LEWISTON, Maine — Former Lewiston City Council President Lee Clement is accusing Mayor Carl Sheline, the city clerk and other city officials of mishandling a residency and ballot-eligibility dispute that has roiled City Hall in recent weeks and, he warns, could expose the city to legal consequences.
In an open letter addressed to the mayor, councilors, city staff and residents, Clement said the city’s recent turmoil has been “unsettling” and invoked the saying, “All it takes for evil to occur is for good men to do nothing.”
Clement’s letter centers on a controversy involving what he describes as an ineligible candidate who appeared on the ballot for city council, and the steps city officials did or did not take before and after the election to address questions about eligibility.
Clement argued the city clerk “could have exercised her lawful authority” to prevent the candidate from being placed on the ballot in the first place. He questioned whether the clerk was pushed in that direction by Sheline or others, and he emphasized that the clerk is not an elected official and is employed by the city administrator.
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The letter also faulted Sheline for appointing “the person in question” to the school committee, which Clement described as a separate body under the city charter and one the mayor does not oversee.
The dispute, Clement wrote, escalated further after what he described as an attempt to obtain a certificate of occupancy for at least one room or apartment at 210 Blake Street so the candidate could claim residency there. Clement described the building as condemned and said the city should have used a residency ordinance he said was passed when he served on the council to resolve the issue earlier. Instead, he wrote, attorneys relied on state law he called so ambiguous as to be “useless.”
Clement’s letter portrays the episode as part of a broader breakdown in public confidence in city government, saying Lewiston has been pushed into the national spotlight for the wrong reasons and raising the prospect of a lawsuit over the matter. He also sharply criticized Sheline’s leadership and performance presiding over meetings.
The open letter extends to the city’s legal handling of the dispute, criticizing City Attorney Eisenstein and pointing to what Clement called a key charter question. Clement wrote that he believed a councilor was correct to raise Section 2.06 of the Lewiston Charter during a recent special meeting held following a councilor’s resignation.
Clement noted that the next regular municipal election is scheduled for November 2026, framing the charter debate as part of the city’s scramble to determine the proper path forward after a resignation and amid ongoing public scrutiny of how the eligibility questions were addressed.
