Lawmaker offers proposal for resolving open-records disputes through mediation
A Colorado House bill is intended to encourage records requesters and government entities to resolve disputes through mediation rather than in the court system.
Sen. John Kefalas
Legislative preview: 2017 could bring big changes to Colorado’s open-records law
State lawmakers could substantially reform the Colorado Open Records Act during the 2017 legislative session.
As CORA Working Group readies 2017 legislation, Attorney General’s office announces opposition
After months of work by stakeholders, proposed 2017 legislation is taking shape that would modernize the Colorado Open Records Act and provide an alternative to litigation for resolving CORA disputes. Despite the progress, however, a formidable roadblock surfaced when the Colorado Attorney General’s office announced that it will not support the most recent bill draft.
CORA Working Group focuses on database records, open data, alternatives to litigation
Immediately after a bill to modernize the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) died in a Senate committee last session, the Secretary of State’s office offered to bring stakeholders together to work on a 2017 proposal agreeable to both government entities and records requesters. That effort is well underway this summer and has focused on three main topics.
Open-government wins and losses in the 2016 Colorado legislative session
On matters affecting public information, the General Assembly did little during this year’s session to improve access. The most significant legislative win for government transparency doesn’t actually affect governments.
Zansberg: The right to inspect the public’s records
Sen. John Kefalas and Rep. Dan Pabon deserve thanks for their valiant, but unsuccessful, effort to guarantee the public’s right to inspect its records. Their bill, SB 16-037, would have clarified that Coloradans enjoy the right to obtain copies of public records in the same digitized format in which government maintains those records.
Cloudy conditions for Sunshine Week: A pile of paper instead of a spreadsheet
Aurora’s response to a reporter’s records request illustrates a common problem facing journalists and anyone else in Colorado who wishes to analyze public records kept in spreadsheets or databases. Too often, they get PDFs or stacks of paper instead. This makes analysis difficult or sometimes impossible.
Database records bill dies, but stakeholders hope to work on a compromise
Opposition from a state agency and several local governments doomed proposed legislation intended to modernize Colorado’s open-records law by requiring that public records kept in database formats be available to the public in similar formats.
Databases, nonprofit records, wage theft transparency on legislature’s 2016 agenda
Colorado lawmakers will consider at least four measures to expand public access to information during the legislature’s 2016 session, which convenes Jan. 13.
A 21st-century open-records law for Colorado
If you’re lucky, you’ll have no problem getting public information in a format that allows for searching, sorting and aggregating. Too often, however, database records are released in a format that makes analysis difficult, or they’re not released at all.