CORA’s deliberative process privilege might be the most frustrating category under which public records can be kept confidential in Colorado. When invoked, the government is claiming the records you requested contain material “so candid or personal that public disclosure is likely to stifle honest and frank discussion” among officials.
Librarians in Colorado need guidance from the Colorado Court of Appeals on whether the state’s library-user privacy statute protects the identities of people who want books banned or reclassified, a lawyer for the Gunnison County Library District director told a panel of appellate judges.
Colorado should enact legislation like a 2021 Michigan statute that outlaws the use of disappearing messaging apps in state government, but the language should be broadened to affect all state and local officials, a law student’s report prepared for the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition recommends.
A year from now, on July 1, 2024, inflation will likely boost the maximum hourly rate governments are allowed to charge for processing Colorado Open Records Act requests from $33.58 to around $41.34 — an alarming 23 percent increase.
A district court ruling against four Douglas County school board members doesn’t affect other government boards, councils and commissions, but it could persuade judges who examine similar cases concerning the legality of serial or daisy-chain meetings under the state’s open meetings law.
A Court of Appeals opinion keeping Colorado’s database of law enforcement officers confidential “creates a gaping hole” in the Colorado Open Records Act and broadens the scope of the criminal justice records law “beyond recognition,” two news organizations contend in a certiorari petition submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Gov. Jared Polis’ signature on Senate Bill 23-286 will change the Colorado Open Records Act in some small but important ways when the measure takes effect in early August. Here are some things to know about what the CORA bill does — and does not do.
Concerned the measure would “act as an impediment to legitimate challenges to open meetings,” Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a heavily amended bill that would have barred pro se litigants who sue over executive sessions from collecting legal fees if they prevailed in court.
Signing into law a bill that lets elected officials block anyone from their private social media accounts for “any reason,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis urged state lawmakers to monitor two cases related to the issue pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A district court judge made “egregious” errors last year in deciding that Colorado’s Sunshine Law did not require members of an elected town board to discuss the censure of a fellow board member in an open meeting, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition contends in a brief submitted to the Court of Appeals.
