New conservative school board members violate CO Open Meetings Law, make decisions in secret

Newly-elected D-51 School Board member Andrea Haitz promised transparency, but is violating open meetings laws and attempting to enact policy without public comment. At about 4:43 into the meeting video, after a suggestion that the Board could get more information about potential law firms to hire, Haitz says “There’s a certain point where you can get too much information.”

It took no time at all for the newly sworn-in District 51 School Board members to violate Colorado’s Open Meetings Law (pdf), violate their campaign promises of transparency, and indicate their willingness to spend excessive taxpayer funds for no clear reason, and they did it all in one breathtaking move they sprang on everyone a full four hours into their first board meeting December 14.

A front page article in the December 15, 2021 issue of the Daily Sentinel says the three — Andrea Haitz, Willie Jones and Angela Lema, who ran together as a far-right extremist bloc — made the decision about switching the District’s legal representation without telling the other Board members or the public. Their plan was to fire District 51’s in-house attorney, John Williams, months before his contract was up, and hire a Colorado Springs legal firm to work for the District at an unknown price. According to estimates by local attorneys and even former Board member Trish Mahre, who is herself an attorney, doing this could easily double or triple the amount of money the District spent on legal work last  year.

At about 4:16 into the video, D-51 Superintendent Diana Sirko said the District spent $565,262 on legal representation using an outside law firm in 2018, spent $492,080 on legal help with an outside firm in 2019 and then, after hiring in-house attorney John Williams, by this point in 2021 the District had only spent $266,000 — about $300,000 less than they did retaining an outside law firm. Sirko also said responses to constituents were much faster with an in-house attorney.

You can watch the school board meeting at this link. Skip through the four hours of public comment at the beginning and fast-forward to 4:09 into the meeting to the part where the three new board members spring their decision about hiring a new law firm on the other school board members, who quickly introduce a motion to table it, so they can at least get a chance to discuss it. After that, existing school board members plead with the new extremists to use a defined process to make a change like this, as is customary in such decisions.

So what’s so bad about what Haitz, Lema and Jones did?

  1. Making a major decision without telling the public and other board members what they were doing violates Colorado’s Open Meetings Law (pdf), which regulates how public officials can conduct meetings. The law was enacted to keep elected officials from making major policy decisions in secret, and without any public comment, which is exactly what Haitz, Jones and Lema did. The law says all meetings of two or more members of an elected Board at which any public business is discussed must be open to the public, and any gathering of a quorum or three or more members of a local body constitutes a meeting. Even email messages in which board members discuss any policy action like this constitutes a meeting, and their emails are subject to the Open Meetings law. Meetings about such topics can only be held after the Board gives

    Will Jones (Screenshot from Facebook video), accused unnamed people of “leaking” information that by law must be public

    the public “full and timely notice” that they are going to discuss the issue by posting an agenda in a designated public place at least 24 hours before the meeting. The new Board members did not do any of this.

  2. Haitz, Lema and Jones sprang this decision on the other two Board members and the public shortly before the meeting;
  3. Haitz, Lema and Jones had a contract with the new firm already drawn up and signed, and planned to hire the firm at an unknown cost to the public.

The new school board members seem to need a briefing on Parliamentary procedure, as they seemed confused at times what motion was on the table. They also need a briefing on state open meeting laws, and what information the public is entitled to have. At around 4:35 in the meeting, Willie Jones actually accuses un-named people of “leaking” information about their actions. He was unaware that all policy discussions among school board members are public as a matter of law, and that secret meetings are not allowed, ever.

Following a playbook

The interesting thing is, the new board members’ actions followed almost exactly the exact same playbook  another conservative school board majority used in Jefferson County in 2013. Roll the 3 minute video below to see how it played out exactly the way it did at District 51 on December 14:

At a JeffCo School board meeting on December 12, 2013, the same situation occurred, almost to the letter: A newly-elected, 3-member conservative school board majority made a decision to hire an attorney just to represent the Board. They decided to hire this attorney in secret, discussing it away from the public, and they sprang their decision on everyone a day before the meeting. Like the new D-51 Board members, they brought the decision up very late into a long meeting. They hired the attorney at an unknown cost to taxpayers after performing interviews in secret, without any public comment, without putting out any request for proposals and without even including the other board members in the decision.

Attorney Brad Miller of Miller Farmer Law, darling of right wing school board extremists across the state

Their move even involved the same attorney — Brad Miller of Colorado Springs — who they happened to meet at a Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB) conference, just like the new D-51 Board members did. The CASB conference the new D-51 Board members attended was at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs on December 2-4. 

Why are right wing extremists so eager to hire this particular attorney, without any vetting, without getting cost estimates or assurances, without putting out request for proposals (RFPs), or doing any other due diligence of how well suited he is to the needs of their districts?

Because it is a purely ideological hire. Mr. Miller specializes in representing religious ministries and charter schools. While Brad Miller denies being a charter school crusader, he uses his Twitter feed to advocate for for charter schools and to oppose institutional funding of public schools. His own kids attended charter schools private schools and were homeschooled. They did not attend public school.

What happened after the new, conservative JeffCo school board members tried this play?

They were all recalled in 2015 in a race that drew national attention.

  13 comments for “New conservative school board members violate CO Open Meetings Law, make decisions in secret

  1. Didn’t see it myself, but this week Andrea Haitz posted a pic of herself in a tee-shirt that reads “Make the US FL.” She has since removed it.
    Also, some of the changes new board members are making to D51 Harassment Policies and Teaching Controversial Issues Policies violate state and federal guidelines. In spite of 2 training sessions by CO department of education specialists, new board members are moving ahead. Sat 30 April is Coffee with the D51 Board, 9am, East Middle School, Gunnison &
    9th St. Time to ask questions.

  2. Anne- was this story not aired on the local news stations or their online sites besides the Sentinel? I cannot find it on any local news station site…

  3. It’s going to be awful damn hard to make America great again when all you’re going to do is fleece it and do such a piss poor job you get caught on your first attempt.

    • If this was in fact a no-bid contract (a la Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney) doesn’t that expose the board to legally? Every lawfirm who may have wanted to apply for that job could sue. Citizens can sue. The sec of state could sue–couldnt they? If I’m John Williams, I’d take that Colorado Springs firm to town in court. I’ve seen what the Ayatollahs did to Iran and the Middle East. I don’t want my kid being made to say a prayer or pledge–as their parent, I’ll take care of that. This is not a theocracy.

      • If you read the entire email thread, D-51 policies do not require an RFP for such a professional expenditure, even if it could be beneficial to do so. But it is interesting that the law firm seemed to actively encourage the new board member to skirt a more deliberative, collaborative process apparently to try to expedite the signing of his own contract, which he had already signed.

  4. This “law firm” didn’t even explain to the board members how to operate with the open meetings law. Some lawyers!

  5. That buffoons like these three exist is not new and it is not surprising. That they were voted into office with not one real connection to education–and with no knowledge of sunshine laws or legal proceedings–is totally our fault.

  6. This school board is sort of like that bullsh!t “Stand for the Constitution” nonsense. It’s very disingenuous to call it “Stand for the Constitution.” What they should call it is “Stand for the very specific parts if the Constitution we like.” This board is certainly poised to mortify Mesa County. You can expect grift, off the record meetings, book banning, censorship, and theocracy–all in the name of “patriotism” or “freedom.” You’re about to get what you paid for, Mesa county voters. Wearing a trump hat and fellating the flag does not a patriot make.

  7. Somehow, some way, this entire bungled attempt reeks of Cindy “Forgot To Pay My Filing Fee” Ficklin. You can bet she’s behind all of this. I’ll bet she dropped out of the district 55 race in the hopes that those three conservatives will nominate her for superintendent when serco retires in the summer. She has the chipmunk cheeks and massive incompetence of Tina Peters and none of the charisma.

  8. It’s so funny. The community will have a fit when teachers teach a book about being a civilized human being, but when the school board quadruples the budget for legal counsel and ships all of the money to the front range, nobody says a mumbling word. This isn’t about righteousness it’s about legality. This school board broke the law. They should be removed immediately.

  9. I’m wondering how long until someone proves a quid pro quo. I’ll bet that law firm made campaign donations to Lima/Jones/Haitz in exchange for getting signed on as legal council for the district. This was no “mandate.” The new board barely won, and now they’re going to try to turn D51 into a private, for profit, religious charter school. Matter of time. They’ll let Sirko retire, buy out Hills contract, and install Cindy Ficklin as superintendent.

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