WEST PARIS — The Board of Selectmen has appointed Melissa LaCombe to West Paris Water District’s Board of Trustees.

She replaces Brandon Ballweber, who resigned from his post effective March 20.

Ballweber’s resignation is the latest of several shakeups for the water district over the last year.

He was board chair and the only active trustee when a boil-water order was placed on the town in April 2024.

The order stayed in place through August but it was not until July that testing, conducted by operator Bill Gardner, revealed that the West Paris drinking water reservoir was contaminated by E.coli bacteria.

Wayne Kennedy was district’s operator when the boil-water order was issued and he left his position shortly after.

Gardner, who is also Gray Water District’s superintendent, was then hired at the recommendation of the Maine Rural Water Association.

At about that time, residents Sonya Tardiff and David Walton were appointed as trustees to the board, with Tardiff serving as its treasurer for the remainder of the year.

Walton was reelected March 1 during West Paris’ annual town meeting, but voters replaced Tardiff with Judy Boutilier.

At the water district’s first meeting with its new board March 6, Walton was tapped to be chairman and Boutilier was elected as treasurer. Ballweber voted in opposition to both officers.

On March 13, trustees held an emergency meeting with an executive session and announced that Clairluz Perez Lisboa, the water district’s secretary and office clerk, had been placed on paid administrative leave. Another emergency meeting was held four days later to reinstate Perez Lisboa.

Another emergency meeting was held March 21, the day after West Paris accepted Ballweber’s resignation.

During that meeting, all three trustees — Walton, Boutilier and LaCombe — voted to close the district’s operations account with Northeast Savings Bank, which had a balance of $3,930.23, and open a new account with Androscoggin Savings Bank.

Androscoggin Savings Bank approved two loans for the district recently: a $111,000 capital investment loan to address a number of equipment and system infrastructure issues as identified by Gardner, and a $20,000 loan to fund three years of financial audits and bring its accounting practices into compliance.