The Denver school board on Thursday, October 8, censured Director Monica Hunter for allegedly making anti-Semitic statements about a fellow board member.
The censure followed a quick investigation by an outside party, and while the findings of the investigation were inconclusive, the board decided on a 4-2 vote that there was enough evidence to merit the censure. Potential conflicts of interest with Hunter’s employment also contributed to the decision to censure her. Read the report here.
One notable issue discussed n this episode is Superintendent Alex Marrero’s statement to the investigator that “it is not his role to file complaints against board members. That rests solely with the board.” Contrast that statement wit the opening lines in this letter he wrote to the board in April 2025: “I am writing to formally raise grave and ongoing concerns about Board Member John Youngquist’s behavior, which I believe has crossed a threshold of acceptable conduct and now constitutes a serious threat to the health, functionality, and integrity of our school district.”
This issue has consumed the school board and the people surrounding it for the past several weeks. The big question remaining is: with feelings bruised and relationships sundered, can board members now get back to work and have a constructive working relationship with each other, and Superintendent Alex Marrero and his team? Or does the board need a leadership shakeup to move ahead?
In this episode, co-hosts Alexis Menocal Harrigan and Alan Gottlieb discuss the issues.
Boardhawk Podcast season 2, Episode 26: Denver school board censures Director Monica Hunter. Now, get back to work.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Board Hawk Podcast. Alan and I are recording this on Thursday, October 8th, while the board meeting is still going. It’s about 8:45 in the evening. I couldn’t stay and watch the board meeting much longer. I was there for about three and a half hours. But we decided to do a quick podcast episode just to talk about the censure of Director Monica Hunter. We’ll get into the specifics here in just a moment, but the top line item is she was censured on a vote of four to two, with Director Hunter and Director Youngquist voting against the censure. It was what you would expect. It was a lot of emotion, people trying to defend their position, there being questions of the investigators, which we’ll get into in a second. But, yeah, today’s podcast will be just focused on this. There were other items on the [00:01:00] agenda, including the vacancy, including the consolidation of GP 18 and 19, which are the decisions around school closure and consolidation, and the redistricting boundaries. At one point, ’cause I was watching a little bit of it in my car, I heard something to the effect from Dr. Marrero of they will likely have to invoke the exemption to school consolidation. So there’s much more that Alan and I will cover in future podcast episodes, but for the purposes of this evening, we’re gonna keep it short. Let’s talk about the censure. So, Alan…
Alan Gottlieb: And then maybe put this issue behind us once and for all.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I hope we can put it behind us as well, and maybe that’s where we start. Many of the board members said that they wanted to put this behind them. I was surprised at one point at the end, because one of the looming questions over the investigation and others was about why did Xochitl wait so long to share this information? And she did actually apologize for her poor leadership [00:02:00] in waiting so long. Her statement was what a lot of us had guessed, and I think we’ve mentioned it on the podcast before, where she said something to the effect of, “I didn’t want to continue the dysfunction. I wanted us to try to resolve this. I wanted to try to kind of resolve this behind closed doors.” And then of course she, like, kind of blamed Monica at one point, saying, “Well, you didn’t respond to my emails. I don’t wanna put this in email ’cause it’s open records.” But she did apologize to Amy, which I thought was nice, and I think that is going to… That apology tells me that she knows she was wrong. So there should be some accountability for her as well.
Alan Gottlieb: What I pointedly did not hear was an apology from Monica Hunter to Amy, which I think is significant…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Correct.
Alan Gottlieb: …and worth talking about.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yep, I agree. I was thinking, should we start with the investigation? Or start with the investigator and the outside counsel who presented.
Alan Gottlieb: Ed Perlmutter and Denise Maes.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yep, Denise Maes. So, as a reminder to our listeners, the board hired outside counsel. The [00:03:00] outside counsel, my guess based on all this, is they’re the ones that recommended the investigator. The outside counsel is represented by a firm called Holland & Knight, and their lead attorney is the Honorable Ed Perlmutter. I’ve noticed that none of them called him the Honorable, and yet you have a lot of school board members insisting on being called the Honorable. But Ed Perlmutter, Congressman Perlmutter, was just Mr. Perlmutter. And so he was there with, oh, now shoot, I met her and she was a lovely woman, his number two. And then Denise Maes, who’s a longtime political figure and civil rights leader here in Colorado. She had previously served as general counsel to then Vice President Joe Biden. Worked after that at the GSA within the federal government. GSA is, I don’t know.
Alan Gottlieb: General Services Administration, I think.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Thank you. I appreciate that. And then in Colorado she worked as, I think, the head or vice president of public policy for the ACLU of Colorado.
Alan Gottlieb: That’s right.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And I’ve known her [00:04:00] for years and years, one, because she’s Rosemary Rodriguez’s, like, bestie, and she has two adorable little dogs that she’s always posting on Facebook. And then three, she is just a longtime Latina political leader who has advised many, many people in positions of power and is a brilliant attorney. So I’m very, very biased, but I think they hired an excellent investigator. Who also has a great sense of humor. So to see her in a very professional element was very jarring for me, but she did great. And she did present the findings. What was fascinating to me is the timing. So Alan, when did you get the report? Or when did you see the report?
Alan Gottlieb: I saw the Denver Post story, you know, while the board meeting was going on, I think.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Same. Several people texted me the CBS4 story and then the Denver Post story while I was sitting there in the meeting while they were doing public comment. And so most of us in the audience were reading it, and the funny part is the Honorable Mr. [00:05:00] Perlmutter was sitting behind me with Denise, and so we were just chatting for a little while before the board meeting. And so they could see my computer, and so they saw me reading their report, or Denise’s report, ’cause they were sitting right behind me. So, yeah, because the board didn’t have much notice, they actually took a 20-minute break to read the report, and during that time, the audience just kind of sat around, ’cause at that point we’d already read it. So then Denise went up and presented. Or, I’m sorry, the board read the report, they came back, and Monica and John started asking a series of questions.
Alan Gottlieb: John Youngquist.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Here’s something that actually Cody Austinson and I were chatting briefly about, and he made a good point, ’cause he was also in attendance, so during one of the breaks we were chatting. He’s like, “It should be as boring as watching C-SPAN.” Like, it shouldn’t be exciting. And I couldn’t agree more. But the fact that it is so interpersonal… I’ve been talking a lot, Alan. Do you wanna talk about some of the questions that were raised or some of the discussion before they brought legal counsel and Denise up? [00:06:00]
Alan Gottlieb: I just kinda feel like we don’t need to recap the whole thing in great detail for people who haven’t watched it. I think we should just, like, give our reactions.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yes.
Alan Gottlieb: Because otherwise we’ll be here for an hour, and I don’t wanna be up that long. But basically, what the investigation found was that it was a he said, she said… I knew this is what was gonna happen. It was a he said, she said, he said, because Denise didn’t have the time to interview anybody except Monica Hunter, Amy Kleinmolke, Alex Marrero, and Xochitl Gaitán. So that’s all she got around to interviewing. And there were probably some other people she should have interviewed and would have if she’d had more time.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And she said that in her report.
Alan Gottlieb: Exactly, yeah. Right. And my number one criticism here is actually, yes, we all wanna put this behind us and get on to other things, but if you’re going to do an investigation, don’t hamstring the investigator from the get-go by only giving her a week. So that was a mistake, in my opinion.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And that’s assuming they gave her a full week, because by the time the investigation started… Like, I don’t even know when they hired Denise.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah, I don’t [00:07:00] either, but it couldn’t have been very long ago. So there’s, I hope I can find this now, but there’s a couple things that really stood out to me that I just wanna talk about really quickly. Now I’m not gonna be able to find…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Well, one of them you had texted me during the board meeting, about the hypocrisy.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah. Oh, I found it. Okay. So, Denise Maes wrote that Monica Hunter denied ever saying anything like, “Amy Kleinmolke is a Zionist bitch.” And both Alex Marrero and the board president, Xochitl Gaitán, had said they heard her say, I mean, she said this to them. And Monica said to Denise, as she said publicly, and I am totally on board with her on this, “If they were so concerned about this, why did they wait nine months before they ever brought it out?” Now here’s some, to me, just astounding hypocrisy on the part of Superintendent Alex Marrero. In this report it says, “In response, the superintendent points to the fact that he relayed the comments to Gaitán one day later after the statements were made, and,” and this is the part that’s [00:08:00] gobsmacking, “it is not his role to file complaints against board members. That rests solely with the board.” Well, there is this letter that you may remember, I hope I can find it now…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Mm.
Alan Gottlieb: …that he wrote to the board back in April of 2022, or 2025, I’m sorry…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 2025.
Alan Gottlieb: …about John Youngquist being mean to people, and basically it led to his censure. And it’s really unfortunate, because I had this thing here and now I can’t find it. But the first sentence in his letter was, “I’m writing with grave concerns about John Youngquist and the way he’s behaved.” So he goes from saying, “That’s not my job,” but he did the exact same thing a year ago to John Youngquist. So blatant hypocrisy, or just forgetfulness or whatever, but, come on. You can’t say on the one hand that it’s not your job to do that, and on the other hand, you did exactly that about another board member 18 months before. So that really struck me as just a [00:09:00] standout hall of shame thing that I heard about.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Hall of shame.
Alan Gottlieb: So that really got me. I also found it very interesting that John Youngquist voted also not to censure Monica, partly, I think, because of his experience with this and his strong feelings, which he expressed, that this was basically just retribution for Monica’s opposition to Xochitl Gaitán and Alex Marrero. And I’ll say this just straight out. I think Monica deserved to be censured for even just what she said to Amy. I’m not at all sure about the other things deserving a censure, and I think Alex Marrero and Xochitl Gaitán, I don’t know if they’re lying or not, but I think it’s highly suspect, and their timing is even more highly suspect. So, I’ve said that several times before, but I was glad to see the censure vote. I think that was the appropriate thing to do. But I just find the politics around it to be disgusting as [00:10:00] well.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yeah, if they’re just handing out censures left and right, I think they should have censured Xochitl at the same time. They can’t censure the superintendent and they couldn’t dismiss him, but I think Xochitl should have been censured for holding this information back. And she did apologize for it, but I think apologies need to come with accountability, too.
Alan Gottlieb: Mm-hmm.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: So, speaking of the timing, I wanted to get your opinion, Alan, because what was also interesting is Marlene, Director De La Rosa, asked a question about, well, is there an appropriate amount of time that somebody has to report allegations? And I just thought that was such a bizarre question. And so then General Counsel Thompson said, “No, there’s not.” And then people started using their time to ask questions of general counsel to try to make their point about if it was or was not appropriate. So I think Marlene was trying to make the point, it’s fine that they brought it up later. At least they brought it up. I think that was the point she was trying to get to. Whereas Monica then would [00:11:00] ask General Counsel Thompson, “Well, what do you think if a principal or a teacher did this? What would you expect?”
Alan Gottlieb: Right.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And then he kind of was stuck a little bit in, like, word vomit, trying to, like, play both sides, ’cause he had his boss and the people he’s aligned with there, and so it was really frustrating. And then Marlene brought up the conflict of interest. So this was, I thought, supposed to just be about the comments, the antisemitic behavior and comments.
Alan Gottlieb: But it wasn’t.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yeah. But then Marlene specifically brought up the conflict of interest, and then that led to them again questioning their general counsel about whether Monica working for the CDE is or is not a conflict. And then they started talking about other potential conflicts of interest, including John’s. Kimberly revealed her conflict, ’cause General Counsel said, “I can’t talk about anything, ’cause I’m not gonna violate attorney-client privilege.” So Kimberly offered up her situation, ’cause then she was like, “I’ll share it.” [00:12:00] And then John Youngquist did, and we can talk about what John said. And then the superintendent said, “Well, if you told them, you can’t talk about it, but if you told me, can you share it?” He’s like, “Also no.” So Alex was trying to get him to go around attorney-client privilege. It’s like, you are, at this point, not objective, and you have your own bias in this. It was so inappropriate.
Alan Gottlieb: Right. Well, I do wanna go back to the thing you just mentioned about John, because John Youngquist mentioned, when they were talking about the conflict of interest with Monica and everything, and this I think did come out at the time, but maybe not really publicly…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: This sounds vaguely familiar.
Alan Gottlieb: But basically John said to Aaron Thompson, “You and the administration called somebody I was doing work for, who also had a big contract with DPS, and said that if they continued to work with me, DPS would cancel the contract.”
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Is anyone surprised? [00:13:00] No.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah, no. No one is surprised. And Aaron Thompson kinda got a little tongue-tied, but said, “I don’t remember that conversation the same way.”
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: How convenient.
Alan Gottlieb: But that was kind of a standout moment where I felt like he caught them a little bit flat-footed.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Oh, and then at one point John made a little dig at the word, what was the word Denise used? Like, the document when Alex had recorded at the time…
Alan Gottlieb: Contemporaneous.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Contemporaneous. Where I’m like, the word contemporaneous has never been uttered more in a Denver Public Schools board meeting.
Alan Gottlieb: And that was an interesting thing, actually. But go ahead.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Sorry. Yeah, so what that meant, and tell me if this is correct, ’cause I’m not an attorney, and I was like, “What does that mean again?” It meant that at the time, the superintendent did write it down and it was time-stamped, and so it’s not like he made it up after the fact. Or you could have made it up after the fact and been like, “Oh yeah, I wrote this down,” but there’s no date or proof that it was written at the time. So there was sort of a dated record of him at the time saying he heard this. So that to me was interesting.
Alan Gottlieb: Right. Yes.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And so it became a debate, [00:14:00] and so then later, once they had moved further along in the discussion, John made a comment, kind of a little bit of a dig, saying, “Well, it wasn’t contemporaneous,” and then I chuckled in the audience, and I got called out. “Excuse me,” to the woman in the light blue shirt.
Alan Gottlieb: Oh, was that you that she called out?
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: That was me.
Alan Gottlieb: Oh.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And I’m like, “Xochitl, first of all, you know my name. We’ve known each other for, like, 15 years.” And then secondly, I have seen people do far worse than chuckle. Like, Ed Perlmutter was louder than me behind me, and he wasn’t laughing, but he was definitely chatting away with his own commentary, which I’m not gonna reveal because he was being very nice to me, but he had his own viewpoints, too. So anyway.
Alan Gottlieb: So I did think it was really notable that they said there were contemporaneous notes that Alex Marrero took about the conversation, because that lends credence to his account. I don’t know the extent to which it’s possible to go back and, like, insert something into your calendar and make it look like it happened at the time, and I’m not accusing him of that at all. I just don’t [00:15:00] know. But that does seem like a pretty strong piece of evidence that was missing before.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yep. I agree. I agree with that, actually.
Alan Gottlieb: And another thing, though, that I really wanna point out is that I don’t get any sense at all that Monica Hunter has any feeling of repentance about anything she did. So if she had a difficult conversation with Amy, she said, “Oh, I had just sprained my wrist and I had to go to the hospital,” and I didn’t quite understand how that was relevant. But it would be the easiest thing in the world for her, even privately, to, like, just call her up and say, “Look, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings or if I was inappropriate, and let’s move past this.” But I have seen no sign of her doing that, and I think that speaks ill of her character, and I hope that I’m wrong and that she’ll go ahead and do that. Amy actually said, “I forgive you with all my heart,” or something like that, “and let’s move on.” Amy said that. But it didn’t come back the other way, which was notable.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: [00:16:00] I don’t think you should apologize for something that you don’t believe you said, and Monica never explicitly denied the parts of what Amy said. She did for the first time say, like, “We have different recollections of what happened,” but she’s never outright denied the conversation she had with Amy back in November, December. What I, um… So, where was I gonna go with this? Sorry. It’s late. Like, it’s almost bedtime.
Alan Gottlieb: Well, and just to be clear, while you’re trying to get your thoughts back, I’m not suggesting that she should apologize for something she didn’t say.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yes, yes.
Alan Gottlieb: I’m saying she can apologize for the hurt that whatever has happened caused.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I agree.
Alan Gottlieb: Sometimes it’s okay to apologize even if you don’t necessarily think you did something wrong, if you’ve been involved in something that’s caused…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Someone else harm or…
Alan Gottlieb: Someone else harm or pain. Yes. It’s just like, I didn’t realize that even having this conversation would be that painful for you.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I’m sorry. I teach my children this on a daily basis when they’re fighting. It’s [00:17:00] like, even if you don’t think you did something wrong, you still hurt your brother’s feelings. So, okay, I remember what it was. I think a lot of this could have been avoided, and I would even say I think the censure could have been avoided. I think you still would’ve had Monica censured by Xochitl and Marlene, but I actually don’t know that the rest of them would’ve censured her if Monica had picked up the phone and called Amy and apologized, or at least tried to heal the relationship.
Alan Gottlieb: Or talk to her at all.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yeah. How, what do I wanna say? I do think Monica did the best she could to defend herself, ’cause again, assuming that what she is saying is true about not saying the other things that Alex and Xochitl claimed she said. I think she has really harmed herself by putting up these boundaries, refusing to speak to other board members, and I can appreciate why she put up such a hard boundary if everything you’re saying is being documented by the [00:18:00] superintendent, and not feeling like you can have a truly private conversation.
Alan Gottlieb: I also found it really interesting, the language that Denise Maes used in her report about Monica being fixated on this whole issue of Zionism.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: That was really interesting. And some of the quotes were fascinating.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah. So to me, a disinterested, by all it would seem to me, observer, the investigator, Denise Maes, a woman who has, as Alexis pointed out, the qualifications, is not just somebody they pulled off the street to do this, found that Monica…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: If she’s good enough for Joe Biden, she’s good enough for the Denver school board.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah, right. And finding that Monica was really fixated on this issue, and that it was a big deal, and so no wonder it would be difficult for Amy Kleinmolke to have this be a constant, why are we talking about geopolitical [00:19:00] affairs in the context of a Denver school board figuring out who the officers are gonna be? So anyway, just a lot of interesting stuff that went on. And now the censure’s happened, and I think maybe the board can move on. We’ll see what happens next.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I hope so.
Alan Gottlieb: And I wasn’t in there. I couldn’t see, like, how Monica reacted to the vote or anything, so I don’t know.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I think she didn’t show a lot of emotion. I do think when she was talking to Amy is probably when she was the most emotional. But yeah, she wasn’t inappropriate. I think the person who made maybe a little bit of a dig was John with the contemporaneous comment. But I wanted to stand up and clap after… So every critique I’ve made of Ed Perlmutter getting paid $1,000 an hour and him billing the district this, I still critique the fact that we’re paying an attorney $1,000 an hour. But he had probably the most powerful statement, where he basically said, “Look, [00:20:00] you have these values on the wall,” and he read the values.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah. Yeah, that was great.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Student first, integrity, accountability, fun, and then fun at the end was just kind of LOL. And he’s like, “You wanna move on and do the things that are here on this board.” And it was just like, oh, this is why he was such a good congressman. And actually, I wanna go back and just, like, get that clip. It was so powerful. So, if any other board member’s resigning, you’re in the district, Ed, you’d be a great board member.
Alan Gottlieb: And I read between the lines there, and maybe I’m totally wrong, but what he was saying was, “You gotta censure this woman. You just gotta do it.”
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Oh, I didn’t take it that way. Go on. I took it as, like, “Get your shit together. Be professionals and move on.”
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: But I may be wrong. I do feel like he wasn’t super biased one way or the other, but I do think it was like a you-gotta-move-on kind of thing. And it’s not like he hasn’t had conflict with his colleagues in Congress, ’cause if there’s one governing body that may be more dysfunctional than [00:21:00] DPS, it’s Congress. So the investigation, people can go and read. It’s easy to find. I think it’s linked in the Denver Post and the CBS story, and I’ll put it on the Board Hawk. Wait, first of all, how did the media get it before the board? Maybe it was all just embargoed and it was lifted at the same time. I don’t know. But what I do wanna actually read…
Alan Gottlieb: They don’t send stuff to me at Board Hawk. I don’t think they think we’re real media.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: What’s up, Bill? Send it over to Alan. Bill is the director of communications. Lovely, lovely man.
Alan Gottlieb: Good guy.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Okay. Conclusion. Can I just read the conclusion, ’cause it’s a short paragraph?
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah, definitely.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Just for our readers, ’cause I think it sums it up nicely. So the last paragraph of the statement. Conclusion: “Many of the allegations of Hunter making antisemitic and inappropriate remarks boil down to a she said, she said, he said, except for the superintendent’s notes taken contemporaneously with the alleged comments made by Hunter and relayed to Gaitán soon in time. What remains [00:22:00] unclear in the investigation is whether Hunter’s concerns or prejudice lie with Zionism and whether she equates that with Judaism for the purposes of rendering those allegations, or alleged statements, as antisemitic. As you can see from Hunter’s own statements, she appears fixated on the matter. The questions for the board are whether, one, Hunter’s problems on or fixation with Kleinmolke and Zionism are censurable because they are inappropriate and negatively affect the decorum in violation of board policy given the context those statements are made. And two, whether the statements made by Gaitán, the superintendent, and Kleinmolke are true and honest, or whether Hunter’s denials are true and honest. And three, whether terms like racist and bitch are censurable because they negatively affect decorum in violation of board policy.” So Denise basically says there are three questions. Is [00:23:00] Monica’s issue with Zionism censurable or inappropriate because it caused negative decorum? Two, whether the statements made by Xochitl and Alex and Amy are true and honest, or whether Hunter’s denials are true and honest. So it’s what we’ve been saying, like, somebody’s lying. We just don’t know who’s lying. And then three, are the terms racist and bitch censurable because they negatively affect decorum? So that’s ultimately what it all boiled down to. And they decided, at least four of them decided, it was enough to censure her.
Alan Gottlieb: There is… I sent this to you yesterday, Alexis, and I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to find it in time to not be stumbling around here.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Oh, this, about Zionism?
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah, yeah.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I haven’t had a chance to read it.
Alan Gottlieb: It’s long. There’s an article in The Atlantic about Zionism that’s really, what is Zionism, and it’s long. It’s probably gonna be the cover story of next month’s Atlantic or something, because it was that long. But I really urge [00:24:00] everyone to read it because, yeah, it’s just called “What Is Zionism?” I just found it. It’s in The Atlantic, on their website, by a guy named Adam Kirsch. And it’s very balanced. It’s a really in-depth definition and history of what Zionism is. I don’t know if a lot of these people who throw this term around, Zionism, even have a clue what it means.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: I’ve been to Israel for, like, an educational trip to learn more about the conflict, and I had to go back and relearn things I didn’t know about Zionism in the last couple of weeks, and I’m like, “Oh.” Yeah. I learned some interesting things.
Alan Gottlieb: Well, this article’s super educational and really doesn’t take one side or the other. It makes it really clear that what happened to the Palestinians in 1948, getting forced off their land, was a horrible… So it’s very balanced, but it talks about the reason Zionism exists and what Zionism is. And I just urge Monica Hunter and everybody else who wants to throw that term around loosely to maybe learn what it means.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: [00:25:00] Yeah, I think most of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party here in Denver, including the DSA, needs to learn what Zionism is, and anybody going to Lisa Calderón’s house. Sorry.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Anyway… Oh, well, actually, before we wrap, I wanna mention two other quick things. One is I do think this is going to deeply impact, if it hasn’t already, the mill levy and who has supported it and who hasn’t. When I was sitting there, somebody texted me that the Rose Community Foundation came out with their ballot positions, and what was really interesting is they supported and opposed many different statewide measures, local measures, and school district measures from Douglas County, Jeffco, and Littleton. They supported the Dougco 5A, Jefferson County Public Schools 5A, the Jefferson County mill, which is 5B, and the Littleton Public Schools mill. They put no position on DPS.
Alan Gottlieb: Wow.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: So the Rose Community Foundation supported…
Alan Gottlieb: Which is a Jewish foundation.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Oh, okay. Yeah. [00:26:00] I did know that, actually. I did know that. They put six of the largest school district ballot measures for mills or bonds on, and they supported all but DPS. So that’s really telling.
Alan Gottlieb: Wow.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And now you’re starting to get other people who are out here, especially community leaders, with their own ballot positions. And so I’ll just give a shout-out to another podcast bro just like you and me, Alan, former Speaker of the House, the Honorable Terrence Carroll. He actually just posted his voter guide, and you all can find it @speakercarroll on Instagram, and he put also no position on Denver Public Schools. So he’s not supportive. And he was the former general counsel for Denver Public Schools somewhat recently.
Alan Gottlieb: Right.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: So I think it’s really telling that this has created circumstances where people who would normally come out in very strong support of the mill are coming out either opposing it or not taking a position. And then the last thing I’ll say on this is two [00:27:00] leaders that I greatly respect who are leaders of two organizations, and that’s Pastor Vernon Jones at Faith Bridge, and then Nicholas Hernandez, the executive director of TEN. Both of them are executive directors. They both just put out statements from their organizations today basically calling for the board to hold itself accountable to this behavior especially, and Vernon actually, in the Faith Bridge post, commented on Xochitl’s apology, and that it needs to come with accountability. And so they both called for a reorganization of the board leadership, and what that means is they need to call for new officer elections, and I could not agree more. And I think this isn’t about politics.
Alan Gottlieb: Don’t hold your breath.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Oh, well, yeah. But I think this is something where people keep asking, like, “What do we do?” And not that many people listen to the podcast, but the fact that the last one has gotten so much attention on this issue, and so many people have been reaching out to you and me and others, people are, I think, hungry for, like, [00:28:00] how do we just, like, let them get away with this? So I think that there should be a call, and I think there’s discussions happening about how the community needs to step up and call for at least the board to call for a new officer election, because what’s clear to me is that President Gaitán is not fit to be the president of this board.
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah. And there may be consensus about that on the board, but I don’t know, especially with DJ Torres no longer on the board and there being only six members. Since we’re talking briefly about the mill, and we really should sign off, but I wanna just give a sneak preview that next week we’ll be recording a podcast about the mill levy, and we’re gonna have as our guests DCTA President Rob Gould and the aforementioned Vernon Jones from Faith Bridge, who is on the mill levy committee. It’s not going to be a free commercial for the mill levy. I want them to make their pitch, but I wanna ask them some hard questions about all of the stuff we just talked about, and why people, if this is an opportunity to send a message that only comes along rarely, why shouldn’t people at least [00:29:00] consider voting no, despite the fact that it’s raises for all employees of DPS, not just teachers, who deserve raises, obviously, but even the lowest paid people, for whom an $1,800 raise is real money. So it’s, you know…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: And support for…
Alan Gottlieb: Mental health.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Youth mental health and…
Alan Gottlieb: Yeah, but the vast majority of it is for DPS…
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Well, of course, of course. But I just wanna point out, like, people who would normally come out in strong support are choosing to not engage because of this board, to not give educators $1,750 raises and support special education and youth mental health. It’s quite alarming.
Alan Gottlieb: It’s alarming, but I understand it, because I’m feeling that way myself.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Oh, of course. Right. And because now you’ve put it on the record of this podcast, no take backs, Rob and Vernon. And I actually chatted with them briefly at the board meeting.
Alan Gottlieb: They’ve already accepted the invitation, so.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yeah, no, no take backs.
Alan Gottlieb: We had to cancel last week when DJ Torres resigned. We had it all lined up to [00:30:00] record last week.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Yeah. But no, I’m really excited to have them both on. And again, this is what disagreeing in a civil manner will look like, so let’s all model, ’cause I don’t always agree with Alan, Vernon, or Rob. Let’s model what good disagreement looks like on this podcast, and maybe the board can listen and take note.
Alan Gottlieb: You can even like people you disagree with. That’s the weirdest thing in this day and age. It’s like, it’s possible, so.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: It’s true. Yeah.
Alan Gottlieb: All right.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for listening. Appreciate this. And like I said, there were many, many more things on this board meeting that we’ll get into later, including the District 4 vacancy, so please stay tuned and keep listening.
Alan Gottlieb: All right. Night, everybody.
Alexis Menocal Harrigan: Bye.
Alan Gottlieb: Bye, Alexis.
