“It is declared to be a matter of statewide concern and the policy of this state that the formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”
- C.R.S. §24-6-101 (Colorado Sunshine Act of 1972)
On Oct. 17, the Estes Valley Voice asked the Estes Valley Fire Protection District for the minutes and the recording of the executive session meeting held on Oct. 9. During that meeting, the EVFPD board of directors met to interview three candidates for the job of fire chief and then discussed which candidate to hire.
According to the Colorado Open Meetings Law, a public agency or special district governing board’s decisions cannot be made in executive session meetings. Minutes must be taken of executive sessions and a recording of the executive session must be made and maintained for 90 days.
The EVFPD board of directors notified the members of the fire district on Oct. 10 that a new chief, Paul Capo, had been chosen and then, on Oct. 15, the EVFPD announced that Capo would be the new fire chief.
The Estes Valley Voice told the EVFPD board that, as required by CORA, we expected the records to be shared with us within three business days.
After that time, we would file a lawsuit in the Larimer County District Court and ask the court to conduct an in camera review of the minutes and the recording of the executive session meeting related to how the Estes Valley Fire Protection District decided to hire Capo as the next fire chief.
The Estes Valley Voice does not object to the selection of Capo to serve as the next chief. He is a dedicated firefighter who has demonstrated a willingness to take the job seriously. Capo has built an impressive training program for EVFPD that educates firefighters from the Estes Valley and many surrounding communities. The Estes Valley is fortunate to have Capo step up to serve as the chief and, considering the myriad problems in the department over the past two years, the community should rally behind Capo as its new chief.
Instead, the Estes Valley Voice is alarmed by the process by which the decision was made. According to an email sent to the Estes Valley Voice by the governing board’s chairperson, Ryan Bross, EVFPD made the decision by consensus in an executive session meeting – meaning behind closed doors and secretly.
EVFPD informed the Estes Valley Voice that its board would not be able to achieve a required quorum for two weeks and so it cannot respond to our request for the minutes or the recording.
An EVFPD board of directors meeting before an organizational response to a CORA request is not necessary.
However, since the EVFPD board of directors have a meeting scheduled for Oct. 30, we have extended the fire district additional time to comply with our CORA request.
EVFPD is not alone in its disregard or casual treatment of CORA’s promise of open government.
We continue to push the Park Hospital District, operator of Estes Park Health, for detailed information about decisions and policy directions made in executive session.
The district’s directors have conducted dozens of executive sessions in the past year, during which they have approved a letter of intent to affiliate with UCHealth and authorized the release of a proposed 2025 budget to the public but shared no details of how that budget was developed. We are pleased that the hospital district has a proposed budget for the new fiscal year in place.
Estes Park Hospital requires citizens of this community, who pay taxes to support it, to make an appointment to view its budget and to read that budget in the presence of a hospital administrator. This unusual practice is not the only aberration that is apparent in the hospital’s process of fiscal accountability. Hospital administrators have said that taxpayers who see the budget are not allowed to make a copy of it, or even photograph it, and they do not make it available on the organization’s website.
Park Hospital District announced Oct. 16. that it agreed to UCHealth’s acquisition of Estes Park Health. We think that this tentative agreement may hold promise to improve the financial health of this community’s only hospital and we do not object, at this point, to the letter of intent.
That no public vote occurred on either subject is both deeply disappointing and a significant concern. Whether or not UC Health would prefer that its dealings with Park Hospital District and Estes Valley Health be done in the dark, our hospital’s governing directors serve the district’s taxpayers. CORA dictates the obligation of the health district board to govern in the light just as it compels EVFPD’s board of directors to do so.
The Estes Valley Voice has asked, under CORA, for copies of the letter of intent to be acquired by UCHealth and of the budget.
Sunshine laws protect public institutions from ignorance and backroom dealings that threaten the democratic process. We elect and, in many cases, appoint representatives to serve on public boards that are funded with taxpayer money and that are charged with doing the public’s business.
Unlike the board of a private corporation or even a nonprofit organization, a public board oversees a publicly funded service. And the public has a right to know what is happening with its money.
The Washington Post has a motto: “Democracy dies in darkness.”
The Estes Valley is, at present, being denied some of the protections of democracy that our state laws provide. Sunshine laws are intended to shine the light on public governing boards’ actions so that the public may be protected from cronyism or profiteering by those entrusted to serve the community. They allow the public to see what government bodies are doing, thereby promoting openness in public meetings and both accuracy of and access to government records.
Colorado’s Sunshine Law dictates that while a publicly elected board can confer in an executive session under certain limited circumstances, all decisions must be made in an open meeting.
That stipulation of the law needs to be repeated for at least two of Estes Park’s most visible public bodies, both of which finance their operations with property tax income: decisions must be made in an open meeting.
The members of a public board – such as a town board or a taxing district – and whether they are elected or appointed, must gavel out of an executive session, and return to a public session where citizens and, yes, journalists may be present, in order to take a vote on the record.
“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.” Justice Louis Brandeis
Decisions must be made in public about how money is spent, about policies that are adopted, and about the appointment of a person, such as a fire chief, to fill the office of a local public body. All decisions, with few exceptions, must be made on the record.
The Colorado Open Records Act also gives the public access to records of public meetings and states:
It is declared to be the public policy of this state that all public records shall be open for inspection by any person at reasonable times, except as provided in this part 2 or as otherwise specifically provided by law.
- C.R.S. §24-72-201 (Colorado Open Records Act or CORA)
Our state’s sunshine statute requires that the agency prepare and maintain minutes of the proceedings of an executive session and that it record those sessions. Those recordings must be kept for 90 days in case there is a question about what happened in the executive session.
The open records law also specifies that if matters discussed in executive session are not shielded from disclosure by the provisions of the law, the resulting discussions “shall be open to public inspection.”
When a question arises about what occurred in an executive session, CORA provides that a judge may review the minutes and recording of a meeting and decide whether the law, and therefore the public’s trust, was violated.
When a publicly elected body violates CORA, the court can award the plaintiff litigation costs and reasonable attorney fees.
The purpose of both the Sunshine Act and the Colorado Open Records Act is to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in public with accountability.
To date, both the board of the fire district and the hospital board have not lived up to this public obligation. Sadly, both boards, and their individual members, are failing the very people they swore to serve. The late Justice Louis Brandeis once said that “[i]f the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.”
The EVFPD and our local hospital district board would do well to remember this. So would we all.