Denying a Pagosa Springs lawyer legal standing to sue a school district because he doesn’t live within its boundaries “would drastically and substantively alter the protections” of the Colorado Open Meetings Law, not only for him, “but for all persons,” the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado say in a court filing.
The two organizations submitted a friend-of-the-court brief last Friday in a Court of Appeals case that challenges Matt Roane’s “private attorney general” practice of suing school boards and other public bodies around Colorado for violations of the state’s open-government laws.
A district court judge in Elbert County found last October that Roane, as a Colorado citizen, “has a legally protected interest in having public bodies conduct public business openly in conformity with the provisions in the statute.” She denied a motion by the Elizabeth School District to dismiss a Roane lawsuit based on the argument that he “has no connection to the Town of Elizabeth.”