Tag: Judge Stephen Schapanski

The CSU Board of Governors today agreed to settle the open-meeting lawsuit that followed from the board's selection in May of its own vice...

 
Over the past few years, the Colorado State University Board of Governors has become increasingly secretive. During the spring of 2009, the BOG's stealth...

Unbowed by a ruling two weeks ago in which a Larimer County judge found that Colorado State University violated Open Meetings laws, the CSU board and its lawyers fought an order demanding the release of audio tapes of the executive session where the board selected its own vice chairman, Joe Blake, as sole finalist for the new chancellor position. Judge Stephen Schapanski today granted CSU a stay of his order. The battle over the release of the tapes is part of a larger ongoing suit brought last month by The Colorado Independent, The Fort Collins Coloradoan and The Pueblo Chieftan alleging the university violated state transparency laws.

Colorado State University lawyers are attempting to regain control of recordings of a CSU board meeting held in secret last month where members decided to select their own vice chairman, Joe Blake, as sole finalist for the new university chancellorship. CSU is being sued by The Colorado Independent, the Fort Collins Coloradoan and Pubelo Chieftain for violating state open-meeting laws. Larimer County judge Stephen Schapanski earlier ordered CSU to turn over the meeting recordings so that he could review them in chambers to determine, in part, how the court should proceed.

In papers submitted to a Larimer court last night, Colorado State University attorneys argue that CSU board members did not break state transparency laws when they voted in private to make board Vice Chair Joe Blake CSU chancellor because Blake had recused himself as Vice Chair roughly a week before the vote.