From Steamboat Today:  The Routt County commissioners agreed Tuesday to fund a supplemental budget item for the Routt County Coroner’s Office allowing the county to reimburse the Steamboat Pilot and Today for $10,287.85 in legal fees.

Those fees stem from the newspaper’s successful defense of a lawsuit filed by the coroner seeking to block the release of an autopsy report under the Colorado Open Records Act. However, the commissioners expressed some misgivings.

Asked by Commission chairman Tim Corrigan how the matter would be handled if the commissioners decided not to approve the supplemental budget, County Attorney John Merrill, who was not involved directly in the lawsuit, said an evidentiary hearing would be held in front of a district court judge. The judge would determine whether or not the court should have allowed the newspaper to have the autopsy report in the death of 3-year-old Austin Davis in March.

“That would almost require a reversal,” of the judge’s original decision to release the report, Merrill replied. “We’re not in a very good position.”

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