LEWISTON – Gov. John Baldacci wants an official ruling from the state Attorney General’s Office on whether Helen Poulin can continue representing Lewiston on the Androscoggin County Commission even though she lives in Auburn.

On Wednesday, Baldacci sent a letter to Attorney General Steven Rowe asking for a formal opinion on the issue.

“Specifically, I am asking whether by operation of law a vacancy has been created on the Androscoggin County Board of County Commissioners,” Baldacci wrote in the letter.

Though Poulin contends she has done nothing wrong, her status as a commissioner has become increasingly controversial.

In November 2006, Lewiston voters elected her to a four-year term on the commission. Auburn, Minot, Mechanic Falls and Poland residents elect a commissioner to represent their district, while a third commissioner is elected by the rest of the county’s towns to represent their district.

In early August, Poulin and her husband, county Treasurer Robert Poulin, sold their home at 170 Ferry Road home in Lewiston and moved to 100 Vickery Road in Auburn.

The move raised the question of whether she violated state law, particularly the provision of Title 30-A that reads, “commissioners must be residents of the commissioner district which they represent.”

For weeks, Poulin argued that the move was not a problem because she never left the county.

Meanwhile, state officials examined the move. The offices of the attorney general and secretary of state both looked into the case.

On Sept. 8, Baldacci’s office joined in, requesting that Poulin verify her address. Poulin hired Auburn attorney Bryan Dench, who refused to verify it.

Three days later, the governor’s office asked again.

In a second response dated Sept. 22, Poulin said she had moved to Auburn but it was merely temporary.

A sworn statement that accompanied the second response said that she and her husband had been preparing to buy another home in Lewiston when the sale fell apart. Since they had already sold the place on Ferry Road, they needed to find somewhere to get them by.

So, they bought and moved into the Auburn home. Now, it, too, is up for sale.

Despite her stated intention to move back to Lewiston, the governor’s office and Attorney General’s Office continued to deliberate the issue.

“As you know,” Baldacci’s letter states in asking for a formal ruling, “Maine law requires … that commissioners ‘be residents of the commissioner district which they represent.’ A person’s residency is defined for voting purposes as ‘the place where the person has established a fixed and principal home to which the person, whenever temporarily absent, intends to return.”