DURHAM — A local resident who has battled the Oyster River School District for months over a series of alleged right-to-know law violations filed a petition for an injunction this week to reset an ongoing search for new a superintendent, claiming it has been tainted by yet more alleged infractions.

An attorney for the school district said the allegations are baseless and that the petition for an injunction is meant to secure a political victory, not a legal one.

“I think this board is trying to do it right and the thing that's most troublesome is that no matter what they do, he's going to find a reason to run back to court and it's hard for me to see when this stops,” the school district's attorney Dennis Ducharme said.

The request for an injunction comes as a judge has yet to rule on a previous right-to-know petition filed by former school board member David Taylor. In that previous petition, Taylor alleges school board members circumvented the right-to-know law by using so-called non-meetings, which are meant for legal consultation and do not have to be publicized or recorded, to make decisions.

The school district, which covers Durham, Madbury and Lee, has seen a fair amount of turmoil since the spring, when the board opted to reject a search committee's recommendation for a new high school principal. That decision triggered a public dispute with Superintendent Howard Colter, who then left his job after the board bought out the rest of his contract.

Now the board is looking to hire a new permanent superintendent and Taylor, who heavily criticized the board's decision not to hire the recommended principal candidate, is fighting about the process once more.

Taylor's petition for an injunction, filed Tuesday in Strafford County Superior Court in Dover, lays out two new allegations: that school board members violated the right-to-know law by using an essentially secret ballot to choose members of a superintendent search committee and that the board violated its own policy not to make any decisions during workshops, which fall short of a regular meeting.

“The process is a sham,” Taylor said.

Ducharme said board members have done nothing wrong and that Taylor is looking to criticize any perceived misstep. He said the secret ballot, which was used only to select two members of the public for the search committee, was recommended by a search firm the board is using, and that the policy on whether decisions can be made in workshops is unclear.

“Is it how David Taylor would have done it, probably not,” Ducharme said. “Does that make it inappropriate? No.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, a judge had yet to rule on Taylor's request for an injunction or his previous right-to-know petition.