Lake County attorneys brief commissioners on open-meetings, public-records and conflict rules

Lake County commissioners spent a morning work session reviewing Colorado’s open-meetings and public-records requirements, executive-session rules, ex parte communication risks and ethics limits, County Attorney Chris told the group during the recorded training.

Chris told commissioners the Colorado Open Meetings Law (often called the “Sunshine Law”) treats many private or electronic communications about public business as meetings that must be open to the public. "When you think about a meeting, you usually think of things like right now, we're in a meeting," Chris said, calling out texts and group emails as potential public meetings if they involve county business.

The training explained why those communications are also subject to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA). Chris described the county’s centralized public-records process and timelines: a requester’s 3‑day processing clock begins the day after a request is received, staff may extend processing for statutory reasons (up to a 10‑day total in practice), and requests that require more than an hour of staff time or more than 10 pages can incur fees and a deposit before work begins. Chris said the county…