Durango School District 9-R school board candidate Andrea Parmenter has been accused of knowingly withholding a change of address that occurred earlier this year with the intention of helping the school district avoid a special election for her seat.
Parmenter represented District D until Sept. 7 when she formally vacated the position and became a District E candidate. But the lawsuit accuses her of moving out of the district about four months earlier, in May.
In an email sent Thursday to The Durango Herald, Parmenter seemed to suggest she was living with friends and acquaintances during the summer in District D, and she was out of town more than in town.
Parmenter said her partner leased an apartment in District E in May, but that she didn’t join him until mid-August.
“There is no conspiracy or malfeasance as suggested in the lawsuit,” she said.
The eight-page lawsuit was filed Monday in La Plata County Combined Courts against Durango School District 9-R Board of Education and school district spokeswoman Julie Popp, the district’s designated election official.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Durango residents Christina McMunn, Cam Formby, and Cathy and Stanley Patterson. They are represented by Greenwood Village lawyer Scott E. Gessler, who served as Colorado’s secretary of state from 2011 to 2015.
The lawsuit says the school district failed to declare a vacancy after Parmenter moved out of District D in May. The plaintiffs argue an election would have been required, giving eligible electors the chance to run for that position on the school board.
The lawsuit says U.S. Postal Service records show Parmenter filed a change of address in May to 440 County Road 239, which is in District E. Parmenter’s previous address at 2341 Forest Ave., is in District D. But the lawsuit says the current occupant at 2341 Forest Ave. claims to have lived there “about a year” and that Parmenter did not live there during his residency.
Parmenter attended three regular school board meetings and four special meetings or work sessions between May 1 and Sept. 7, including the meeting on Sept. 7, when she vacated her seat.
After Parmenter vacated her position in September, the school district appointed Durango resident Katie Stewart to the open seat.
Parmenter called some accusations in the lawsuit opinionated and incorrect, and she disputed other claims, including that McMunn and others did not have an opportunity to run as candidate before she changed residences.
“If McMunn was dissuaded to run because she assumed stiff competition as stated in #71 (a paragraph in the lawsuit) that’s on her,” Parmenter wrote in an email to the Herald. “An election is, by its nature, a competition. Do not pursue an elected position if you cannot handle competition.”
Parmenter said she was out of her Forest Avenue home by June 1 and wanted to find a permanent place in District D. She said she was “offered” temporary housing by friends and acquaintances over the summer. She also said she was out of town more than in town June through August. After failing to find a home to lease in District D, she joined her partner in mid-August in District E, and made that her permanent residence.
“As you know, there was no inventory of rentals anywhere and rents had skyrocketed by that time,” Parmenter said. “I was looking at being homeless for a few weeks and it was an incredibly stressful and difficult time given the real estate market and the pandemic.”
Parmenter said the Building Durango’s Future candidates, who consist of Kristina Paslay, Richard “Dean” Hill and her direct opponent Donna Gulec, are trying to trigger a new election “because they failed twice to have one of their candidates take the District D seat.”
“Rather than running their candidates on merit they have pieced together misinformation with some incorrect interpretations, alleged conspiracies, and blatant lies,” Parmenter said. “This contrived drama, legal challenges, and CORA requests have cost the district thousands of dollars that should have been spent on education. Rather than winning an election because they have the better candidate they are instead trying to discredit me and sow doubt where there should be none.”
Popp, the district spokeswoman, said Parmenter notified the district on Aug. 10 that she would be moving out of District D on Aug. 16.
“That caused the board to create a vacancy, which is according to the Colorado Association of School Boards law,” Popp said Thursday. “On Aug. 28, the meeting was originally supposed to be for the vacancy, but that (meeting) was canceled. So it was on Sept. 7 she vacated her seat and the vacancy was made public.”
Popp disputed the notion that candidates did not have fair access to run for the District D seat.
“There was a normal process when all four of the seats were originally announced because that was all done prior to the notice from Andrea Parmenter to the district about her vacancy,” Popp said. “And so in that process those that are listed currently, the seven (candidates), all petitioned for their respective seats. But we only had one candidate that solicited for director District D. There was a fair and open practice and only one person actually applied.”
The person who applied was Stewart, who was appointed to the board in September.
The lawsuit says McMunn “had a strong interest in running for District D director.” It goes on to say that McMunn had obtained a copy of the school board petition packet, but after “carefully considering the strong likelihood that she would have to face Parmenter as the incumbent in the District D director election, McMunn decided not to run for office.”
Popp said McMunn had made her interest to run for the District D appointment known. She was interviewed at a Sept. 20 school board meeting along with Stewart.
The plaintiffs are requesting the school district hold a special election to elect a District D director and that the district accept all eligible election petitions from all eligible candidates who want to run.
Allegations made by the plaintiffs are similar to those made in open letters earlier this month circulating online, which Durango resident Britny Hanson said she and other parents put together.
One version of the letter was unsigned. Since then, another version dated Oct. 14 is now available on durangoschoolwatch.com that is signed by Hanson, Jason Mietchen, Brad Blake, Jacqueline Okarma and Jaclyn Patterson.
Hanson said she and other parents concerned about school district transparency researched Parmenter’s residency history. She said her main concern is that Parmenter was serving on the board for District D where she did not live, and that she had vacated that position by moving out of the district.
“That district should have became available to the community,” Hanson said. “It was vacant and we should have been able to appoint somebody to that seat. Or the election should have been handled for this (November) election.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
