A Kiowa resident alleges in a lawsuit that the Elbert County Commission violated Colorado’s Open Meetings Law last spring when it considered resolutions to indemnify commissioners in legal cases involving two of them and a former commissioner.
A state advisory committee that helps award grants for addressing the impact of local gaming in Colorado has disregarded the Sunshine Law by failing to document its meetings and activities, a new state audit says.
Can I do it myself? The CFOIC is sometimes asked this question by folks who want to challenge a denial of public records or a closed-door meeting they believe was held improperly. The CFOIC is building an online repository of pleadings that have been filed in previous lawsuits under CORA and the Sunshine Law. And we have some tips on filing pro se from reporter Todd Shepherd.
Despite a 2012 Sunshine Law amendment that bans the use of secret ballots to make most decisions, some municipal governments in Colorado have continued to fill city council vacancies by voting anonymously.
An Arvada resident who sued his city for using secret ballots to fill a council vacancy can indeed show that he was injured by the closed-door process, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in overturning a district judge’s decision to dismiss the case.
How is it OK for Jeffco school district and union negotiators to meet privately? Didn’t 70 percent of Colorado voters last Election Day approve Proposition 104, requiring open collective bargaining negotiations in Colorado school districts?
The $25 billion budget bill that passed the Colorado Senate includes a relatively miniscule appropriation for a new position in the Attorney General’s office to help with a growing number of requests for public records.
What do you get when you ask three lawyers to discuss the ambiguous aspects of the Colorado Open Records Act and the state’s Sunshine (open meetings) Law? The answer is not four opinions.
Russell Weisfield, whose lawsuit over the use of secret ballots by the Arvada City Council led to a change in the state Open Meetings Law last year, won the Colorado Press Association’s “Friend of the First” award.
For the CFOIC, revisiting 2014 reveals a somewhat troubling string of stories about issues and problems affecting government transparency in Colorado. Consider them one by one and you might not be all that concerned. But put them in a list and you could reasonably conclude that open government in the Centennial State is still a work in progress.
