Violations of the Colorado Open Meetings Law by current CPW commissioners? Hunting bans can be a waste of animal life.

A former CPW commission member alleges violations of the Colorado Open Meetings Law by current CPW commissioners Reading, Murphy, and Beaulieu.

The Colorado Politics article linked below covers some op eds written in favor of Proposition 127 (the big cat hunting ban) by current CPW commission members Reading, Murphy, and Beaulieu.

Per the article, Mr. Reading wrote his own op ed, while commissioners Murphy and Beaulieu co-authored a different op ed with third (former) commissioner Pribyl.  Those op eds are linked second and third below for your reference.

In all the cases, the commission members were careful to note that their opinions are not those of, nor reflective of, the position held by the CPW Commission in general (CPW being a government body and thus not permitted to take an official position).

There is no rule saying that you as a government employee or appointee can't have an opinion or speak your mind; the First Amendment applies to us all.  As a government employee or appointee, extra care must be taken in how you do things so as to avoid the appearance that you are acting on behalf of the government, that you'd be using your position in the government to advance your opinion.  The authors here met that standard.  

I myself think the CPW commissioners are wrong (see the post immediately following this one), but I will leave it to you to read the article and the op eds and come to a decision of your own.  If you have thoughts either way, the comments are (as they always are) open to civil writing.

The Colorado Politics article, however, contains a more serious topic than simply the op eds.  It has an allegation by former CPW commissioner John Howard that two of the commissioners, in working on their op ed, violated Colorado Open Meetings Law.  

Mr. Howard's contention is essentially that Commissioners Murphy and Beaulieu couldn't possibly have co-authored something without communicating.  Such communication has obviously happened outside public view, and thus the law was violated.  You will see similar in Rachel Gabel's FencePost article on the topic linked fourth below.

I'm not saying it's automatically without merit, but I have to say this allegation is pretty complicated.  Complicated because it hinges on how you would define public business.  

This bit of ambiguity makes it hard for me to follow Mr. Howard in his allegation.  I am not trained enough in the law to feel confident in saying that with anything near certainty.  Someone with more experience or training might disagree, and if they want to pursue the issue, I wish them luck.  I would support the effort.

For my part, whether it's legal or not, it's a bad BAD idea.  

Both Murphy and Beaulieu were Polis appointments. Polis appointments which narrowly cleared approval by the Senate.  Polis appointments which fit a pattern of behavior to try and stuff boards controlling wildlife and outdoor sportsmanship with avowed animal rights activists.  A pattern we've seen (see my earlier newsletter) where we have swampy behind the scenes connections working to use government to achieve a non-public agenda.

I would ask you whether or not active members of the board of commissioners of CPW should be stepping in on an already contentious issue at the very time when their decisions are already contentious.  Whether or not they should be mixing in this at a time when trust of them and their work is so low it's already scraping the dregs out of the barrel.

What message does this communicate to people already angry about how wolf policy has been handled?  Would a move like this increase or decrease trust in CPW (again, legal or not)?

They, Beaulieu, Murphy, and Reading, are welcome to their opinions.  Their actions may not constitute a breech of law, but they sure as hell point to the direction some would like this state to go in and only function to further erode trust in CPW.

In the following post I want to share some interesting quotes from Mr. Howard in the Colorado Politics article re. how big cat policy like that proposed in 127 are playing out elsewhere.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/elections/colorado-wildlife-commissioners-divided-on-proposition-127-which-would-ban-mountain-lion-lynx-and-bobcat/article_c646811e-8a64-11ef-a72d-137ef56f3142.html

https://arkvalleyvoice.com/a-yes-on-proposition-127-meets-the-north-american-model-of-wildlife-conservation/

https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/we-are-current-and-former-colorado-parks-and-wildlife-commissioners-which-is-the-body-that-sets-wil/

https://www.thefencepost.com/news/cpw-commissioners-personal-opinion-piece-draws-fire/

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/swampiness-in-wildlife-policy-and?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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"It's not like lions aren't being killed, they're just being euthanized and left to rot on the ground or put in a landfill as opposed to being harvested."

The quote above comes from Mr. John Howard, former CPW Commissioner and the man who alleged an Open Meetings Law violation by a couple CPW Commissioners who co-authored an op ed in support of Proposition 127.  See my previous post for more.  

Mr. Howard went on at length with his concerns about Proposition 127 in that article.  His concerns were noteworthy enough to me that I wanted to share them. 

I linked to the Colorado Politics article below for convenience.  It is the source of all the following (though I will admit to monkeying a little with the order of the quotes to arrange them in an order I felt "flowed" better outside the context of the article itself).  

I left the links intact for those that want to follow them.  

"John Howard a former CPW commissioner who served from 2014 to 2020 and chaired the commission during his final two years, contended that the arguments presented by proponents of Proposition 127  aren't accurate or grounded in scientific evidence."

"While Pribyl, Murphy, and Beaulieu [CPW Commissioners who wrote op eds in support of Proposition 127] 'are certainly entitled to their opinion,' Howard said it was 'disingenuous' for them to say there's no science that supports hunting mountain lions, because CPW commissioners frequently attend presentations that he says demonstrate otherwise."  

"'With predators, the biologic science is important, but it's the social science that is the most important issue, I think,' he said. 'In the states that have outlawed lion hunting, so principally California and Washington, the animals have become much less tolerated in the rural communities that host the majority of them. These lions are losing their fear of humans, so you're having more and more problems where ultimately the lions are the ones that suffer.'"

"Howard argued that the same number of mountain lions are being killed in California now as before the hunting ban was passed, but the killing is being done by wildlife biologists now rather than hunters. According to data from California Fish and Wildlife, this is true for some years, but not in all."

"'It's not like lions aren't being killed, they're just being euthanized and left to rot on the ground or put in a landfill as opposed to being harvested,' he said. 'It's just a waste to see an animal that would generate revenue from license fees that would then get poured back into science; instead you're gonna euthanize them and leave them to rot on the ground.'" 

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/elections/colorado-wildlife-commissioners-divided-on-proposition-127-which-would-ban-mountain-lion-lynx-and-bobcat/article_c646811e-8a64-11ef-a72d-137ef56f3142.html