Endorsement: Prop. 104 will open the smoke-filled room

From The Gazette (Colorado Springs): The public’s business should not be conducted in private, behind closed doors. Sometimes it is, and Proposition 104 would fix a big part of the problem. It deserves to win in a landslide.

Quite simply, the measure would strengthen Colorado’s relatively weak open meetings laws to include collective bargaining meetings between school boards and teachers unions. About 85 percent of a school district’s spending gets determined in these meetings. The contracts that result from these closed-door meetings have significant implications regarding the conditions under which students learn.

In Colorado, 80 percent of public schools hold binding negotiations with school boards. Nearly all do so in secret. It’s not good for teachers, students or taxpayers. It mostly makes life easier for union leaders and their lawyers, who don’t enjoy the burden of public scrutiny.

The battle raged locally three years ago, when the Colorado Springs Education Association fought the District 11 school board’s efforts to open negotiations for the benefit of the public, students and teachers. Open process prevailed only after heated meetings, a lawsuit, pickets in the parking lot and a groundswell of public pressure in support of the board’s transparency plan.

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