In a new filing, the Aurora Sentinel lays out multiple reasons why it believes the Colorado Court of Appeals should reverse a judge’s ruling and order the city of Aurora to publicly release the recording of a closed-door meeting at which council members ended censure proceedings against a fellow councilor.

The newspaper contends the council did not “cure” a violation of the Colorado Open Meetings Law at a subsequent meeting, despite the ruling by Arapahoe County District Court Judge Elizabeth Beebe Volz last September.

It also argues councilmembers not only failed to properly announce the March 14, 2022, executive session during which they discussed the proposed censure of Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, they took an illegal roll-call vote during the meeting and waived any claims of attorney-client privilege when Jurinsky — an “adverse third party” — stayed in the meeting.

“It is well established that public bodies cannot meet in secret to discuss the public’s business,” says the Sentinel’s brief, prepared by Rachael Johnson, a Colorado-based attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “… Here, the Council took deliberate steps to evade public scrutiny of its decision on whether to censure an elected official.”