A Larimer County judge ruled Monday that the Estes Valley Fire Protection District violated the state’s open meetings law when it hired chief Paul Capo during an October executive session.
The decision is a win for the Estes Valley Voice and its editor, Patti Brown, in a lawsuit filed to challenge EVFPD’s secretive process for hiring its new day-to-day leader.
“[W]hile they avoided taking a formal vote or ranking all the candidates, it’s clear that after discussing each of the candidates and weighing their strengths and weaknesses, the board members agreed that the Fire District should offer the fire chief position to Mr. Capo” during executive session, wrote District Judge Juan Villaseñor.
The EVFPD governing board violated Colorado’s Sunshine Law, he said, “because it adopted a position or took formal action during that executive session.”
Villaseñor rejected EVFPD arguments that no decision was actually made during executive session, pointing to public statements by the board president and a visitor to the meeting, Joan Hooper.
The court noted that the EVFPD board relied on the direction of Erika Goetz, the organization’s public information officer, who informed the board members that they “had to choose a preferred candidate during that executive session.” According to the court, Goetz’ wording was that the board had to “reach a consensus.”
“And that’s precisely what the board members did,” wrote Villaseñor. “While they avoided taking a formal vote or ranking all the candidates, it’s clear that after discussing each of the candidates and weighing their strengths and weaknesses, the board members agreed that the Fire District should offer the fire chief position to Mr. Capo.”
“Thus, simply put, the Fire District took actions involving its policy-making functions during the fourth executive session, which is prohibited,” the court concluded.
The executive session was conducted as part of an interview process to select a new fire chief after Richard Lasky’s resignation in July. The fire district board never exited the executive session, held Oct. 9, or commenced any public meeting to decide on a candidate.
Villaseñor’s ruling explained that, by enacting the Sunshine Law, “the General Assembly has 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.” The purpose of the open meetings law, he continued, is that “the public must be allowed to know and understand the reasons for a local body’s decisions by having access to such deliberations.”
The court granted a declaratory judgment and awarded attorney fees and costs to the Estes Valley Voice and Brown in an amount to be determined later.
Capo’s status as fire chief is not affected. The plaintiffs did not ask Villaseñor to invalidate it on grounds of the Sunshine Law violation.
“Today’s ruling is bittersweet,” Brown said. “No one wants to sue the fire department. But one of the most important roles of the media is to serve as a watchdog of the government and to hold power accountable. People elected to serve and who have fiduciary responsibility over taxpayer funded institutions take an oath to uphold the state’s laws and the Sunshine Law is there to ensure that government bodies do the public’s business in public.”
“Our community is proud of our first responders and Paul Capo is a dedicated public servant and well respected firefighter and instructor,” Brown added.
Oral arguments were held in the case Dec. 20.
Listen to story here on EVV Podcast:
Well done and as a citizen of Estes Park I would be impressed if they responded with an explanation on how they will move forward to avoid this from occurring again.