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The purple duct tape matched the color of the campaign sign and the sticky situation in which Baldwin-Whitehall School Board member Michael Stelmasczyk suddenly found himself.

With his running mate Beverly Coon fresh out of jail on an attempted homicide charge, Stelmasczyk stretched the tape over her name on a campaign sign. She had said rumors of an affair with Bethel Park's top school administrator were untrue when Stelmasczyk confronted her, but that was before police accused her of setting fire to Ronald Grimm's bed the night of Sept. 8 or early in the morning of Sept. 9.

"She was very private with me," Stelmasczyk said. "We had a professional relationship."

Coon's relationship with others was more complicated.

A week and a half after Grimm, 60, tried to break off their two-year romance, Coon is accused of plying the superintendent with pastries laced with sedatives and then igniting the fire that gutted his Monroeville apartment, put him in the hospital and forced the evacuation of 10 other tenants, police said. Grimm is out of the hospital but still off work.

None of it makes sense to Genevieve Kish, Coon's longtime neighbor in Whitehall.

At Christmas and on Mother's Day, Coon gives Kish plants. When the snow piles up in Kish's driveway and her husband is ill, Coon shovels it away.

"She was like a daughter to me. I can't believe this happened," Kish said.

The two served together on the homeowners' association for their townhouse complex on Shadowlawn Drive, near the ritzy South Hills Country Club. Coon is the homeowners' association president.

"I don't know what we're going to do without her," Kish said.

Some neighbors see Coon, 46, differently and describe her as someone who frequently calls police over trifles.

Whitehall police Deputy Chief Richard Danko said that while Coon did report problems at the complex on behalf of the homeowners' group, "they were legitimate concerns she had."

"It was nothing out of the ordinary," he said.

Coon was elected to the school board in 2001 and was part of a three-person ticket that included Stelmasczyk and former board member Edward Moeller. How her arrest will affect her position on the board isn't yet clear.

The state Constitution requires any elected official to be removed if convicted of a crime, but does not address removal from office upon being charged or jailed, according to the state Department of Education.

District Solicitor Ed Lawrence said he has been researching "the legal ramifications of the charges against Mrs. Coon and her status as school director" but has not reached a conclusion.

"The quickest and cleanest solution is in the hands of the voters Nov. 8," he said.

Many of the signs urging voters to support Coon already had been removed yesterday from yards around the country club.

Her years on the school board have been marked by a series of minor controversies, the most bizarre coming last year, when school board members said Coon's meddling in a plan to hire a superintendent from New Jersey contributed to his turning down the job.

A board member from Ewing Township, N.J., near Trenton, complained that some questions Coon had asked as part of a background check on Superintendent Timothy Wade were inappropriate.

Wade could not be reached for comment. He no longer works in the Ewing Township School District, a secretary said.

The board did not censure Coon over the incident. Board President John Schmotzer declined to comment.

The board passed rules Wednesday regulating members' duties in hiring in response to Coon's actions last year.

Coon is estranged from her husband, Timothy S. Coon, a lawyer who is the son of former Allegheny County Sheriff Eugene Coon. Beverly Coon has two children, both of whom are in college.

Joyce C. Grimm, 60, filed for divorce from Ronald Grimm, 60, last year.

In addition to attempted homicide, Coon was charged with arson, stalking, causing or risking a catastrophe, criminal mischief and recklessly endangering another person. She was released from the Allegheny County Jail on Thursday on $100,000 bail.

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