Review finds no issues with D-49 board member's campaign e-mail
A review by Falcon School District 49 officials has dismissed allegations that outgoing board member Mark Shook misused district resources to campaign for a slate of three board candidates.
The review was launched after the administration received inquiries about political fliers that Shook sent to staff via e-mail under the auspices of EmpowerParents.org. Fueling the fire was a flurry of online comments from staff and others who questioned whether it was appropriate for him to send e-mails to district employees at work, urging them to vote for the three candidates.
Shook, who was appointed to the board a year ago and is not seeking election, called the brouhaha “rubbish” and blamed it on those running against the three candidates he endorses.
Several online commentators alleged that Shook used his district computer account to e-mail the campaign fliers. If he had done that, it would have violated the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, which says government resources cannot be used to endorse candidates.
But Shook said he used his own Yahoo account, and a district investigation backed him up. David Bond, D49’s head of computer operations, said he checked the electronic tracks that show how e-mail addresses make their way from sender to the recipient.
“I found no indication of misuse of district resources whatsoever,” Bond said in an e-mail.
At The Gazette’s request, two independent computer experts at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs also checked the e-mail trail and concurred with Bond’s conclusion, with the caveat that they couldn’t provide an unequivocal answer because they didn’t have access to the district’s logs.
The incident further underscores how volatile the D-49 school board race has been, reflecting a year of district discord that included a campaign to recall two board members and the departure of the superintendent and many other administrators.
Seven candidates are running for three board positions. While the school board race is supposed to be nonpartisan, Shook’s critics say he’s trying to stack the board with conservative Republicans. The three candidates endorsed in the fliers e-mailed by EmpowerParents.org also are endorsed by the Falcon Republican Club, of which he is a member.
It’s unclear whether Shook has a leadership role with EmpowerParents.org, or whether anyone else is involved with it. Shook said he is a volunteer and Webmaster. When asked several times during an interview for names of the group’s officers, he did not answer, and did not respond to subsequent e-mails and a phone call requesting the information. The Web site has no contact phone numbers and offers little insight into what it does, aside from saying its mission is to “‘empower Parents’ by providing information on those issues that concern parents, including information on those individuals running for the School District 49 Board of Education.”
D-49 officials said they don’t know anything about EmpowerParents.org, according to Brad Miller, a D-49 attorney.
Shook acknowledged e-mailing the fliers, and some district employees said they were surprised to receive one— and even more surprised when they found out it was from Shook.
“We thought it was illegal to campaign at work,” said a teacher, who asked not to be identified to protect his job.
Miller said the district concluded that Shook did not use bulk internal district e-mail lists. And he added that the district cannot control, nor does it attempt to control, e-mails sent to its employees.
While no laws or policies were broken, one ethics expert said Shook shouldn’t have sent e-mails to people’s work accounts.
“A school board member should know better,” said Chantell Taylor, executive director of Denver-based Colorado Ethics Watch. “The employees are receiving them at work, and such e-mail systems are for official business. And it’s a disruption of their time.”
Shook, meanwhile, said he has no vested interest in the board race beyond what’s best for students.
“My term ends before they arrive, so there is no (personal) gain at all,” he said.
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What the Gazette failed to tell you.
Over 250 emails were sent out, less than two dozen went to d49.org addresses.
This was a politically motivated complaint amounting to "much ado about nothing", over a handful of e-mails that were positive, not negative, and asked only for the reader's consideration ( and then gave a link ).
This was NOT some political bomb "attack" type e-mail.
Anyone who received it and was offended has my apology.
Here is what the e-mails said, judge for yourself.
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