Denver officials say they may reconsider their decision to shut out the public from meetings of a financial task force convened to help find ways to fix the city’s structural budget problem.
“We are going to go back and talk to the members of the task force,” said Jack Finlaw, chief of staff to Mayor Guillermo “Bill” Vidal. “We will talk to them about whether being open to the public would limit discussion. If they would still be comfortable to think outside of the box, we may open it up.”
Attorneys for The Denver Post last week sent a letter to Denver city officials saying the meetings should be open under the Colorado open-meetings act.
Denver City Attorney David Fine responded, saying the task force is not a “formally constituted” public body, such as a commission, mayoral board or the City Council. Fine also said that because Denver is a home-rule city, it has developed its own open-meetings law and doesn’t have to adhere to the state’s sunshine law.
Vidal created the Structural Financial Task Force — with 21 community, business and civic leaders — “to develop options to address the structural deficit the city and county of Denver faces in future years,” according to a news release announcing the group.
The task force must by year’s end present to the mayor and City Council recommendations on solutions to the long-term structural imbalance in the city budget’s operating revenues and expenditures.
Two candidates for mayor, Councilman Doug Linkhart and former State Sen. Chris Romer, issued statements that they would open up the meetings to the public.
Finlaw acknowledged that city leaders knew shutting out the public would be controversial.
“We thought the benefit would be to allow them to think in new ways and not be worried that an idea they would float would get out and people would criticize them,” Finlaw said. “That can’t always happen if there is the glare of public attention.”
Finlaw said there are two sides to the story.
“There is civic value in both transparency and openness and trying to generate new ideas and grapple with complex problems,” he said.
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
