Colorado Rep. Don Wilson (R-Monument), attorney Brad Miller, and Monument Academy Board of Education President Ryan Graham discussed conservative
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/12/its-make-believe-colorado-gop-hears-from-authors-of-monument-academys-transgender-policy/58252/
Coming soon to Woodland Park?
Groups call for criminal investigation into El Paso County schools for ‘obscene’ books | KRDO
— Read on krdo.com/news/2023/11/28/groups-call-for-criminal-investigation-into-el-paso-county-schools-for-obscene-books/
The Ute Pass BOCES (no relation to ERBOCES) is hosting a parents academy for special education information next Wednesday, November 15th, from 6-7PM in the Ute Pass Cultural Center. With SO many special education job openings in the district, parents with special needs kids should try to attend this. There is a call-in option for those who can’t attend in person, either via Google Meet or phone at 402-971-0167 and PIN: 779 445 855#.
The Florida Department of Education has approved screening videos that deny the Earth’s changing climate to schoolchildren in the state,
— Read on www.thecooldown.com/green-business/prageru-climate-denial-videos-florida-school/
coming soon to Woodland Park?
Yesterday’s election was tense. Most of us went to bed thinking the last update of the evening was that the three challengers all had small leads over the incumbents. A late night update at 11:06 flipped that though, showing Mick Bates leading Seth Bryant by 43 votes (4,596 to 4,553) and Cassie Kimbrell leading Mike Knott by 55 votes (4,596 to 4,541). Keegan Barkley maintains her lead over David Illingworth (4,683 to 4,444), though that lead has shrunk to 239 votes (see full results here). Teller County says, on their website, that “all eligible ballots have been received and counted.”
Given the small margins, the next step will be to wait for any ballots to be cured (like if they’re rejected due to signature mismatch). Then, as I understand the law, an automatic recount is triggered if the gap is .5% or less (Seth meets that threshold, Mike does not).
It’s Election Day! In 2021, there were 7,233 votes cast for school board, out of 15,778 eligible to vote for that. I don’t know how many eligible voters are in the district this year but expect a similar number, and I expect higher turnout than 2021 (45.84%). But this is a sort of baseline, so as votes are announced starting at 7PM, you’ll have a sense of if most of the votes have been counted yet (nothing will be announced prior to 7PM).
Every 15 minutes after polls close, the Colorado Secretary of State’s website will be updating this file, assuming the county has provided new information. The SOS’ main election results page is here with additional links to statewide elections. Teller County’s election page is here, though already they’re not updating it with total votes counted (last update was Friday), so I think the Secretary of State’s website is likely to be the best source. Also note that Teller County’s website shows there are a total of 19,763 eligible voters – that’s in the entire county, but many of those do not live in the Woodland Park RE-2 school district (in 2021, there were 21,863 eligible voters, so 72% lived in RE-2).
The voting service center is open 7-7 today at the Woodland Park Library, for in person voting or ballot drop-off.
My name is Ben Honeycutt. I became a teacher because I was driven to be someone who could be there every day for my students. I taught at Woodland Park Middle School (WPMS) for five years.
— Read on benhoneycutt.com/journals/on-the-eve-of-election-day
After being steered towards mediation by a judge overseeing the lawsuit between the WPEA and the WPSD (the judge said that portions of the policy “do have problems”, policy KDDA has been revised, and you can read the full document here. This revised policy no longer takes away teachers’ right to talk to the press about district decisions (read more about the previous policy here). It’s sad it took a lawsuit to get the district to respect their First Amendment rights to free speech, but at least in the end, those rights were preserved.
I think we’ve all received a few pieces of mail by now advertising for the incumbents…you’ll note those have been paid for by an independent expenditure (IE) committee called ‘Citizens for a Vibrant Woodland Park’. Who are they? Let’s follow the money.
The only reported donor to this group is the Western Prosperity Alliance, a Colorado non-profit formed on 6/7/2023 by Scott Gessler. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the district hired Gessler on March 27th to be another of its lawyers. Let that sink in for a minute…a Woodland Park school district attorney filed articles of incorporation for a company used to funnel money into an IE committee established to support the incumbents.
What sort of support did Western Prosperity Alliance provide? On 10/3, they provided $5,450 in ‘legal fees for Citizens for a Vibrant Woodland Park’, and also on that date paid $5,000 in ‘research and consulting fees to Bullhorn Communications‘, a Nebraska advertising firm. Finally, on 10/3, Western Prosperity Alliance donated $22,500 to Citizens for a Vibrant Woodland Park. Western Prosperity Alliance has not reported donations to any other political groups, they have only reported donations to Citizens for a Vibrant Woodland Park. Their current registered agent is “CT Corporation”; before that it was Thomas Bearden.
What can we learn about Citizens for a Vibrant Woodland Park? So far, not much. Their mailing address in Colorado Springs is shared by a couple organizations, the Colorado Liberty Alliance and also The Winter Night Club. William (Bill) Baber is the registered agent for this group; he appears to be an attorney.
Citizens For a Vibrant Woodland Park reported an expense of $3,944.65 on 10/18 for a direct mailing, followed by an expense of $4,522.96 for another direct mailing. Their next mandatory campaign finance filing is due tomorrow, October 30th.
So in summary, we don’t know much about who’s calling the shots with this group, just that one of our district’s attorneys helped start up the entity that is financing it.