Integrity Matters, a government watchdog nonprofit based in Colorado Springs, along with several other plaintiffs are suing Pikes Peak Library District over the closure of its Rockrimmon Library branch.

The lawsuit filed on Friday in 4th Judicial District Court in El Paso County claims the library district decided to shutter the location “without public notice, meaningful engagement or required financial analysis.”

Actions of the district’s governing body, the Board of Trustees, violated the state’s open meetings law multiple times, the lawsuit alleges, and breached state statutes governing public libraries and the district’s bylaws. The lawsuit claims trustees did not act in the library district’s best interests and did not display transparency.

“This decision is a breach of public trust, violation of fiduciary duties and ignores PPLD’s paid consultant’s recommendations,” the lawsuit states. “The closure is unwarranted given the library’s high usage, low operational costs and its role as a critical asset upon which the community deeply depends,” the filing continues.

Library district spokeswoman Denise Abbott said Monday morning that the district had not been served with the legal paperwork. As of noon Monday the district had closed due to deteriorating road conditions from a snowstorm.

Colorado Springs residents Virginia, Jack and Trevor Baker, and Svetlana Nudelman are residents named as plaintiffs. Also suing is COS Reads, a nonprofit formed out of Save Rockrimmon Library, a grassroots group that opposed the closure and fought for weeks to keep the library open; and Westside Watch, also a monitoring group in town that mainly focuses on wildfire evacuation plans.

Working off a new facilities plan that recommended closing some of the system’s 15 branches for financial reasons, the library district’s board of trustees voted 5-2 at an Oct. 16 meeting not to renew the lease of the Rockrimmon Library, which opened in 1989 in northwestern Colorado Springs.

Opponents rallied support for postponement from elected officials, including the backing of some Colorado Springs City Council members and an incoming county commissioner. Some said the change came too quickly, calling the decision an “ambush announcement” in the lawsuit.

Chief Librarian and CEO Teona Shainidze-Krebs told The Gazette in a previous interview that the option had been presented following numerous public meetings and was based on finances and the need to serve the entire county with services, which she said has been made increasingly difficult by problems arising from deferred maintenance and staffing shortages.

Shainidze-Krebs said the decision did not mean the end of all services for the Rockrimmon neighborhood. The district’s mobile book service and possibly kiosks would replace the library branch, Shainidze-Krebs said, which has been leasing a storefront in a strip mall.

For the second time on a 5-2 vote, board members at a final meeting of the year on Dec. 4 to not rescind the decision, thereby reaffirming that the Rockrimmon branch would be permanently closed.

The complaint names as defendants the Board of El Paso County Commissioners, the city of Colorado Springs, the Pikes Peak Library District, its Board of Trustees and Shainidze-Krebs.

Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to halt the progress to shut down the Rockrimmon branch and keep the landlord from leasing the space to another tenant.

They also are calling for a ruling on the claim that the board violated Colorado’s Open Meetings Law.

If successful, plaintiffs demand that the Board of Trustees vote to approve a one-year extension of the lease and “conduct a thorough standard financial review of the costs of Rockrimmon Library with financial modeling and Rockrimmon patron input” and that any further decisions comply with the state’s open meeting law and other public library directives.

Although the last day for the library to be open for public use was Nov. 30, the lease on the building at 832 Village Center Drive expires on Dec. 31. The public closure date was due to employees needing time to move the facility’s contents, library district officials said.