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Lone candidate ready for board
By BARBARA BEHRENDT, Times Staff Writer INVERNESS -- Lou Miele's phone rang all weekend. "It's weird," he said Monday. "I don't know how to react." Miele will become the new District 1 member of the School Board by default as soon as Don Bates, the only other candidate for the seat, officially withdraws from the race. As of late Monday Bates had not yet filed his paperwork to withdraw, but he announced that intention on Friday when the Times questioned him about a 1994 indecent exposure arrest. Bates thought that record had been expunged, but the Crystal River Police Department released it to the Times. On Monday, Chief Jim Farley said he is looking into whether the information should have been available. While Bates removed campaign signs over the weekend, Miele attended planned speaking engagements. On Monday he said he was anxious to learn what he needs to be an effective board member but wishes he'd won the chance in a different way. "I don't want people to feel like I'm the consolation prize," Miele said. "I truly feel that I'm the most qualified candidate. It's just a shame that the voters didn't have the chance to decide." Bates first came on the scene about two years ago when Carol Snyder, currently the District 1 School Board member, sought to stop the traditional practice of opening all meetings with a Christian prayer. Bates gathered names on a petition voicing no confidence in Snyder. Then recently, after Snyder chose to leave the seat, Bates entered the race. He resurrected the list of petition-signers and sent them letters seeking support and donations. By supporting him, he wrote, "the God guys" would win again. In 1994, Bates was arrested and charged with indecent exposure in Crystal River. A man reported that Bates had called him over to his car, which was parked at the Crystal River Mall. As the witness approached, he saw that Bates was naked from the waist down and was masturbating. Police later picked him up based on the witness' description and the license tag on his car. He said he was despondent over his second divorce, abusing pain medications, and his depressed state led him to what he called an "aberration" in his behavior. But Bates also said he did not expect the arrest to become public when he decided to become a candidate for the School Board because he had his record expunged. A person with a minor infraction can seek an expungement if the rest of that person's record is relatively clean, according to Charles Vaughn, an Inverness criminal defense attorney. He said people are often told that the expungement process will wipe the record clean, but that isn't really so. "It doesn't totally clear your record," he said. "Law enforcement can still see it." Anyone other than law enforcement searching someone's background could find that they had had a case expunged, but no other information would be available about the case. In August 1996, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement notified the Crystal River police that the case had been expunged and notified other agencies that it had been expunged. Chief Farley said he did not know why the report still existed on his department's computer system. He said the record was moved to the expunged file, which is accessible only by law enforcement officials, but that the original copy also still existed in the computer where other public records are kept. "It looks like an error may have been made here," Farley said. "I hate to see something like this happen, but if we can track down what happened, we certainly will." Miele himself has had a previous arrest expunged. He was arrested for driving under the influence in Connecticut in 1989 and again in 1991. The first of those two cases was expunged. He acknowledged that arrest in May when the Times questioned him about the other case. He then objected to the Times reporting about the expunged case. He later said that the second arrest was a turning point for him. He stopped drinking, he said, and pursued his dream of becoming an educator. He earned his bachelor's and his master's degrees in education. Miele is currently on leave from his job working with exceptional students at the Withlacoochee Technical Institute. "The DUI is not something that I'm proud of," he said. "But I decided I'd like to move on." Several School Board members and superintendent David Hickey said they were ready to welcome Miele onto the board in November and each expressed sadness for Bates. But they also said they felt Bates had made the right choice by dropping out. "I don't want anyone possibly questioning the security of our children although I don't think there would have been a problem," said board member Patience Nave. "I'm just very, very sorry that someone did not guide him better before he decided to run." There is no formal screening for candidates. School Board members are not employees of the school district and do not have to go through the application and fingerprinting process required of employees, although traditionally board members have been fingerprinted. If they did go through the process followed by other employees, they would have to fill out an application which asks them a very detailed yes or no question about their past criminal history, including whether they have ever had a case expunged. Weston Stow, chairman of the Republican Executive Committee, said he is sorry that his group did not catch the criminal history on Bates in their review and he vowed to adopt a stricter questionnaire that would include more detail like the one used by the school district. While the School Board race is nonpartisan, Bates is a Republican and was supported by the party. Since the arrest came to light, Bates resigned from the party's executive committee. "It may have cost us a seat on the School Board, but in the long run it's going to benefit us in the future in that there are going to be much more stringent rules for future candidates," Stow said. "We've learned a lesson." Stow said he believed Bates made the only choice by dropping out of the race but he said that the offense is probably not an indication that he would be a danger to anyone. "It isn't an act of sexual perversion. It's the act of somebody who is in deep depression," Stow said. "My heart goes out to the guy. I hope he is able to survive the humiliation." -- Barbara Behrendt can be reached at behrendt@sptimes.com or 564-3621.
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