The Douglas County School Board’s conservative majority violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law in connection with its firing of former Superintendent Corey Wise last year, a district judge ruled Friday.
Robert “Bob” Marshall, now a state representative for House District 43, filed a lawsuit in February 2022 alleging the board’s majority violated state statute by holding a series of private one-on-one meetings to discuss replacing Wise.
The Colorado Open Meetings Law, part of the Colorado Sunshine Law, generally requires state or local governmental bodies to discuss public business or to take formal action in meetings open to the public.
Board members Michael Peterson, Rebecca Myers, Kaylee Winegar and Christy Williams are recognized in the Douglas County District Court ruling as “majority board members” of the seven member school board.
A trial was held Monday and District Court Judge Jeffrey K. Holmes found in a ruling filed Friday that the “Individual Defendants’ conduct was in violation of COML.”
Wise, who was fired by the board in a 4-3 decision, was paid more than $830,000 by the school district in April to settle discrimination claims over his dismissal.
The court found that the firing “was a rubber stamping of the discharge discussion and decision that constituted the COML violation by the Individual Defendants and the violation, therefore, went uncured.”
The individual defendants, the majority board, argued that their behavior did not violate state law and “it does not appear that they were purposefully acting in an unlawful manner,” according to the ruling. “They did not blatantly violate the statute by gathering as a group of three or four to discuss public business. They apparently received advice from an attorney regarding interpretation of the statue and then acted consistently with that interpretation in a manner they believed circumvented the statute’s prohibitions.”
The court declined to order a permanent inunction in the case against the majority board members, finding that the defendants have not “engaged in sequential one-on-one discussions or decision making that is prohibited by the statue” since a preliminary injunction was ordered on March 9, 2022.
The court did not find merit in the request to declare the termination of Wise as being null and void, in part, because of the April settlement he reached with the district.
“The court grants the declaratory judgment requested in connection with Plaintiff’s first claim for relief,” the ruling said. “The court denies the injunction requested in the second claim for relief and the judgment declaring Superintendent Wise’s termination null and void requested in the third claim for relief.”
The Douglas County School Board last month voted to reject a settlement agreement with Marshall that would have required the board to acknowledge that members violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law.
“I don’t believe that I did anything illegal,” Williams said during the May 8 meeting. “I maintain I am not guilty.”
The settlement would have included a $66,000 payment to Marshall to cover his legal costs. Officials at that meeting estimated that going to trial rather than settling could cost the district $500,000.
On Saturday, Peterson, the school board president, released the following statement:
“As one Director and an individual defendant, I am glad to move forward and put the termination of the former superintendent in the past. I believe the court was accurate when the judge’s order stated, ‘While the Individual Defendants believed their behavior did not violate COML (Colorado Open Meeting Law), it does not appear they were purposefully acting in an unlawful manner. They did not blatantly violate the statute…’ I believe the court was right to dismiss the claim to declare the termination of the former superintendent null and void and in the decision to not impose an injunction against the Board, as we will simply rely on existing COML going forward.”
