Denver Councilman Chris Nevitt during Tuesday’s City Council meeting defended a closed-door meeting he and two other councilmen held two weeks ago with labor leaders and a contractor poised to take over the parking at Denver International Airport.
That meeting sparked criticism from the Cleveland-based contractor Standard Parking. The firm’s representative said they feared the council members had become too close to union officials.
The meeting also generated newspaper editorials criticizing it as violating the state’s open meetings laws, which would require such meetings to be public if three or more council members were present.
“I don’t want to speak to the substance of the allegations other than to say that I believe that promoting communication and dialogue between labor and management and between our workforce and our contractors is, I believe, central to the public’s interest and central to my role as a council member,” Nevitt said during a moment of personal privilege during Tuesday’s council meeting.
He added that the council members were abiding by the city’s municipal ordinance, which states a meeting is considered public only if a majority or more of the council members are present.
That ordinance differs from state law, which holds that municipalities should consider a meeting public when a three or more public officials or a quorum, whichever is fewer, are present to discuss the public’s business.
The Denver City Attorney’s office has instructed the city to ignore the state law and follow municipal code.
The city attorney’s office believes home rule provisions allow the city to set its own open meeting regulations even though state law has been amended to specify state law should also apply to home rule municipalities.
Denver Councilman Charlie Brown during Tuesday’s council meeting continued to criticize Nevitt and the other council members for meeting with the bidder and four representatives of the Service Employees International Union.
Brown said he was never invited to the closed door meeting and would have advised the other council members against holding it if he had learned of it.
“We can sit here all night and talk about this open meeting ordinance,” Brown said. “There is the law, and there is the perception of the law, and I think the perception of what has occurred has raised questions.”
In other business, the council:
— Approved a $30,000 payment to settle a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Bradley Braxton, an Aurora resident who claimed he was held in Denver’s jails on a sex-assault charge against a white man with a different name.
Braxton, an African-American who was 36 when he filed his lawsuit in December, claimed jail deputies should have known he was not a suspect in the case. He was held for nine days.
— Approved a $13,500 payment for the “voluntary resignation” of Denver Police Officer Steven Sandovalcq in exchange for a resolution to a lawsuit Sandoval had filed in Denver District Court.
Safety Manager Al LaCabecq fired Sandoval in 2006 after he determined the officer violated the law by beating his wife and was untruthful during an investigation into his actions.
Hearing Officer John Criswellcq later reversed LaCabe’s firing, saying the city never proved any domestic assault.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
