Despite their protestations about being unfairly castigated for apparently breaking Colorado’s open meetings law, a majority of Jefferson County’s commissioners voted to settle a lawsuit on the matter.
In essence, they decided to make it go away.
Tactically, it’s a prudent move because even by their own version of events, commissioners appear to have violated the law. As part of the settlement, they promised to follow the law in the future. We can only hope they keep that promise.
Another part of the proposed settlement has the county paying the legal fees of Landmark Community Newspapers, which brought the lawsuit. It’s unfortunate that in a very difficult budget year, the county will have to pay out yet more legal fees to cover the actions of its public officials.
Landmark is the parent company of the Canyon Courier, Columbine Courier and High Timber Times.
The issue began when the county administrator held a meeting on July 5 to discuss Jeffco’s financial straits with county employees. All three county commissioners attended the meeting, which triggered the open meetings law. When a quorum of an elected board attends a meeting, public notice must be given. It is a fundamental element of a statute designed to allow the public to keep tabs on what their elected officials are doing.
Officials in other jurisdictions often will adjourn a meeting or leave the room if they’ve noticed they’ve unintentionally gotten into a situation where they’re breaking the law. It happens.
But in Jeffco, commissioners made excuses and pointed fingers. Credit goes to the Canyon Courier and its parent company for taking on commissioners to preserve this basic access to the governmental process. It’s a shame that they had to.
