{"id":36135,"date":"2023-01-22T04:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-22T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/our-view-shining-light-on-meetings-costly-lawsuits\/"},"modified":"2023-01-22T11:45:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T11:45:00","slug":"our-view-shining-light-on-meetings-costly-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/our-view-shining-light-on-meetings-costly-lawsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Our View: Shining light on meetings, costly lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here we go again.<\/p>\n

Serial records requester Pagosa Springs attorney Matt Roane gave the city of Durango an ultimatum on Jan. 4: Either City Council approves the release of a recording from a Dec. 12 executive session regarding an evaluation of Tony Maestas, former interim city attorney, or the city faces another lawsuit.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s anything untoward happening in city government, we want to be first in line to know about it. But our understanding is that the city can discuss confidential, personnel matters behind closed doors and be protected by state law.<\/p>\n

Because of Roane\u2019s unsavory history of suing government entities \u2013 especially school districts \u2013 that pay him to go away rather than litigate, our first thought was d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. But this new potential lawsuit is a different animal.<\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s a wrinkle. After that Dec. 12 executive session, Councilor Olivier Bosmans reportedly said he was concerned that discussion ventured away from evaluating Maestas, into general city legal department affairs. He raised the same concern on Jan. 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is the option to disclose those parts of the executive session meeting that are not personnel related but associated with the functioning of the legal department,\u201d Bosmans said.<\/p>\n

This statement gives Roane probable cause.<\/p>\n

If the conversation in executive session did veer into general legal affairs territory, did Bosmans \u2013 or other councilors \u2013 redirect colleagues, holding up hands, asking them to stop?<\/p>\n

Bosmans did not respond to requests for comments by deadline, so we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d like to think councilors would have stuck to the agenda. They\u2019re likely still reeling from the aftereffects of a settled lawsuit with Roane for $3,250 in early December for allegedly failing to properly disclose the topic of a July executive session on the transfer of property to La Plata County for a homeless camp. The city admitted no wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

At the time, Roane\u2019s legal complaint also said the city \u201ccould have provided more than three substantive words \u2013 \u2018possible camp for the unhoused\u2019 \u2013 when describing its intended topic of discussion.\u201d The $3,250 question came down to reasonable specificity.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve raised the question before. What would stop Roane from suing municipalities and school districts \u2013 that he has no connection to \u2013 over fine points again and again?<\/p>\n

Or does Roane actually have something?<\/p>\n

We want to get to the bottom of it because Roane\u2019s lawsuits have cost rural governmental bodies a lot of money. As taxpayers, this is your<\/em> money. We champion open government, and we want attempts at shining more light to be in service to the public. If we\u2019re not being served, we\u2019re getting ripped off. All of us.<\/p>\n

The city of Durango must be thoughtful with spending. A settlement would cost less than unknown staff hours tending to one case. But what\u2019s the price tag if multiple lawsuits don\u2019t serve the public? Is it better to go straight to court and let a judge decide?<\/p>\n

A precedent could mean a change in legal strategy for school districts, too. Beyond the Southwest, Roane has sued districts in Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Gilpin County. Montezuma-Cortez School District settled a lawsuit with Roane in April for $3,250 and, in addition, paid $3,590.50 in outside legal fees. Durango\u2019s School District paid Roane $3,250 to settle a lawsuit, too. We are waiting on a figure for 9-R\u2019s legal expenses, after filing a Colorado Open Records Act request, and expect costs to be in the same ballpark as Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s.<\/p>\n

As reported in The Durango Herald<\/em> on Jan. 11, William Tuthill, newly hired interim city attorney, said Council would not ordinarily disclose that session on Maestas\u2019 evaluation. \u201cIn a decent personnel discussion, you discuss not only what people are doing well but what they could do better,\u201d Tuthill said. \u201cNobody really wants to have that discussion, even though you work for the government, in public. The law recognizes that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuthill said state statute encourages government transparency and public business should be conducted publicly. But discussions about the city attorney\u2019s office and its workload fall within the scope of personnel matters, which can be held in a private setting.<\/p>\n

Maestas\u2019 resignation was announced on Dec. 19 and on the same day, Roane filed an open records request that claimed Council held \u201csubstantial discussion of matters other than the annual evaluation of\u201d Maestas. The city denied Roane\u2019s request for the recording, saying the meeting was of an administrative nature.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 28, Roane sent an email to the city clerk, stating his intent to challenge the city\u2019s denial in another lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Both Maestas and Tuthill suggested Council did stick to the agendized topic. \u201cSo I cannot support releasing this tape,\u201d Mayor Barbara Noseworthy said.<\/p>\n

We asked Roane for comment. In an email, he responded with, \u201cI\u2019d like to tell you to f—- off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roane did not file a lawsuit by press time.<\/p>\n

For now, we\u2019re watching for next steps and wondering what citizens think about all this.<\/p>\n

\"\"
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we go again. Serial records requester Pagosa Springs attorney Matt Roane gave the city of Durango an ultimatum on Jan. 4: Either City Council approves the release of a recording from a Dec. 12 executive session regarding an evaluation of Tony Maestas, former interim city attorney, or the city faces another lawsuit. If there\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36135","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=36135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36135"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}