A judge Monday ordered Denver to disclose city officials’ text messages about last June’s severe hailstorm at Red Rocks Amphitheater, ruling the communications were improperly withheld from 9NEWS reporter Steve Staeger.

City attorneys contended that cellphone texts sent and received by Red Rocks director Tad Bowman and Ginger White Brunetti, the now-former executive director of Denver Arts & Venues, did not fit the definition of “public records” in the Colorado Open Records Act because the messages were not “made, maintained or kept” by the city.

But Denver District Court Judge Stephanie Scoville said the “plain language” of CORA is broad enough to encompass text messages between city employees that concern city business. She cited testimony from Bowman that he received status updates via text from other employees the evening of June 21, when concertgoers were pummeled by the storm, “and that is sufficient to make it a public record under CORA.”

Scoville’s decision isn’t the first district court ruling in Colorado to interpret CORA as including text messages that concern public business, but it is believed to be the first such ruling about the text messages of Denver employees and officials.