By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director
The Elbert County commissioners should be held personally liable for unlawfully approving new contracts for the county administrator and county attorney outside of public view and ordered to reimburse Elbert’s treasury for those expenditures, a lawsuit filed Thursday by five residents says.
The residents accuse Commissioners Chris Richardson, Dallas Schroeder and Grant Thayer of violating the Colorado Open Meetings Law and another state statute that forbids county commissions from making contracts “unless an appropriation shall have been previously made concerning such expense.”
Under that statute, county commissioners “who undertake to create any liability against the county, except such as they are by statute required to do, shall be personally liable and, together with the sureties upon their official bonds, shall be held for such indebtedness.”
A month ago, in a letter drafted by freedom-of-information attorney Steve Zansberg, the five residents and two others asked the commissioners to rescind the two contracts and acknowledge they are “legally invalid.” The commissioners responded by saying they do not agree with the allegations but are working on a policy for renewing contracts “that keeps the public informed, protects individual privacy, and establishes a clear and straightforward process which complies with statute and case law to accomplish this.”
Previously, in a town hall meeting, the commissioners defended the legality of the contract changes for County Manager Shawn Fletcher and County Attorney Bart Greer by citing a provision in the open meetings law regarding the “day-to-day oversight of property or supervision of employees by county commissioners.”
But that provision only exempts county commissioners from the open meetings law’s 24-hour notice requirement in supervisory situations. The law requires that any discussion of public business by two or more members of the county commission be conducted in an open meeting, and it prohibits the commissioners “from making any decision — such as agreeing to sign a multi-year contract that commits the County to pay substantial sums — outside of a properly noticed meeting that is open to the public,” the lawsuit filed in Elbert County District Court says.
“Quite clearly, committing to pay two county officials hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of three years cannot possibly be considered ‘day to day supervision’ of such employees,” it adds.
Salaries for Fletcher and Greer were increased to $220,00 each and their contracts extended to Jan. 1, 2027, according to a July 12 Elbert County News story.
The lawsuit alleges the commissioners approved the raises prior to June 13 and “authorized Board Chair Richardson to sign those contracts, thereby binding Elbert County to perform the obligations therein.” On July 24, following a town hall meeting in which residents complained about the new contracts, the commissioners voted to “ratify” them. But doing so just “rubbered stamped” the previously made decisions, the suit says.
Zansberg, who is president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jill Duvall, Jim Duvall, Christopher Hatton, Nic Meyer and former Elbert County Commissioner Robert Rowland.
They ask the district court to find the county commission in violation of the open meetings law and to order the commissioners “each to pay to the treasury of Elbert County, Colorado, all monies that they voted to commit Elbert County to pay out that were not previously authorized.”
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