The Colorado Supreme Court is examining whether a newspaper is considered a “citizen” and therefore entitled to attorney fees when prevailing in open meetings lawsuits.

A year ago, in a victory for the Aurora Sentinel, the Court of Appeals ordered Aurora to publicly release the recording of an executive session in which city council members ended censure proceedings against a fellow councilor.

But the three-judge appellate panel decided not to award reasonable attorney fees to the Sentinel, even though the Colorado Open Meetings Law (COML) requires it when citizens successfully challenge violations in court. 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.