Group presents informal petition for Dora board resignations

DORA — A group of Dora citizens is accelerating its efforts to ask the Dora Consolidated Schools Board of Education to resign.

In a board meeting Monday night, the group presented a list of citizens that had signed an informal petition asking the board to resign.

The action stemmed from the findings of a July report by the state auditor, which identified over $100,000 in potentially mismanaged school funds between June 2013 and the end of 2016.

“I think the community kind of decided to present it better, asking for the resignation of the school board members, and showed them the actual list of people behind the movement,” said Dora resident Ty Tipton.

April Tipton, Ty Tipton’s wife, said they warned the board that if its members “didn’t resign like we would like them to, then we are going to take action and go through district court.”

A fund has been created by the group “for the community to donate to, to retain a lawyer for the removal of the school board members,” Ty Tipton said.

Board member Gary Simpson resigned on Aug. 3, and then-superintendent Steve Barron was placed on paid administrative leave.

An action item on Monday’s agenda filling a board position left open after Simpson’s resignation was tabled until November, according to interim superintendent Brandon Hays.

Since the appointment was not made before a deadline of Sept. 10, the New Mexico Public Education Department will choose one of three candidates brought before the board, Hays said.

A decision regarding a settlement to Barron’s three-year employment contract was also tabled at the meeting, Hays said.

Ty Tipton was disappointed with the decision not to fill the board position, adding that an opportunity to heal was squandered.

“It could have been such a great step forward for community healing (Monday) night if they would have just appointed somebody and we could have started moving forward,” he said.

In the interim, the Tiptons are planning the next community meeting, which they urged anyone in Dora to attend.

“We’re just trying to gather everybody’s basic group opinions about what we need to do, which direction we want to go,” Ty Tipton said. “We want it to be the whole community. We don’t want three people running the show.”

At the first community meeting in early August, 9th Judicial District Attorney Dan Aguilar said Dora schools would be the subject of a criminal investigation based on the audit’s findings.

"(The Dora case) is at the attorney general's office for review," Reeb said Tuesday night.

"They're looking at it, and then we're going to meet together and decide how it's gonna be handled and who's gonna handle it."