary Hall in West Gardiner. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

She is a lifelong West Gardiner resident who moved away to attend Yale University. She has two children in the school district. She attends all of the school board meetings that she can and regularly keeps up with what is going on in the school district, she said. Her father, Fred Merrill, served for years on the board.

The board interviewed her at its July 31 meeting, but she said she heard nothing back.

“I’ve expressed quite a bit of interest and I’m starting to feel invisible,” Merrill said Thursday in front of the people gathered at Auxiliary Hall on Spears Corner Road.

Morrison expressed his interest about a week ago. He is a former assistant basketball coach for MSAD 11. He worked in alternative education before switching careers to own several Subway franchises and later working in human resources, he said. 

Several residents questioned a post that he shared on Facebook that was allegedly anti-LGBTQ, brought up an arrest, and asked if he lives with an employee of the school district.

Morrison said he copy and pasted the social media post and it wasn’t words that he wrote.

He said he has lived with a district employee for seven years.

Maine School Administrative District 11 board candidate Ervin Morrison II speaks Thursday during a West Gardiner selectmen’s meeting at Auxiliary Hall in West Gardiner. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

Having a partnership with someone in the district and serving on the board would be a violation of MSAD 11’s nepotism policy, several residents pointed out. A former board member who attended the Selectboard meeting said that it can be a conflict, especially during contract negotiations.

 Morrison was arrested in 2015 on a charge of embezzling $17,000 from All Pro Sports Center in Vassalboro.

“I was arrested, but the charge was thrown out and the man who did it got arrested,” Morrison said.

The Board of Selectmen said they received emails from both sides that gave them conflicting information about the candidates. Despite saying they needed more information to make a decision, they did not question either of them Thursday.

Board Chairman Greg Couture said they may interview both candidates behind closed doors next week, but it’s unclear when.

A few former MSAD 11 board members in the audience provided information about what serving on a school board takes. They said it’s a big time commitment, and the person must serve in the best interest of all students, regardless of what they look like and where they come from.

Greg Couture, center, speaks Thursday during a West Gardiner selectmen’s meeting at Auxiliary Hall in West Gardiner. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

Lisa Roberts said she wondered how the selectmen could make a decision on an appointee without having established criteria. In her opinion, the choice is clear.

“There is no choice, there is a clear person that you need to select,” she said. “One is nonqualified and then there is someone who received votes for the position that you are trying to fill. Anything less than Kate (Merrill) is a failure of your role and duty … . We need to take it seriously when we are talking about children in the community and our future leaders.”