The legal team representing the Douglas County school board and its four leaders urged a judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the board broke open meeting laws, describing the opposition’s accusations of ethics violations as baffling.

Attorneys representing the board had asked Douglas County District Judge Jeffrey Holmes to dismiss the lawsuit brought by county resident Robert Marshall, who accused the board of breaking the law in the run-up to firing then-Superintendent Corey Wise.

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Marshall and his attorney, Steve Zansberg, responded by, among other things, accusing their opposition of misrepresenting their position and of not informing Holmes of alleged false statements made by board members when they testified in front of Holmes last month.

Zansberg had asked Holmes to consider whether the board’s legal team had violated their ethical duties. In their response, in which they reiterated that the case should be dismissed, the board’s lawyers called that allegation baffling and cavalier.

At issue is whether the board’s four leaders – who are all named in the lawsuit – broke the state’s open meeting law by discussing Wise’s future privately among themselves in one-on-one conversations. Marshall and Zansberg contend that those conversations were linked, happened outside of the public view and ultimately led to the board’s four new members voting to dismiss Wise.

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The board and its lawyers disagree, and they wrote that they stood by their previous actions, which they asserted were taken and argued in good faith. In their filing Tuesday, the legal team noted that no legal precedent has been set in Colorado establishing that their clients’ communications ran afoul of the law and that, as defined by Colorado law, the one-on-one conversations were permissible. They alluded to Zansberg quoting from a recorded conversation between two board members – which Zansberg argued was evidence that the board had effectively broken the law – as Zansberg and Marshall attempting to “round-hole a square peg.” 

Zansberg and Marshall both declined to comment Wednesday. Matthew Hegarty, one of the board’s attorneys, did not return a previous request for comment about the ethics allegations.

The suit seeks to have the communications declared illegal; for Holmes to order those sorts of communications be stopped; and that Wise effectively be reinstated. Holmes has already ordered the board to stop communicating in the manner its leaders did in the run-up to Wise’s firing. Wise, who is considering his own suit against his former employer, has been hired on a temporary basis by Jefferson County Public Schools, which the board’s attorneys argue makes much of Marshall’s suit moot.

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The board’s lawyers also asked Holmes to narrow the suit to be against only the board; currently, the board and its four leaders – Mike Peterson, Christy Williams, Kaylee Winegar and Becky Myers – are also named as defendants.

Their attorneys seek to have them dismissed from the suit, arguing that including them is redundant. The other three members of the board not named in the suit have expressed concern about their four leaders being represented by the same attorneys who represent the board as a whole. 

The board and its attorneys are considering appealing Holmes’ order restricting their communications.