JeffCo school board decision draws questions re:transparency

Not to bring partisanship into this, but I'm pretty sure that if a liberal majority had done this, there would be outraged screaming from the right at the lack of transparency and possible illegality of it, not to mention the cost to the taxpayers. I'm concerned because there aren't many official news stories on it (so much for the "liberal media" ). I'm going to do my best to attend the next school board meeting on Jan 16th. If you can't make it, but would like to follow along, they tweet updates live during the meeting ‏@JeffcoSchoolsCo: https://twitter.com/JeffcoSchoolsCo .

JeffCo school board decision draws questions about transparency
By Zahira Torres
12/17/13

The Jefferson County school board's new majority may have skirted a law that requires them to conduct business openly by hiring an attorney without a public interview process, according to an open-government expert.

Thomas Kelley, a lawyer for the Colorado Press Association and The Denver Post, said the board's 3-2 decision last week to hire Colorado Springs-based law firm Miller Sparks LLC may have violated the state's open-meetings act, which requires board members to conduct business in public.

"It's not all that common for a board of a public entity to, by itself, conduct interviews, but when they do, at least when it doesn't involve interviews for a personnel position, they have to do those interviews in public," Kelley said.

Led by board president Ken Witt, the majority hired Miller Sparks to represent the school board without seeking proposals for the contract, publicly vetting the candidates or getting cost estimates. Witt and board members Julie Williams and John Newkirk — who were elected in November on a conservative platform — did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The school district already has an attorney, but the new board members wanted their own representation. Board members Lesley Dahlkemper and Jill Fellman said they were not against considering the idea but believed the process lacked transparency.

Read more: JeffCo school board decision draws questions about transparency - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_24744 ... z2oc8qBFnY
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Opinions:
Your Voice: Jeffco school board less than transparent
Posted by Michele Patterson on December 18, 2013

Jeffco PTA believes in and advocates for both transparency and fiscal responsibility, good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, when it comes to decisions impacting our children and schools so we were shocked and appalled by what transpired at the Jeffco Board of Education meeting on December 12. Although we saw some good dialogue exchanges and collaborative decision making from the Board as a whole that evening, our three new board members made a gross error when they voted to hire an attorney – separate from the district’s representation – to represent them without discussing the cost to taxpayers or where the money for this attorney would come from, and without a formal RFP process.

Equally troubling, our three newly elected board members had already conducted interviews and chosen the attorney they would hire without involving fellow board members Lesley Dahlkemper and Jill Fellman.

Is this what we are now to expect in Jefferson County? The actions of our board on December 12 don’t bode well for transparency or fiscal responsibility. ...Given this, we must wonder what our new board is planning – what, exactly, do they need an attorney so urgently for?

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Next School Board Meeting: January 16 at 6:30 pm
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More Questions (and Ducking) on New Jeffco School Board
by: Colorado Pols Wed December 18, 2013

Following up on a story that first appeared here at Colorado Pols (and Jeffco Pols), Zahira Torres of the Denver Post digs into the strange goings-on among the three new members of the Jefferson County School Board:

- See more at: http://coloradopols.com/diary/52658/mor ... Oy1s3.dpuf

Caldwell: Jeffco school board didn't take long to raise eyebrows
By Alicia Caldwell
The Denver Post
12/17/13

Just a few weeks after being sworn in, the new conservative majority on the Jefferson County school board has already caused a stir, and not in a good way.

The board majority is suspected of running roughshod over Colorado's open meetings laws when it hired a board attorney out of the blue at a meeting last week.

The bizarre part of the whole scenario is that Ken Witt, Julie Williams and John Newkirk have the votes, quite frankly, to do what they want.

Yet that is what some — including at least one fellow board member — think happened Thursday when the trio quickly voted to approve the hiring of Brad Miller, a charter school advocate, to represent the board.

"We haven't even talked about the price," protested Lesley Dahlkemper as the majority pushed ahead with the vote, leaving her and Jill Fellman to vote against the idea.

There is so much that is odd about how the events went down, it's tough to know where to begin.

Read more: Caldwell: Jeffco school board didn't take long to raise eyebrows - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/caldwell/ci_2 ... z2oc3UQTFI
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