WEEK OF JUNE 15, 2023
VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 17
FREE
School board members testify at trial, verdict expected this week BY MCKENNA HARFORD MHARFORD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
value should be lower. And for Douglas County, “it’s the highest percentage of appeals in recent history,” said Damisch, the county assessor. As of early June, his office had received about 28,000 appeals, but Damisch expects the number to total more than 30,000, as the deadline has passed but filings still trickle in by mail.
Following a four-hour trial on Monday, a judge will decide if four Douglas County school board members broke Colorado Open Meetings Law when they fired former Superintendent Corey Wise last year. Douglas County District Court Judge Jeffrey Holmes listened to arguments over whether board President Mike Peterson and board members Becky Myers, Kaylee Winegar, and Christy Williams violated the law when they participated in a series of one-on-one conversations to discuss a plan to terminate Wise. In March last year, Holmes already ruled against the majority members of the school board, saying the conversations held outside public view do violate open meeting laws. The majority school board members did not want to admit fault, choosing to appeal the initial ruling and rejecting a settlement. After school district attorneys missed the filing deadline for a jury trial, Holmes will again rule on the case brought to the courts through a lawsuit filed by State Rep. Robert Marshall, DHighlands Ranch. Marshall is asking Holmes to find the board broke the law, prohibit future serial conversations on public business, and declare the decision to terminate Wise was invalid. Wise was fired without cause in a 4-3 vote on Feb. 4, 2022. Myers, Peterson, Winegar and Williams said they didn’t support the direction Wise was taking the district, including enforcing a mask mandate and implementing the district’s equity policy. Prior to the board meeting, Peterson and Williams met with Wise on Jan. 28, 2022, telling him they had a four-vote majority and asking him to resign. On Monday, Geoff Blue, an attorney for Peterson, Myers, Williams and Winegar, argued
SEE TAXES, P5
SEE SCHOOL BOARD, P4
Homeowners are appealing Douglas County’s property valuations in record numbers.
SHUTTERSTOCK
Douglas County assessor processing record number of appeals BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Homeowners around the Denver metro area checked a notice from their county assessors this spring and saw that their home value — as calculated for property tax purposes — had jumped by shocking amounts. Driven by a costly real-estate market, those home values have spiked since the last time
homeowners received notices of value two years ago. In Douglas County, residential properties saw increases between 30% and 60%, with a median of 47%. Property owners in Douglas County responded by filing the highest number of appeals the county has seen in history, according to Toby Damisch, who heads Douglas County’s property valuation office. In appeals, owners argue their property
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Big Talent! Small Venues! Great Setting! VOICES: 12 | LIFE: 14 | CALENDAR: 17
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