On Tuesday, attorney Joey Gilbert announced his resignation as Douglas County School District counsel.
His hiring has been a major point of division not only between school board members, but for members of the community as well.
The two new elected trustees, Erinn Miller and Melinda Gneiting, who are set to take their seats in January, ran on platforms against the hiring of Joey Gilbert among other items.
On Tuesday, at the end of the meeting, Trustee Yvonne Wagstaff made a motion to schedule a special meeting on Monday, Dec. 16 to discuss the termination of the district’s contract with Joey Gilbert and his law firm.
Trustee Linda Gilkerson seconded the motion, but before discussion could be held, Gilbert’s associate Kendra Jepsen said Gilbert had already made plans to resign, stating the motion “wouldn’t be necessary” because the firm planned to turn in their resignation after that meeting.
“Okay. Well then I will rescind [my motion],” Wagstaff said.
Burns said he would like to thank Gilbert and his law firm, and thanked him for “getting the board through a transition into a time where now we can move forward.”
After a new board majority took hold in 2023, the previous board counsel, Maupin, Cox and LeGoy, which had served the district for decades, was fired after they allegedly cautioned the board over taking on a policy banning transgender students in sports, which they said would lead to the district being sued and would result in an expensive court case.
However, it was determined as part of a public documents request that even before taking office, the new board majority of Susan Jansen, Burns, Katherine Dickerson and Doug Englekirk conspired to fire the law firm in favor of hiring Joey Gilbert.
While the anti-transgender policy has not happened, what did happen since the 2022 election was:
- An unsuccessful attempt at firing the long-standing superintendent, who later resigned;
- The board majority, through Gilbert, refused to hand over cell phones and computers for a public record’s request and were later sued;
- The board asked for a settlement over that case, and then later rejected it;
- The board gave all public records requests to Gilbert instead of the superintendent. This is important because records requests were included in the superintendent’s workload, while Gilbert now charges $325 per hour to review them;
- The board initiated a new, possibly illegal records request fee for the public at Gilbert’s request;
- The board paid Gilbert to attend a meeting during which he scrolled Twitter and refused to answer legal questions from the board;
- The board voted to hire a new superintendent who had a long history of mismanagement and criminal behavior and lied on his application;
- During different meetings, Trustee Jansen called members of the public a “piece of shit” and “retarded” during public meetings;
- The board attempted to withdraw from the Nevada Association of School Boards;
- The in-fighting of the board led to one trustee resigning;
Carson Now reached out to the district to ask about next steps, and we will update the story when new information becomes available.
That portion of the meeting can be viewed here:
