Wet Mountain Tribune: On March 6, Attorney Matt Roane, representing Jordan Hedberg (the Wet Mountain Tribune is not a party of the lawsuit), filed a lawsuit against the Town of Westcliffe alleging that the Board of Trustees (BOT) and Mayor violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law and by doing so, “that the Town and its board of trustees violated Hedberg’s rights under Colorado’s Open Meetings Law.”
Matt Roane is a specialist who has spent a decade taking cities, school boards, boards of county commissioners, and more to court for violations of the Colorado Open Meetings Law, also known as the Colorado Sunshine Law. He has filed over 200 such lawsuits in the State of Colorado, and his success prompted the State Legislature in 2024 to consider a bill that would have effectively prevented him from his current specialty (that law was ultimately not sent to the floor for a vote).
Colorado Open Meeting Laws are strange in that they place enforcement of the law not on some police or state prosecution power but instead rely on private citizens to file lawsuits against governments. Roane has been referred to as a “private attorney general.”
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