AUGUSTA, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Maine's Speaker of the House Democrat Mark Eves is getting a new job and Gov. Paul LePage said he shouldn't get it.
Eves has been named President of the Goodwill Hinckley School in Fairfield, which includes one of the state's first charter schools. The charter school is one of the reasons the governor is crying foul about the hire.
The Goodwill Hinckley job has actually had a political aspect before. The previous president was Glenn Cummings, a former Speaker of the House who has now been hired to be President of the University of Southern Maine. But Eves is the current Speaker, and said he will keep that position even as he takes on the new one.
The Goodwill Hinckley School has been in business for more than a century, providing education and counseling for at risk young people. Three years ago it also started a charter school, called the Maine Academy for Natural Sciences. Mark Eves will be in charge of both. The Goodwill Hinckley Board said he was chosen through a nationwide search. The school's written statement said Eves' work experience as a behavioral counselor dealing with at risk children and families made him their unanimous choice for the job, along with his experience running the Maine House of Representatives.
Gov. LePage sent a letter to the school's board of directors, urging them not to hire Eves. He said Eves "doesn't have the skill set" for the job, and complained that Eves had opposed creation of charter schools as a Legislator, and now will be running such a school. LePage also claims his hiring was a political deal, because one of Eves' top staff members, Bill Brown, is also the chairman of the board of the Maine Academy of Natural sciences. Democratic Rep. Erik Jorgensen is also a board member.
A spokesman for Goodwill Hinckley said Brown and Jorgensen both stayed out of the presidential selection process and did not vote. He said the process was "apolitical", that there are Republicans on their board as well as Democrats, and that the vote was unanimous.
Eves did not comment specifically on the Governor's letter to the school. He said he and the Governor both agree the school is "one of the greatest resources in the state for at risk youth."
Eves is scheduled to start work at Goodwill Hinckley July 1.
