WEEK OF AUGUST 10, 2023
VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 37
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Thomas opposes water board formation, process BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
questing a jury trial to determine damages owed. “Indeed, in a glaring act of callousness, the School District and Board of Education have yet to take formal action in their entity capacities, and many individual Board Members have yet to condemn these well-documented injustices,” the complaint says. “The indifference of School District leaders explains how such levels of hate and racism were permitted to fester.” In April, Ganzy and her son reported a group chat of more than 100 Castle Rock Middle School students where some allegedly used the n-word, threatened to shoot Black people, shared racist memes and spoke about bringing back the Holocaust. Ganzy’s daughter, who was
With Douglas County’s population expected to keep growing — and many homes relying on a limited supply of water from underground aquifers — the question of how to shore up water supply in the county hangs over the area’s water providers. Now, the county government wants to get more involved in addressing that question. But one of the county’s three elected leaders doesn’t support going down that path. However, with two voices outweighing the dissenter, the county has put out a call for Douglas County residents to apply to serve on a new entity called the county Water Commission. That body is expected to create a plan regarding water supply and conservation, among other aspects of water in the county. When Commissioner Abe Laydon voiced support for creating a water commission, his colleague, George Teal, agreed. “The people of Douglas County do care about water resources, and they want their county commissioners involved,” Teal told Colorado Community Media. Commissioner Lora Thomas opposes forming a water commission, calling it “totally unnecessary, a waste of time and effort and money.” “You don’t do a water commission that’s going to be no cost,” Thomas said. The forming of the new body comes against the backdrop of a controversial proposal to pump about 22,000 acrefeet of water per year to Douglas County from the San Luis Valley, a region of Southern Colorado. (An acre-foot is the equivalent of a one-foot-deep pool about the size of a football field.) Renewable Water Resources is the private company that proposed the project. Last year, Laydon joined Thomas in deciding not to move forward with that project while Teal continues to support it. “Everything’s on the table as far as I’m concerned,” Teal said in early August. “We get another five or six years of rainy summers, OK, maybe then we can start to be picky and choosy.”
SEE SCHOOLS, P6
SEE WATER, P10
Around 50 students, parents and community members gathered outside the Douglas County School District building on May PHOTO BY MCKENNA HARFORD 23 to protest the district’s response to reports of discrimination.
Families sue Douglas County schools over bias response Legal filing alleges discrimination, inaction BY MCKENNA HARFORD MHARFORD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Three families are suing the Douglas County School District over its response to a pattern of what is being described as racial abuse at Castle Rock Middle School and Douglas County High School. Filed Aug. 2 in the U.S. District Court for Colorado, the complaint alleges numerous students and staff at the schools targeted four Black or biracial students with harassment, racial slurs and threats, depriving them of equal access to education. Parents of the students filed the complaint. The complaint de-
scribes experiences of the children of Lacey Ganzy, Jon and Misty Martin, and Nadarian and Alexis Clark. It lists Douglas County School District, the school board and Castle Rock Middle School Principal John Viet as defendants. The children are not named in the lawsuit to protect their privacy. The complaint argues that the racial harassment of the students is a consequence of a district culture that doesn’t value educational equity, specifically alleging School Board President Mike Peterson and board members Kaylee Winegar, Becky Myers and Christy Williams contributed to that culture. The complaint says the district violated the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment by denying equal educational opportunities to the students involved. Instead of a specified amount in the lawsuit, the families are re-
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