GLENWOOD SPRINGS— —The Garfield County commissioners’ participation in an out-of-state meeting to craft a joint position statement on oil shale development was not meant to keep the public out of the loop, Commission Chairman John Martin said.
“We have nothing to hide, and we feel that we did everything we needed to do in the open,” Martin said. “If the remedy is to rescind our vote on the resolution and have another hearing on this, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Martin’s comments came in response to a lawsuit filed Monday by a pair of citizens groups claiming the commissioners violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law by attending the closed-door session hosted by the Uintah County commissioners in Vernal, Utah, in March.
The Grand Valley Citizens Alliance (GVCA) and the Western Colorado Congress (WCC), are asking a Garfield District Court judge to rule on whether the commissioners violated the law by not properly posting their plans to attend the meeting.
The lawsuit also claims the Garfield commissioners, all three of whom attended the meeting, did not take a required vote to meet in executive session.
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