Loveland council recesses into executive sessions on downtown and Foundry contracts after votes to limit public comment

The Loveland City Council on June 10 voted to shorten general public comment to 15 minutes and then recessed into two executive sessions to discuss a proposed intergovernmental agreement with the Loveland Downtown Development Authority and the city—s disposition and redevelopment agreement with Foundry LLC.

The council approved the 15-minute public-comment limit 6-2 after some procedural debate. Council then voted to extend the meeting to complete two executive sessions and approved recessing into the closed sessions: a 3.1 session on the Downtown Development Authority agreement passed 7-1 and a 3.2 session on the Foundry disposition and redevelopment agreement passed 8-0.

City Attorney Vincent Jungles told the council the closed sessions are necessary to receive legal advice and to develop negotiation strategy for contract terms. "We're going to be talking about an intergovernmental agreement between the city of Loveland and the Loveland Downtown Development Authority. We've characterized this as the baseline services agreement," Jungles said, adding that discussing the city's negotiating position in public could "compromise the city's position" and make it "very uncomfortable" to provide competent legal advice in an open meeting. Jungles explicitly cited the legal bases the city relied on to go into executive session, referencing the Colorado Revised Statutes and the Loveland Charter.

Two people used public comment to urge the council to hold the discussions in public. "Whenever this council disappears into an executive session it creates a cloud of mistrust with the public," said Darren Barrett, a registered elector. Larry Sarner, who said he has a business interest in Loveland, told the council he was "concerned about these executive sessions, because there's a very limited range of items in which you can hold an executive session" and said the meeting notice did not provide sufficient specificity about the topics to be discussed.

Council members debated two procedural motions before the executive sessions. One motion to suspend council rules and provide for no general public comment was raised but not seconded and thus did not proceed to a vote. Councilor Steve Olsen withdrew and later restated a motion to shorten public comment to 15 minutes; that motion passed 6-2 (Olsen and Foley voted no). The motion to extend the meeting to complete the two executive sessions passed 7-1.

When the council moved to the first executive session on item 3.1, the motion to recess "to determine a position relative to issues subject to negotiation, to receive reports on negotiation progress and status, to develop negotiation strategy and to instruct negotiators" passed 7-1; one councilor recorded a dissenting vote. The subsequent motion to recess into the second executive session on item 3.2, to consider the city's position on the Foundry LLC disposition and redevelopment agreement and related attorney-client privileged matters and nonpublic records, passed unanimously 8-0.

Staff told the council it did not expect any formal action to be taken during the executive sessions and that the meeting recorder would be stopped after the first session and restarted for the second so that there would be separate recordings for each closed session.

The council recessed into the executive sessions following the votes. No final contract approvals or substantive changes to either agreement were made in open session at the June 10 meeting.

For reference, the executive session motions cited Colorado Revised Statutes 24-6-402(4)(e) and 24-6-402(4)(b) and provisions of the Loveland City Charter (section 4-4(c)(1) and 4-4(c)(3)).