A judge ordered the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission to publicly disclose an advisory committee’s draft report, ruling it is not protected by CORA’s deliberative process privilege.
The Lakewood City Council violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law by failing to publicly announce the topic of a 2024 executive session “in as much detail as required,” a judge ruled.
The Colorado Court of Appeals will decide whether a town council’s improperly noticed meeting requires the public disclosure of an executive session recording.
Below are some ideas for additional changes that favor government transparency and the notion that governmental proceedings could be made more accessible to more people without imposing unreasonable burdens on public bodies. These proposed updates are gleaned from the more than 7,600 inquiries to the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition’s FOI hotline over the past 13 years.
A lawsuit accuses the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission of violating the state’s open meetings and open records laws by denying public access to a commission-appointed advisory committee and by withholding the committee’s draft report.
It’s been 14 years since an amendment to the Colorado Open Meetings Law barred public bodies from using secret ballots to make decisions, but the Greeley City Council and the Bayfield Planning Commission recently took votes that way.
Three Douglas County residents asked the Colorado Supreme Court to deny the county commissioners’ petition for review of an appellate court ruling that the open meetings law applied to several meetings they convened outside of public view.
Efforts to weaken the Colorado Open Records Act and give an open meetings law exemption to the state Public Utilities Commission fell short during the 2026 session of the General Assembly.
The Colorado Title Board again rejected a proposed state constitutional right-to-know initiative for the fall ballot, still maintaining it doesn’t meet a single-subject requirement.
Sponsors of a bill to reauthorize the Colorado Public Utilities Commission agreed to remove a provision that would have let the three commissioners engage in “nonpublic” discussions after hearing evidence on adjudicatory matters.
