Colorado’s Sunshine Law does not require members of an elected public board to discuss the censure of a fellow board member in an open meeting, a judge has ruled.

The Oct. 31 decision by Rio Grande County District Court Judge Crista Newmyer-Olsen came in a lawsuit brought against the trustees of Del Norte, a statutory town in southern Colorado, by former town board member Laura Anzalone.

Anzalone alleged that the trustees held a “substantial” unauthorized discussion about censuring her during an Oct. 18, 2021, executive session convened to receive legal advice from their attorney. The trustees unlawfully crafted a censure resolution in the closed-door meeting and then “rubber stamped” their decision in public, she contended.

The Colorado Open Meetings Law, which is part of the Colorado Sunshine Act of 1972, requires local public bodies to open any meetings of a quorum or three or more members — whichever is fewer — at which public business is discussed. It prohibits public bodies from discussing public business in executive sessions beyond the scope of certain authorized topics, and it bars them from adopting any policy or position in secret.

But in dismissing Anzalone’s open meetings law claim, Newmyer-Olsen concluded that the board’s opinion of her “performance as a trustee, which took the form of a censure,” is not subject to the law because a censure does not concern the “formation of public policy.”