Editorial: School board should act within the spirit of the open meetings law

South Platte Sentinel: We would remind the RE-1 Valley Board of Education that, when it comes to taxpayer-financed institutions, it often isn’t enough to obey the letter of the law; it is the spirit of the law that is just as important.

The school board apparently has taken a somewhat cavalier attitude toward the spirit of Colorado’s Open Meetings Law, sometimes referred to as the Sunshine Law. The board has made a habit of calling “special meetings,” and it was at one of those meetings – of which we received no notice whatsoever – that the board fired its top executive, apparently without cause.

The Sunshine Law requires that, among other things, a tax-supported entity’s governing body must appoint and publicize a time and place of its meetings at which business will be conducted, and post timely public notices of those meetings. We don’t mean to suggest that the school board has violated the law – technically, it hasn’t – but we would say it hasn’t entirely acted within the spirit of the law.

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