Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and its partner Safari Club International have settled a lawsuit against two Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) commissioners and the commission itself for violating the state’s open-meetings law.
Colorado’s open-meeting law requires that all meetings between two or more public officials where public business is discussed must be open to the public after notice of such a meeting is provided. The law’s purpose is to promote open and informed discussions, which leads to better decision making.
This was not the case when two current Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners, Jack Murphy and Jessica Beaulieu, and former commissioner James Pribyl, coauthored an Op-Ed titled “Current and Former CPW commissioners endorse Prop 127.” The Op-Ed was highly critical of mountain lion and bobcat hunting, declaring that it “in no way contributes to our bright future … in our great state of Colorado.”
The Op-Ed also contained several blatant errors about state hunting regulations. The commissioners claimed that hunters could use drones, which is prohibited by the commission’s own regulations. They claimed that mountain lion hunts guarantee “success at 100%,” when the success rate is closer to 20 percent. And it falsely claimed that wild cats are “not involved in any human conflict,” when Colorado Parks and Wildlife website has numerous press releases to the contrary. The irony is that all these false statements were made while simultaneously declaring that commissioners “are held to a higher standard … of science, not mere opinion and conjecture.”
CPW made the correct decision to settle instead of dragging this out and wasting time and resources.
“We filed this suit to hold the commissioners accountable for violating the open-meeting law and making blatantly false statements about state hunting regulations in a failed attempt to persuade voters,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “This settlement does that. And the commissioners will have no excuses for future violations.”
To remedy the violation, the settlement requires the commission to receive training on the “requirements and best practices, including … current [open meeting law] caselaw regarding serial communications, often referred to as ‘daisy chains.’” And because the Op-Ed contained so many factual errors, the commission will also receive “training … on current Colorado law governing the take of mountain lion, bobcat and lynx.” The state has also agreed to cover a portion of our attorney’s fees.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Read the full article here
