Editor’s note concerning Estes Park Health’s press release
Today, Estes Park Health issued a press release objecting to certain reporting in a July 22, 2025, article in the Estes Valley Voice relating to our Colorado Open Records Act lawsuit against Estes Park Health. It is not clear why EPH or its attorneys felt compelled to issue this press release, but here is the bottom line.
A court may award legal fees to a petitioner in a CORA lawsuit only if the court first determines that the provisions of CORA were violated by the defendant.
In our lawsuit, that is precisely what the court did, thereby clearly establishing that Estes Park Health violated the Colorado Open Records Act by withholding the requested Letter of Intent signed by EPH and UCHealth in October 2024.
When the Letter of Intent was requested – not once, not twice, but three times – Estes Park Health could have avoided paying the Estes Valley Voice’s legal fees and incurring its own legal fees in defending the lawsuit by simply releasing the Letter of Intent as the law requires.
By not doing so, it was Estes Park Health that unnecessarily wasted taxpayer funds.
At a June 6, 2025, court conference, Mark Sabey, attorney for Estes Park Health, stated that EPH had no valid defense to the Estes Valley Voice’s claim that CORA had been violated. “If we went to a hearing, we could not prove that, that (sic) the denial was proper.”
The Estes Valley Voice will continue to assert the community’s right to the public disclosure of public records by government entities and to point out violations by the Park Hospital District of the state’s public meeting and public records laws.
The public’s business must be done publicly.
Enough said.