La Plata County commissioners met Thursday to address a violation of Colorado’s open meetings law related to the preparation and submission of a co-authored opinion column published earlier this month in The Durango Herald.
The column, “A response to the findings of the Code Rights project,” ran Feb. 15 as a response to a report published by the Code Rights Project – a citizen organization focused on examining and uncovering potential flaws in the county’s planning and building process.
Under Colorado law, a public meeting occurs when two or more members of a public body discuss public business or take formal action, whether in person, online or via email or text. Email exchanges, group texts or sequential communications can qualify if they involve discussion of public business.
Because the column was written and issued under all three commissioners’ names and addressed a matter of public business involving a local citizen group, public notice should have been given for a meeting at which the statement was discussed and approved.
Instead, commissioners sent emails back and forth during the drafting and submission process, which county attorneys said constituted a violation of the rules, Commissioner Matt Salka said.
“It’s something I wished had not happened,” he said. “It’s something that is a very large lesson learned for the three county commissioners, and moving forward this is something that will not happen.”
The violation occurred in the midst of a unique internal situation, commissioners say. During the time of the writing, the county was without a public information officer after the recent departure of its longtime PIO. And, Salka said the new county manager was two days into the job.
Commissioners publish a column each month in the Herald, and the usual process involves one commissioner writing the initial draft and handing it off to the PIO, who acts as an intermediary to ensure none of the commissioners are interacting directly.
To prevent a similar occurrence, Salka said the county manager will serve in that intermediary capacity until a new PIO is hired.
On Thursday, commissioners addressed the violation by calling a special public meeting to discuss the mistake and the op-ed.
“I will admit ... it was a misstep,” Marsha Porter-Norton said, emphasizing commissioners stand by the contents of the piece and have no reason to alter any of its statements.
The op-ed defends the county’s ex-parte communication policy regarding land-use applications and rejects the Code Rights group’s viewpoint that the county attorney holds too much power over commissioners, the planning department and general county operations.
Under Colorado law, correction of a public meeting violation requires the governing body to hold a new, properly noticed public meeting where the issue is fully reopened – not just “rubber-stamped.” If applicable, the public must be given an opportunity to comment, and a new formal vote must be made.
Thursday’s meeting did just that, commissioners said.
“It was something that was not done properly, procedurally and so we aired that out. We did not cover up or hide,” Salka said. “We went through the public process of posting it 24 hours in advance and had those discussions today during the special business meeting. This has been rectified.”
This is the first time during any of the commissioners’ tenures that such a violation has occurred.
Jack Turner, director of the Code Rights Project, said he filed a Colorado Open Records Act request to obtain communications sent among commissioners during the drafting of the column.
Now that the county has addressed the issue publicly, Turner said, “in many ways, it’s no harm, no foul.”
jbowman@durangoherald.com
