It was calm on the plains Thursday night as the Ellicott School District 22 board met — with three El Paso County sheriff’s deputies on hand, just in case.
The meeting was packed, and extra chairs had to be set up to accommodate the more than 100 people who showed up. But the polite audience was far different from one a week earlier at a special board meeting when some jumped on chairs, stamped their feet and called female board members vulgar names.
It wasn’t all roses, though. A couple of speakers, including recalled former board member Gary Lake, made critical comments and asked that answers to lists of questions they presented be posted on the district website. Their remarks drew polite applause.
That the speakers were able to sign up at the meeting and speak moments later was a dramatic change. It was the first time in about a year that onlookers could address the board without signing up two days in advance.
The new board ended that old policy last week. Some had vowed to take that action when they ran for the board and pledged to restore the community’s voice. The restrictive policy was put in place when former board members were under fire and said they needed time to get answers through the administration.
The rural district east of Colorado Springs has been in turmoil for several years, with two recall efforts.
On Thursday, just four people spoke during public comments.
Lake and Johnny Adams criticized the board’s decision to vote against renewing the superintendent’s contract while it draws up a new one, and its move to hire a new attorney.
Those were the issued that spawned the ruckus a week earlier.
“Enough is enough,” Adams said. “I’ve seen board members dressing down our superintendent in a meeting. And that’s not right.”
He presented a list of questions about the hiring of a new attorney and asked that the answers be posted on the district website.
Lake also raised the attorney issue, and reiterated that he believes a board members had an illegal meeting in December at a Colorado Association of School Board meeting.
“My observation is that this board is not about kids,” Lake said.
The uproar about previous actions was all a misunderstanding, board members said, and they passed out information about those issues as people came into Thursday’s meeting.
On the contract for Superintendent Terry Ebert, the board decided to draw up a new agreement to better protect the interests of both sides, board President Ernest Hudson said in an interview before the meeting. The action to not renew Ebert’s old contract was not a firing, he said.
Hudson said the board announced in a November meeting that board members would attend the CASB convention in early December and also posted it on the district website. No business was conducted, but board members spoke with other attendees about legal representation and were given the names of several, including Chapman and Ernest, a Denver law firm that represents most school districts in Colorado.
In January, Chapman and Ernest said that they would stop by to get acquainted on the way to another meeting in Pueblo. They did so. And the board voted 3 to 2 to have them represent the district, along with another firm.
“We went into executive session with them to discuss legal matters,” Hudson said.
In other action Thursday, the board chose a district representative for the new middle school building project. District voters passed a $2.3 million bond to build a new middle school with state matching construction money.
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