In a victory for the Aurora Sentinel, the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed a district court ruling Thursday and ordered Aurora to publicly release the recording of an executive session in which city council members ended censure proceedings against a fellow councilor.

A three-judge panel of the state’s second-highest court concluded that council members violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law by inadequately announcing the Mar. 14, 2022, closed-door meeting and improperly deciding in secret to halt the action against Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky for comments she made about Aurora’s then-police chief and deputy chief.

The appellate court, however, decided not to award attorney fees to the newspaper because it is not a “citizen” of the state under an open meetings law provision that entitles plaintiffs to reasonable fees if they prevail in lawsuits. The Sentinel doesn’t meet the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of a citizen as “a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it,” Judge David Furman wrote for the court.