LEWISTON – Helen Poulin isn’t the first Androscoggin County commissioner to try to remain in her post after moving from her district.

In 1995, Carol Boyce quit her job with the Buckfield school system and moved to Vermont, but vowed to remain on the Androscoggin County Commission.

Fellow commissioners complained in September that year that Boyce hadn’t attended a commission meeting “since June.”

Between September and December 1995, there was much back and forth between Boyce – then in Vermont – and commissioners and constituents in Androscoggin County. At one point, a Sun Journal headline read, “Boyce disappears.”

She hadn’t, though.

State officials seemed helpless to do anything, saying they needed a formal notice that Boyce had left her district.

The affair finally ended in December that year when Boyce gave up the position.

Taxpayers had paid for her health insurance since June.

Staff report