The subpoenas, cross-examinations and theatrics of the legislative inquiry into the Good Will-Hinckley controversy are drawing to a close.

Now the Government Oversight Committee faces the task of deciding what to do with the facts it unearthed when it looked into Gov. Paul LePage’s role in the school’s decision to rescind its offer to hire House Speaker Mark Eves as its next president.

The committee will reconvene Dec. 3 to discuss its next move. All indications signal an anti-climactic end: A vote to accept a 25-page fact-finding report by the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability and the inclusion of testimony collected during subsequent hearings. Sen. Roger Katz, R-Augusta, and Rep. Chuck Kruger, D-Thomaston, both say that the committee is close to completing its charge to uncover all the relevant facts in a controversy that has raised concerns about the Republican governor’s use of power and spurred calls for his impeachment.

Impeachment proceedings may well be initiated by a member of the House of Representatives. But the committee itself is not likely to propose that step, nor is it expected to refer its findings to the Attorney General’s Office to determine if any laws were broken.

“We are getting to close to wrapping up this particular inquiry,” Kruger said Friday. “I don’t expect that we’re going to make any recommendations to any other body. We’re going to make our findings available in the most complete form and that will be it.”

Such an outcome will not appease those who hope the Republican governor will be punished for his threat to withhold $530,000 in annual funding from Good Will-Hinckley unless it rescinded its job offer to Eves, a Democrat. During an Oct. 15 committee hearing, several members of the public called for impeachment proceedings, or at the very least, a move to send the OPEGA report to the attorney general for further review. But the scope of the committee’s charge did not include making a determination of wrongdoing when the panel unanimously voted July 1 to proceed with its fact-finding probe.

A FACT-FINDING INVESTIGATION

“The committee determined it was going to do a fact-finding investigation and just get the facts out there so people draw the conclusion or opinion they wanted to about this situation,” said OPEGA director Beth Ashcroft. “I’m assuming they’ll feel they’ve done their job.”

The panel could send its report to the attorney general. But unlike last year, when an OPEGA inquiry found that state officials broke the public records law when they shredded Center for Disease Control and Prevention documents used to justify state grant awards, the Good Will-Hinckley probe has not uncovered evidence of illegal activity.

Kruger said the committee could expand the Good Will-Hinckley inquiry to determine if the governor has established a pattern of using his office to punish political foes or exert his will. But he doesn’t think it will happen.

“It’s part of a pattern and it wouldn’t be a bad thing to look at the larger pattern of behavior within the administration,” he said. “But as far as this particular inquiry goes, I think we’re near the end. I’m not sure that we will make any recommendations to anybody. I doubt it, but I don’t know.”

Sen. Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, was among the handful of lawmakers who requested the Good Will-Hinckley investigation on June 29. He originally described the governor’s actions as “a chilling example of a potential overstep of executive authority.”

Saviello said he’s closely followed the probe and believes it’s reached its conclusion.

“As far as I’m concerned they’ve done what they needed to do,” he said.

SCHOOL, FOUNDATION ‘BLINKED’

Saviello said it was unfortunate that the governor threatened Good Will-Hinckley. However, Saviello also was critical of Good Will-Hinckley officials for rescinding the job offer to Eves, and the Harold Alfond Foundation, which provides a $2.75 million grant to the organization. After LePage contacted foundation president Greg Powell to complain about Eves’ hiring, the foundation sent a letter to Good Will-Hinckley expressing “serious concerns” that the school could fulfill the terms of its grant agreement. Good Will-Hinckley officials later testified that the loss of state funding and the foundation grant would severely damage the school’s finances.

Both organizations, Saviello said, caved to the governor’s threats.

“The Hinckley school blinked and the Harold Alfond Foundation blinked,” he said. “They’re the ones we should be the most disappointed with. They blinked. The governor doesn’t hesitate in expressing his opinion on things that he would like to see, but at the end of the day, they blinked.”

Eves filed a civil lawsuit against LePage in U.S. District Court in Portland July 30. The complaint argues that the governor violated Eves’ First Amendment rights of free speech, free association and political affiliation by intervening in the hiring decision. The lawsuit is pending, and LePage has yet to file a response to Eves’ initial complaint.

Kruger said the committee is unlikely to forward the Good Will-Hinckley probe to the House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings. The panel is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Kruger said, however, that any member of the House can bring forward articles of impeachment. There’s widespread speculation that an impeachment proceeding will be advanced by some House Democrats, but that effort will likely die in the Senate, which is under Republican control.

At the end of the day, Saviello said, the damage LePage suffers from the Good Will-Hinckley controversy will be to his reputation.

“When I go to Augusta and I finish my time there … I hope people look back and say Tom Saviello’s legacy is one of working together with people and getting things done and making the attempt to move the state forward,” he said. “The governor has to look at what he wants his legacy to be. Will his legacy be the Hinckley school situation? Will his legacy be the comments he’s made about different organizations and people? … That’s for him to answer, not me.”

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