School Board Sues City Council Over Emergency Meeting
Trevor Phipps
The infamous Woodland Park fight between their city council and the school board has recently reached a new round of angst and community concern, following the filing of another lawsuit.
The school board is now suing the city council over claims that WP leaders violated Colorado Open Meetings Laws during the emergency meeting they called to remove a voter-approved 1.09 percent sales tax increase, aimed at supporting the school district.
Fights between these two entities aren’t unusual. The school board and city council have continually battled regarding the RE-2 related city sales tax hike, okayed originally in 2016 and later reaffirmed in the Nov. 2024 election. Proponents of the tax have said that taking away this levy will seriously hurt the students and staff of the school district.
However, members of the city council have claimed that the school board was not being transparent about how they were spending the $3 million-plus a year given to them from the city from their collection of the sales tax. The issue came to a peak when a leaked school board agenda showed an “action” item to sell the former middle school building to the Merit Academy charter school. This action enraged city leaders as it suddenly followed a decision by the council to not proceed with an ordinance that would kill the tax. One of the reported problems with this levy is that it never had an ending date.
On March 6, a public hearing to remove the sales tax occurred, with the council voting to keep the tax in place. But then after council members learned that the school district was trying to use the sales tax increase to purchase the building for Merit Academy, they quickly called for an emergency meeting at 10:30 a.m. on March 10, only several days after the original public hearing.
As soon as the emergency meeting started, the council adjourned to go into an executive session to consult their attorney. A little more than a half hour later, the council deliberated and heard public comment on the issue.
After public comment was heard, the council then voted unanimously to immediately repeal the 1.09 percent sales tax increase for the school district. Since it was an emergency ordinance, a unanimous vote was needed to immediately lower the city’s sales tax by 1.09 percent. This action successfully occurred, as the council indicated the city isn’t the proper entity to collect this levy and the district needed to devise its own tax. Public comment on the issue was heavily split.
But then on March 18, the lawsuit was filed. The school district claims that the council violated open meetings laws when they went into executive session. More specifically, the district claims that the city council didn’t specify exactly what would be discussed during the executive session.
According to Mick Bates, president of the RE-2 School Board, the lawsuit occurred following special meeting to pass an emergency ordinance, resulting in the sudden axing of the tax. Bates told local news outlets that the purpose of the lawsuit was to demonstrate to district leaders how and why the council came to that decision so quickly. Most school board leaders view this decision as over-reactive and disturbing, and as a way to punish the RE-2 board.
Overall, the district wants the court to issue a judgment declaring that the council violated the school district’s rights guaranteed to them by Colorado’s Open Meetings Laws. The district also wants the judge to retroactively declare the executive session a public meeting, so that the district can know exactly what was discussed behind closed doors. In addition, the district is asking the judge to issue an order to ensure that the council properly discloses what will be discussed during executive sessions in the future.
Former Lawsuit Threats
The news of the district filing a lawsuit against the city council didn’t come as a surprise to many government observers. In fact, over the past few months when the idea of taking away the tax came up during city council meetings, the school district’s attorney, Brad Miller, sent an e-mail to the city’s lead attorney threatening to sue WP if the council tried to take away the sales tax increase.
Miller noted that because the sales tax was approved by voters in 2016, and that the measure to remove it failed at the ballot box last November, the council didn’t have the legal authority to remove the tax. He cited the intergovernmental agreement between the city and the school district. However, City Attorney Geoff Wilson argued that since the tax is collected by the city, they had full legislative authority to take the tax away and lower the city’s sales tax. He also mentioned Woodland Park’s powers in dealing with tax issues under its designation as a home-rule city.
In the end, a court judge will mostly likely decide the fate of this issue. But regardless of the conclusion of the current lawsuit, this legal battle probably won’t be coming to a conclusion anytime soon.
The school board president has recently said that there could be more litigation coming down the road. Overall, the district wants answers as to how and why the sales tax was removed so abruptly.
And in an unrelated announcement, a new task force, organized by Tony Perry, president of Park State Bank & Trust, has been formed to help deal with funding, communication and management woes within the RE-2 District. The group is called the WPSDForward task force(see related press release). Perry was part of a group of community leaders that rallied behind efforts to repeal a previous city proposed ordinance, aimed at killing the tax. The campaign was supported overwhelmingly by the voters. But with the city’s latest action, this tally was rescinded.
