Have you ever been showered with money? So much money it could buy an election? Especially a school board election that a couple of decades ago went for a few thousands spread across seven or eight candidates. This Denver school board election now runs just under $2 million. Who has that kind of money to pitch their dubious claims and hidden agendas?

Let’s name a few of the money men. These fellows support the three candidates chosen by Denver Families Action (DFA): Kimberlee Sia, John Youngquist and Marlene Delarosa. Their donations tell volumes about who the “families” are underwriting Better Leaders, Stronger Schools (BL,SS), the independent expenditure committee of DFA.

Kent Thiry, multi-millionaire and former CEO of DaVita, the dialysis company, has pitched in $250,000. Earlier, he threw down $450,000 for Denver Mayor Michael Johnston’s campaign. Johnston, no surprise, endorsed the DFA- and Thiry-supported board candidates in a television ad. Have you ever seen a TV ad for school board candidates before? The ad buy was $250,000. How predictable is that?

Thiry claims he’s “helped shape public policy so more Americans are included within the democratic process.” Remember, he spent hundreds of thousands in support of a constitutional amendment to make it harder to amend Colorado’s Constitution. Apparently that counts as democratizing Colorado.

Thiry joined Mark Frank of Sondermind who tossed $20,000 to BL,SS. Sondermind is an online platform to provide mental health care, as in “the right mental health care with the right person, for you.” They take insurance.

Benson Mineral Group, founded by Bruce Benson, former University of Colorado president and funder of the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization that hired Trump co-defendant John Eastman as its visiting conservative scholar, also placed $20,000 with BL,SS.

Stay up to speed: Sign-up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

James Retchtin pitched in $15,000. He’s chief executive of Envision, a health care provider, and former senior vice president at DaVita, the dialysis company formerly run by Kent Thiry.

David Scanavino appears to be the chief medical officer at Rialtic in Denver, though the secretary of state disclosure identifies him as a self-employed entrepreneur. He’s put $10,000 into BL,SS. He is also a founder and former member of the board of the University Prep K-5 charter schools in Denver that market to low-income minority children. University Prep Arapahoe has a 96% minority student body and University Prep Steele has a 94% minority student body. Some argue this type of charter school marketing is re-segregating our public schools. These are the charters that have aggressively tried to move into Adams 14 school district, including paying for car rides for Adams 14 students into Denver. Currently, Kimberlee Sia, a DFA-supported board candidate, is on University Prep’s board and was formerly Colorado CEO of Kipp charter schools.

A cohort of men has put another $10,000 each into BL,SS. Michael Fries is CEO of Liberty Global, the company of cable magnate John Malone who pitched in a huge donation to Denver Schools of Science and Technology along with Bill Gates to launch that charter enterprise. Colorado developer Patrick Hamill at Oakwood Homes, a Berkshire Hathaway Company where “your home journey starts here,” added $10,000. Oakwood is a leading developer in Green Valley Ranch with its numerous Denver charter schools. Rallyday Partners, with Mark Hopkins as co-founder and managing partner, gave another $10,000. Hopkins started his career as a founder of Peak Industries, a medical device contract manufacturer of dialysis machines.

These contributions are only the whipped cream on top of the pumpkin pie. Denver Families Action, the organization that apparently accepts donations from only the wealthiest Denver families, has tossed $675,000 dark-money dollars into the school board campaign. It received $1.75 million from Campaign for Great Public Schools, the speciously-named political action arm of Reed Hastings, Netflix founder who has built an education reform conference center in our very own Park County. According to news magazine Vox, Hastings will have “an outsized voice in one of America’s most fraught public policy debates.” It’s an outsized voice he pays for.

Add up the accounted-for and dark-money dollars for the BL,SS campaign supporting Sia, Youngquist and Delarosa and you could almost run for president. The Colorado Education Association can’t come close to this amount sprung out of the pockets of Denver’s leading Denver Family Action men.

Heather Lamm, daughter of Dick and Dottie Lamm and former executive at Denver Schools of Science and Technology, asserted last week there’s no “effing” way this school board election is about anything more than school safety and security. She leads Resign Denver, the initiative to dump every member of the current DPS board. Seriously, according to Lamm, there’s no “effing” way this DPS election is about charter schools, vouchers and privatizing public education.

Let’s get those Denver Family Action men to swear on a sacred text that Lamm is correct. Others believe their objective is to defeat current DPS Board members Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay to protect their policies that will dismantle public schools. As for Baldermann’s and Lindsay’s co-candidate, Kwame Spearman, these family men have besmirched his personal character with their Better Leaders, Stronger Schools denigration of Spearman’s character, calling him a bully. Since when are low, personal attacks acceptable in a school board campaign?

Who’s bullying whom is what Denver voters must ask themselves as they mark their ballots for one of the most important elections in DPS’s history.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.