Government Transparency Wednesday--updates and new business.
Updates first and then on to new business.
The Complete Colorado article linked below details how Complete successfully got some of their costs back** after suing to force Colorado's Health Care Policy and Financing office to crack open their emails as part of a records request (see link two below for some context).
One can only wonder what kind of dank and musty odors must have come out of those emails because, after following this story closely, I can tell you that whole issue was swampy as hell and desperately in need of some disinfecting sunshine.
My dad, a mechanical engineer, told me once about a conversation he had with his firm's insurance agent (engineers carry insurance in case they're sued by a building owner or contractor). She told my dad that they mostly settle, but usually take one case per year or so to court just to let the wolfish and hungry trial lawyers know that they can't simply extort settlement money out of them.
I think about this here and am thankful that Complete took this all the way to the mat. Our government needs, like the trial lawyers, to know that they won't win them all. They need to have that little voice in the back of their heads reminding them about this particular story when they make their decisions as to what is excluded and what isn't from public record.
I'll leave you with one last quote from the article because I think the dates and amounts are important to note:
"That legal battle cost Complete Colorado more than $46,000 in legal expenses just to get HCPF to abide by state law. The records were finally turned over in March, a full year after the initial CORA request was made, after Denver District Court Judge Jill Dorancy determined that HCPF wrongly withheld dozens of emails based on a vague and often abused exception in the law. The legal victory meant the state was on the hook for Complete Colorado’s legal fees. However, just as they tied up the open records process to avoid public scrutiny, the agency along with its legal counsel, the Attorney General’s office, stalled in reimbursement and tried to avoid payment."
**Completeness and fairness here demand a mention that when Complete collects, it will be taxpayer money that goes to repay them. You may differ, you are welcome to add your thoughts to the comments if you do, but I for one am glad to pay this particular bill.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/06/13/complete-colorado-legal-costs-transparency-lawsuit-against-state/
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/03/24/emails-state-health-agency-rationalize-regulations-colorado-hospitals/
New business 1
Do CORA requests? Get ready to pay more. The CFOIC article below details a price hike for records retrieval due to what they call "soaring inflation".**
I had to smile when I read the following in the article (with the link left intact): "Governments don’t have to adopt the new maximum rate, although many did so after it was last adjusted five years ago."
Uh, yeah. I think they will. When has the government ever turned down a chance to get more of your money?
I have figured strategies to try and work around the high cost for open records (happy to share, please ask if interested), but these rising costs make it yet harder for people to get access to what their government is doing. I speak here especially of part timers like myself who don't have the backing of a news organization. If it's bad for the press, it's worse for independents.
Perhaps one year the Assembly will get serious about reforms to CORA that make it easier for people to get records instead of efforts that put up more roadblocks.
Hey, a fella can hope right?
**The hourly fee is tagged to inflation. Quoting the article: "Legislative Council Director Natalie Castle calculated the new rate Wednesday using a formula spelled out in a 2014 amendment to the Colorado Open Records Act. It requires inflating the current $33.58 rate by the percentage change in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood consumer price index since 2019."
https://coloradofoic.org/coras-maximum-research-and-retrieval-fee-rate-will-rise-23-percent-on-july-1-to-41-37-hour/
New business and related to Complete Colorado's court fight.
The CFOIC article linked below details another court case between a news outlet and the government over CORA records, this one between KOAA TV and the Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo.
There are more details in the article, but the essence of the disagreement here was whether or not a state employee could expect privacy over whether or not he or she was ever disciplined (the reporter sought information on hospital employees that were investigated or subject to discipline).
Normally state employee personnel records are fairly open,** but certain things can be redacted (such as home addresses and the like). The hospital contended that information about discipline was of the same nature as addresses and the judge that heard the case said it was not.,
Also, like with Complete, the state has to pay the attorneys fees to the news organization.
I'm okay in general with this sort of investigation, but I do have one concern. I'll illustrate with a quote:
“'The Court concludes that the fact that an employee was placed on investigatory administrative leave, without more, does not actually implicate the employee’s right of privacy and the protection for personnel files,' he [Pueblo County District Court Judge Timothy O’Shea] added.'"
My concern here centers on what kind of care KOAA TV will exercise with the distinction between administrative actions that do and do not result in any sort of disciplinary action. I'm not accusing KOAA TV here of doing wrong, but I hope that, in making whatever use they had planned for this information, they exercise due caution. Sometimes employees are on leave for an investigation that never results in any discipline. That is, I hope they sift out those that did wrong from those that didn't.
**Yours truly and his colleagues at the community college have more than once been the subject of a CORA request by what I figure were union organizers. They sought names and amounts we're paid. I remember tracing back the CORA request and asking the group that sought the information why they wanted it. Off the top of my head, I don't think I got a really satisfactory answer.