The Molina/Kim Story Keeps Getting Weirder

Faithful readers of Eye may recall the post we did resurfacing the video that Adams County School District 14 board member Lucy Molina took of herself having a meltdown over Commerce City council member Craig Kim’s attendance at an Adams 14 public meeting on April 16.

Well, that story has just gotten both weirder and worse.

By way of background, the whole thing started when Kim publicly raised objections to the district’s hiring of Tiffany Narcisse as the new Adams 14 Junior High School Principal. In an email to the Board, which he later made public in the interests of transparency, Kim raised reasonable concerns related to Ms. Narcisse’s previous job as a school administrator in Fairfax County, VA. Specifically, those concerns focused on a serious lapse of judgment over her reaction to the death of a student at the school, for which she was forced to apologize following an outcry from parents; as well as a damning financial audit of the school while she was principal.

It was these objection that Molina found so offensive, insofar as Ms. Narcisse happens to be black. As such Molina took the airing of concerns about her to be “racist,” “sexist” and an “attack on women of color.” You can refer to our previous post for the rest.

Following that episode where Molina videoed herself acting in what most objective observers would consider unprofessional at best, the Adams 14 leadership decided to take action.

Against Lucy Molina for her rank unprofessionalism and public displays of vitriol and name-calling? Nope. Against Craig Kim for having the audacity to challenge a controversial Adams 14 hire.

That’s right. On April 28, Adams 14 Superintendent Dr. Karla Loría sent Kim a “Notice of Restricted Access”—informing him that he was banned from all District property for a period of three years “to ensure the safety of our employees and board members and to ensure that our students, staff, and faculty are afforded the right to pursue educational activities without intimidation.” The notice said that he had received a letter from Adams 14 Chief Legal Counsel Joseph Salazer on April 19 providing a summary of his “offenses.” The notice goes on to state that Kim was “advised that we received complaints about your pattern and practice of targeting women of color in this district through your harassing and bullying conduct. We also reviewed your email to the Adams 14 Board of Education, which contains misstatements about our newly hired principal, who happens to be a Black woman, concerning her prior employment.”

Evidently, raising concerns about a new public official who was the center of a controversy at her last job, and whose performance in light of a state financial audit at least merits some scrutiny, is unacceptable to Adams 14.

The Notice goes on to state: ”We also have reviewed your text message communications with one of our Latina board members who outright objected to your behavior targeting a Black female principal. This communication then led to an encounter initiated by you against our board member at a public DAC meeting. The encounter was such that our board member felt physically threatened by you, and her children were traumatized by the encounter. You left the meeting, but only after the threat to call law enforcement was issued.”

Apparently, they didn’t see the same video the rest of us did. In fact, in his appeal letter Kim provides the written testimonies of several people who were at that meeting to describe a bit more accurately what happened. He also provides the text messages to which Dr. Loria references, for perspective which puts the whole sordid mess into a somewhat different light than Dr. Loria’s letter.

Fast forward to the May 15 Adams 14 Board meeting, where Kim’s restriction was discussed. The Board voted to restrict Kim from contact with the principal and from the Junior High School in question; Molina, who arrived at the meeting several minutes late, recused herself, after being prompted by Salazar, following an awkward silence.

But wait, it gets weirder.

Following the vote, the Board went into a public comment period, in which two people who were at the April 16 meeting, relating Molina’s aggressive and antagonistic behavior. During their comments, Ms. Molina sat at her board chair, hiding behind a bag. Yes, rather than have the decency to look at community members who were calling her out for her own behavior toward them, Lucy Molina chose to hide behind a gift bag.