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Four school board candidates, one vacant seat, and a school board president who made the pick on her own.
These are the main ingredients of a legal conflict brewing in the Pueblo 70 school district, where a divided board has faced months of simmering tension over the district’s role in the opening of a “public Christian school” called Riverstone Academy.
There’s no lawsuit yet. But a lawyer representing the three school board candidates who were passed over for the vacant seat has suggested it’s possible. Board President Ann Bennett appointed Susie Carnes, who has links to the group that operates Riverstone, to the open seat in February.
In a Tuesday email, attorney Eric Maxfield told Pueblo 70’s lawyer that his clients’ next steps could include “litigation in state district court” over violations of Colorado’s open meetings law. His clients are Jonathan Lewis, Adolph Vigil, and Tara Stroesenreuther.
With district superintendent Ronda Rein preparing to retire, the legal outcome of the board seat dispute could mean a shift to a less conservative school board majority and change the direction of the 12,000-student district. In addition to hiring a new superintendent this summer, the board could decide whether to keep or replace the school district’s law firm, which is headed by attorney Brad Miller.
Miller has been at the center of controversy in recent months. He helped create Riverstone last summer at the behest of a conservative Arizona-based law firm seeking a test case on the question of public funding for religious schools, emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate. The Pueblo 70 school board voted to allow Riverstone, which is authorized by a public education co-op, to locate within the district’s boundaries.
In an email exchange with Maxfield on Tuesday, Miller pushed back against Maxfield’s assertion that Bennett broke state law by appointing Carnes to the vacant seat.
“I am disappointed that you would feign to believe that her appointment was in error,” Miller wrote, according to a copy of the email provided by Maxfield to Chalkbeat.
The board seat came open after a former board member, Anne Ochs, resigned in December after a district parent criticized her for hiding key facts about Riverstone’s creation and failing to disclose a conflict of interest.
Four candidates applied to fill the vacancy, but the board deadlocked with repeated 2-2 ties at its Feb. 10 meeting. Then Board Vice President AJ Wilson fell ill and was helped out of the room. That left three board members and the possibility that one of the candidates could be appointed in a 2-1 vote.
But Bennett, who had sided with Wilson in the vacancy votes, never returned from the 10-minute recess she’d called or adjourned the meeting. Six days later, she announced that she’d appointed Carnes to the vacant seat.
Under Colorado law, school board presidents can appoint a new member if the board can’t agree on a candidate after 60 days.
Carnes was sworn in by Bennett on Feb. 25, in what Maxfield characterized in his letter as an “unannounced non-public ceremony.”
As of last month, Carnes was listed as an elementary teacher at a school run by Forging Education, a Christian group that also runs Riverstone. Her appointment means that three of the five Pueblo 70 school board members — a majority — have had connections to Forging Education.
In a 10-page letter sent to the Pueblo 70 school board on March 4, Maxfield alleged that Bennett circumvented Colorado’s open meetings law when she abruptly “fled” that February school board meeting and later made the vacancy appointment “unilaterally.”
He argued that Bennett’s sudden departure on Feb. 10 was meant to prevent the public from witnessing the selection of a new board member in an open public meeting that had been noticed in advance.
“Notwithstanding the tragic hardship to Vice President Wilson, after his departure the Board maintained quorum, the business was not concluded, and such business was urgent, under a statutory deadline,” Maxfield said.
Quorum refers to the minimum number of members needed for a public body to take votes on public business. For a five-member board, quorum requires three board members to be present.
Maxfield asked for 11 remedies in his letter, including that the appointment of Carnes be invalidated and that the board re-do the selection process. (Maxfield referred to Carnes as the “Director-in-Error.”) He also asked that an outside lawyer conduct a “comprehensive governance and conflict-of-interest review.”
Miller rebuffed those requests in his Tuesday email to Maxfield and said Carnes’ appointment was “properly completed.”.
“The political interplay was anything but smooth and I can agree that it always would be optimal if a majority of the remaining directors could agree on an appointee,” Miller wrote. “However, the tie breaking mechanism is clearly set forth in Colorado statute.”
Bennett did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment about the alleged violation.
It’s not clear when Maxfield’s three clients will decide whether to file a lawsuit over the alleged open meetings violations. Miller indicated in his Tuesday response to Maxfield that he will discuss the matter with the Pueblo 70 school board on March 17 and will follow up with Maxfield afterwards.
Maxfield and Miller’s firm have faced off in recent years in other cases about transparency.
In February, a Woodland Park mother who is a client of Maxfield emerged victorious after a district court judge ordered the Woodland Park school district to pay her more than $144,000 in legal costs after she successfully showed the district violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law. Miller’s firm represented the school district in that case.
Maxfield told Miller in their Tuesday email exchange that if his three clients decide to sue, they’ll “seek payment by the Board of their reasonable attorney fees and costs.”
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
