July 09, 2009 06:37 PM UTC

CSU Board of Governors to discuss next steps in media lawsuit

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• by: BobMoore

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Colorado State University Board of Governor’s executive committee will meet Friday to discuss next steps in the open meetings lawsuit brought by a Colorado media coalition.

You can see the agenda here:

https://csusystem.edu/pages/doc…

For more background and additional thoughts, check out my Coloradoan blog: https://tr.im/ryZ5

As I note in the blog, the agenda posting continues a recent hopeful trend with the Board of Governors. The agenda specifically details what is to be discussed at the Friday meeting, which is a far cry from the previous practice by the Board of Governors. Prior agendas generally listed vague descriptions consultations with the attorney, which violates the spirit if not the letter of the Colorado Open Meetings Law.

The open meetings lawsuit brought by the Coloradoan, Pueblo Chieftain and Colorado Independent was in response to the process used to select a new chancellor. But the issues were deeper than that because CSU clearly had developed a culture in recent years that favored closely held decisions and excluding the public from those decisions.

The media coalition already has won a ruling from a district judge that the board violated the open meetings law in the selection process, though the judge has stayed that order at the request of CSU. But there are other positive signs of transparency coming out of CSU, such as finally providing detailed agendas required by law. In that sense, too, the public has won an important victory out of this lawsuit.