The Douglas County School District has spent more than $185,000 – and counting – defending board members against a lawsuit stemming from the firing of former Superintendent Corey Wise, The Denver Gazette has learned.

The true costs are likely more.

That’s because the tally does not include any expenses incurred over the last three weeks. And it doesn’t include the roughly $94,000 state Rep. Bob Marshall, who brought the lawsuit, has spent in attorney fees.

This puts the cost at nearly $300,000, district invoices show.

“They were caught dead to rights with their hand in the cookie jar,” said Marshall, a Douglas County resident.

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Marshall brought the lawsuit in February 2022, alleging the board’s conservative majority – President Mike Peterson and members Christy Williams, Becky Myers and Kaylee Winegar – violated the Colorado Open Meeting Law when conducting a series of one-on-one conversations to privately discuss ousting Wise.

District Court Judge Jeffrey Holmes ruled Friday that the board’s four conservative members did violate the law, which requires an open meeting when three or more members discuss public business.

Marshall tried to settle the suit.

But in a split vote on May 9, the school board rejected a settlement that would have required the board to acknowledge they violated the law. The rejected settlement also required the district to pay Marshall’s legal fees, which at the time amounted to $66,000.

The costs to the district – $280,000 and mounting – were not contained because of an incoherent legal strategy to fight the suit at every step, Marshall said.

“The whole thing cost twice as much because they were fighting over dumb stuff,” he said.

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Having lost the suit, the district is on the hook for Marshall’s legal costs.

Peterson declined to comment on the use of taxpayer money to defend the board’s illegal action.

The Denver Gazette received the district’s legal invoices after filing a request under the Colorado Open Records Act on May 24. The expenses at that time tallied $186,099.77 for legal services provided by two law firms: Hall & Evans and Gessler Blue.

While Peterson did not respond to a request for comment by the Denver Gazette, he sent out the following statement Saturday morning, according to news partners 9News.

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“As one Director and an individual defendant, I am glad to move forward and put the termination of the former superintendent in the past. I believe the court was accurate when the judge’s order stated ‘While the Individual Defendants believed their behavior did not violate COML (Colorado Open Meeting Law), it does not appear they were purposefully acting in an unlawful manner. They did not blatantly violate the statute.’ … I believe the court was right to dismiss the claim to declare the termination of the former superintendent null and void and in the decision to not impose an injunction against the Board, as we will simply rely on existing COML going forward.”

Some Douglas County residents are saying he should apologize.

“The politics have cost our district hundreds of thousands of dollars and taxpayers need to be aware of it,” said Tiffany Baker, a parent with two students in the district.

Baker added: “I really feel like the partisan four owe the public an apology and need to stop the wasteful spending.”