Colorado Ethics Watch Monday said that it "appears that the (Lake County) BOCC violated the letter and spirit of the Open Meetings Law in connection with the disaster emergency declaration on Feb. 13."

Ethics Watch is recommending that the BOCC remedy this violation by holding a new hearing, with full notice to the public, where all views can be heard and considered. After that hearing, the BOCC could then decide whether or not to declare a disaster emergency concerning the LMDT.

When contacted Monday by the Herald, the commissioners had not yet heard from Ethics Watch and had no comment.

Luis Toro, senior counsel for Ethics Watch, explained in a letter to the BOCC that the Open Meetings Law provides that "all meetings of a quorum or three or more members of any public body, whichever is fewer, at which public business is discussed or at which any formal action may be taken are declared to be public meetings open to the public at all times." They require full and timely notice to the public.

If a public body conducts policy-making meetings in private, it can't bring itself into compliance with the Open Meeting Law after the fact by holding a public meeting for the purpose of "rubber stamping" in public a decision already made in private, Toro said, basing this on several findings of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Ethics Watch calls the Feb. 13 meeting a "staged media event" to rubber-stamp a decision already made.

Toro quotes a letter by Commissioner Mike Hickman and printed in the Herald Democrat on March 6, which says that the BOCC's fact-finding mission began on Oct. 19, 2007, and involved personal interviews with water experts, engineers, etc.

Although the county responded to the initial request by Ethics Watch for documents relating to events leading up to the Feb. 13 disaster declaration with some 800 pages of documents, none of these detailed any meetings between individual commissioners and the other individuals with whom they had supposedly consulted, Toro told the Herald on Monday.

Among other points made in the letter about the commissioners' activities prior to the Feb. 13 meeting is the fact that Brad Littlepage sent the commissioners a document that morning with proposed wording for "today's declaration of emergency."

"It is evident that one or more members of the BOCC advised Mr. Littlepage that an emergency declaration was to be made at the special meeting," Toro said.

He also said that the most compelling evidence that the special meeting was held to rubber stamp a decision previously made in private is in the minutes of the Feb. 13 meeting. These minutes said that Hickman read aloud a statement explaining the need to declare a disaster, a statement that was prepared before the meeting was held.

Toro said the court can declare any action invalid which violates the Open Meetings Law and can award attorneys' fees to the petitioner.

"We hope you will agree that it is not in the best interest of Lake County for its BOCC to become embroiled in Open Meetings Law litigation," Toro told the BOCC.