by Mark Craddock
WALENBURG — On Sunday, 3rd Judicial District Judge J. Clay McKisson ordered the City of Walsenburg to hand over the recording of a Jan. 17, 2023 executive session which the World Journal contends was improperly convened, to allow an “in camera” review of the meeting.
Deputy City Clerk Richard Colander said the city complied with the order Tuesday.
“In camera” means McKisson will review the recording privately before deciding whether to release the tapes publicly, as the World Journal has requested.
“After reviewing the recording, the court will issue further orders” the judge wrote.
At issue was an executive session held during the Jan. 17, 2023 meeting, ostensibly to discuss “a contract” with former Water/Sewer chief David Harriman to return to the fold.
At the time, the council was in the midst of a recall effort targeting several members that largely revolved around the city’s handling of its water infrastructure.
Earlier that month, the city’s Daigre Reservoir near La Veta had over-spilled, flooding parts of the Huajatolla Valley Estates subdivision. The city was contending with chronic leaks in its two raw-water pipelines transporting Daigre Reservoir water to City Lake, precipitating water restrictions as the city lost countless hundreds of acre-feet of water. The city’s utilities-billing system continued to generate many erroneous bills in the thousands of dollars. And frequent water-line breaks in the city continued to cause frequent water outages.
During the meeting, the World Journal objected to the executive session and, once convened, then-council members Carmen J. Lara and Greg Daniels left the session, saying the discussion was beyond the scope of the council’s authority.
Contending the session was convened improperly, the World Journal filed a Colorado Open Records Act request for the tape of the session. It was denied.
Through its counsel, Rachael Johnson of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the World Journal again requested the tape and was again denied.
In late June, the World Journal filed a court action seeking an “order to show cause,” directing the city to appear and explain why the recording should not be released.
That hearing was held Oct. 18. McKisson’s Sunday order was the result of that hearing.
“The fact that both Councilmembers Lara and Daniels independently left the executive session and stated that, in their opinions, the executive session and the discussion therein violated the applicable rules and was beyond the scope of the Council establishes sufficient grounds to support a reasonable belief that the Council engaged in substantial discussion of matters not enumerated in section C.R.S. 24-6-402(4)(e),” McKisson wrote.
But he wrote that evidence presented at the hearing did not, to his mind, prove that the Jan. 17 meeting agenda was improperly posted, which could have precipitated a public release of the recording.
“We are happy that the judge has decided to review the tape for himself,” World Journal Co-Publisher Brian Orr said. “From the start, we’ve sought to get to the bottom of what was said behind closed doors. Sure, we would have preferred an unambiguous public release of this public record, but an ‘in camera’ review by the judge is a reasonable and prudent step — and a step we requested.”
“The point is not to eavesdrop on elected officials through the keyhole of a closed door,” Orr said, “but to make sure the door remains open, to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in public. That’s why we’ve fought this issue for nearly a year, and will continue fighting it.”
