Jordan-Elbridge school board member Jeanne Pieklik may not serve out the rest of her term, short as it is. 12 J-E residents filed a notice of claim Tuesday saying they plan to sue the board of education to have Pieklik removed from the board. The residents, represented by attorney Jarrod Smith (whose office is in Jordan), claim that Pieklik’s oath of office for her third term, signed in June 2008, was not notarized within 30 days. This would make her position vacant, according to the notice. Pieklik’s term ends in June, and she has said she does not plan to run for re-election.
The residents also claim Pieklik does not live in the district. Smith questioned her residency in a letter sent to J-E interim Superintendent Larry Zacher in January. Smith wrote that “an extremely reliable source” informed residents that Pieklik had moved to Cazenovia to live with the school district’s former lawyer, Danny Mevec. At the time, Pieklik told the Post-Standard that she lives in the district, on Baker Road in the town of Sennett. Pieklik abstained from the board’s otherwise unanimous vote to fire Mevec in October.
Residents have publicly questioned the ethics of a school board member dating the district’s lawyer since late September, asking her at multiple meetings to step down.