{"id":17013,"date":"2025-08-08T00:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/court-delivers-mixed-rulings-for-city-durango-watchdog\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:03:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:39","slug":"court-delivers-mixed-rulings-for-city-durango-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/court-delivers-mixed-rulings-for-city-durango-watchdog\/","title":{"rendered":"Court delivers mixed rulings for city, Durango watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Talk
Talk of a \u201cvacancy tax\u201d on property owners of second homes, vacation rentals and otherwise empty homes has grown in recent weeks. The Colorado Association of Ski Towns, which hosted a meeting at the Strater Hotel in Durango in August, is proposing legislation that would give towns and cities the ability to choose for themselves whether to tax second homeowners. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The 6th Judicial District Court on Wednesday ruled that a former Durango Financial Advisory Board member violated the Colorado Open Records Act when he withheld emails sought in a records request.<\/p>\n

The city was seeking emails between former FAB member John Simpson and then Councilor Olivier Bosmans to fulfill a November 2023 records request filed by The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sixth Judicial District Judge Suzanne Carlson ruled Simpson violated CORA by withholding two emails between himself and Bosmans. But she also ruled another component of the city\u2019s complaint doesn\u2019t violate CORA.<\/p>\n

The city also requested these summary judgments from the court:<\/p>\n

That Simpson also \u201cviolated, attempted to violate, or constructively violated\u201d CORA by including in emails disclaimers such as \u201cnot subject to CORA.\u201dThe Durango Board of Ethics has jurisdiction to proceed with processing an ethics complaint filed against Simpson.<\/div>\n

Taking up the question of whether marking an email subject to CORA with a disclaimer that it isn\u2019t subject to CORA would violate open records law, the court initially declined to issue a judgment in favor of the city.<\/p>\n

However, in another order filed Thursday, the court issued a judgment on the matter that favored Simpson.<\/p>\n

\u201cImproperly marking emails with \u2018not subject to CORA\u2019 language is an action that is contrary to the public policy behind CORA,\u201d the ruling said. \u201c\u2026 However, a CORA violation occurs upon withholding of public records, not upon marking such records. Thus, marking alone does not constitute a CORA violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Attorney Mark Morgan said the court found the \u201cnot subject to CORA\u201d does not technically violate open records law, but it does violate the spirit of the law, and the issue could be taken to trial.<\/p>\n

Carlson declined to issue a judgment about the Board of Ethics\u2019 investigation, which itself pertains to whether Simpson violated CORA.<\/p>\n

Simpson argued the district court must decide whether the ethics board has jurisdiction over a CORA violation.<\/p>\n

The ruling said that determining jurisdiction over a CORA violation before the ethics board has made its own determination \u201cwould be even more preemptive than reviewing an administrative decision that is not a final decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery court has authority to hear and decide the question of its own jurisdiction,\u201d the ruling said, quoting \u201cIn re Water Rts. of Elk Dance Colorado, LLC,\u201d a 2006 Colorado Supreme Court decision.<\/p>\n

Simpson and Morgan had different takeaways from the court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Simpson said he respects the court\u2019s decision, but the city was already in possession of the emails he withheld. He said withholding emails \u201cwas a result of actions taken under the advice of a city-appointed attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan said that is a misrepresentation: Simpson\u2019s secret emails to Bosmans were outside the city\u2019s purview and created a conflict with the city. Morgan could not represent Simpson when the Herald<\/em> issued its records request, he said. But nonetheless, Simpson deserved representation \u2013 so the city appointed an attorney to represent him.<\/p>\n

When that attorney declined to turn over public records on behalf of Simpson, Morgan said, the city decided it would not pay for that attorney, and billed them for $750.<\/p>\n

On a pending Board of Ethics complaint against Simpson, Simpson said the court did not issue a ruling on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Board of Ethics\u2019 investigative report did not find these two emails to be in violation of the city\u2019s code of ethics,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cThe court also explicitly refused to resolve the fundamental question of whether the Board of Ethics has jurisdiction over CORA matters, leaving that key issue unresolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan said Simpson had withheld \u201cdozens and dozens\u201d of more emails from the city, and the city petitioned the court to address that, but it never did.<\/p>\n

He said the ruling \u201cexposes the hypocritical and disingenuous nature of Mr. Simpson\u2019s criticism of city leaders\u201d and Simpson withheld public records from the public.<\/p>\n

A pretrial conference is scheduled for Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article has been updated to reflect additional comments from Simpson and Morgan.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

records act violations occurred in some instances, not others<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[950,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-17013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17013"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20515,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17013\/revisions\/20515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17013"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=17013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}