Whistleblower: School board majority supporter files large records request

A whistleblower claims that one of the biggest records requests received by the Douglas County School District in the last four months is coming from a key supporter of the school board majority.

District Technology Director Michael Roth said that as many as 30,000 emails are being requested by Nicholas Maier, who has been an outspoken supporter of board members Susan Jansen, David Burns and Katherine Dickerson.

Several supporters of the school board majority have blamed the opposition for attorney Joey Gilbert’s burgeoning legal bill, but Maier requested emails from five different district officials and three bargaining units with 16 different key words including “labor,” “contract,” and “union,” between June 1 and Nov. 15, 2023, according to Roth.

Roth said the requests covered negotiations with the teachers, support staff and bus drivers unions. According to Roth, the three searches represent 7.7 gigabytes of data. He received the request on Dec. 5, 2023.

“Some could be very long and very short,” Roth said of the email sizes.

Before the emails could be released, they would have to be vetted by Joey Gilbert Law, which would cost the district more money.

“Currently the district office and counsel sift through public records requests that the technology department provides, after diligently searching for requested information,” Roth said in a copy of the complaint he provided to The Record-Courier. “The school district hires legal counsel, Joey Gilbert, at great financial expense to the district, and one of those duties is to review public records requests. Our legal counsel looks over public records requests, purportedly to ensure that attorney client privileged information remains that way.”

Roth said his concern is that each of the school board members have to sign an acceptable use policy for any devices issued by the district.

“I wish people would recognize that if you search for all emails that search for a word can bring a lot of repetition,” Roth said. “Because when you start adding all those people, you still have to look through it. The more people you add the more emails there are and it gets out of control.”

A public records lawsuit is making its way through Douglas County District courts regarding emails and texts between school board members sought over the summer.

As of Monday morning, no hearing date has been set for the lawsuit though it’s in the process of scheduling.

The lawsuit includes an exhibit from a request early last year seeking several texts and emails between four school board members appearing to orchestrate the election of Jansen as school board president. An open meeting law complaint stemming from that action was filed in February, along with more than 40 in the interim, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office said on Oct. 26.

All of those complaints are still under review.

The Record-Courier has reached out to Maier.