The Colorado Children’s Code doesn’t necessarily prohibit the state Department of Human Services from publicly releasing aggregate statistics about child-abuse hotline calls made from licensed residential care facilities, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled, reversing a 2021 district court decision.
A judge ordered Denver to disclose city officials’ text messages about last June’s severe hailstorm at Red Rocks Amphitheater, ruling the communications were improperly withheld from 9NEWS reporter Steve Staeger.
The refusal to release this information makes Colorado one of just 15 states that keep this type of police officer data secret, according to a nationwide reporting project, preventing the press and public from adequately monitoring the state’s oversight of wandering or second-chance officers.
A lawsuit filed by 9NEWS and reporter Steve Staeger accuses Denver city officials of improperly denying Colorado Open Records Act requests for text messages about a severe hailstorm that pummeled Red Rocks Amphitheater concertgoers on June 21.
A judge applied Colorado’s four-year-old anti-SLAPP law in tossing out defamation allegations made by a health care staffing company against reporters for Denver7 and Denver Newsbreak.
A district court ruling against four Douglas County school board members doesn’t affect other government boards, councils and commissions, but it could persuade judges who examine similar cases concerning the legality of serial or daisy-chain meetings under the state’s open meetings law.
A district court judge made “egregious” errors last year in deciding that Colorado’s Sunshine Law did not require members of an elected town board to discuss the censure of a fellow board member in an open meeting, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition contends in a brief submitted to the Court of Appeals.
State senators rewrote an open meetings bill, leaving only a provision that bars pro se litigants who challenge the legality of executive sessions from collecting court costs and attorney fees if they prevail in court.
Colorado’s Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board is a criminal justice agency, and it did not abuse its discretion by denying two news organizations’ requests for the state’s database of certified and decertified law enforcement officers, the Colorado Court of Appeals decided.
As amended by the Colorado House, an open meetings bill still significantly weakens Coloradans’ ability to enforce a 22-year-old provision in the Sunshine Law requiring school boards and other local public bodies to announce the topics of closed-door meetings with some specificity.
