SAGUACHE COUNTY — Saguache County administration was warned in advance that a series of executive sessions scheduled to interview candidates for the position of county administrator was not in compliance with state statute, but the executive sessions continued.  
In a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request to County Administrator Wendi Maez dated Aug. 13, the Center Post-Dispatch requested Maez make available for inspection and copying documents revealing job search goals, a job description, requirements for applicants, selection procedures and an estimated date for when the new administrator was scheduled to be installed.
The request also noted there was a work session scheduled for Aug. 14 during which an executive session also was scheduled contrary to the open meetings law. The following statute was cited in the request:
“In a search for a new chief executive officer, the search committee of a local public body must establish job search goals, including the writing of the job description, deadlines for applications, requirements for applicants, selection procedures and the timeframe for appointing or employing the chief executive officer of such entity at an open meeting. When the search has been narrowed to finalists, the local public body must make public a list of the finalists under consideration for the position no later than 14 days before a final offer can be made” (CRS § 24-6-402; VIII, II, 3.5).
The description of the Aug. 14 meeting later was changed to a special meeting, as open meetings laws require. Maez forwarded some of the material requested in the CORA but did not provide application deadlines, selection procedures or the time frame for appointing the administrator. Nor was a list of finalists made known to the public 14 days before Bitler was hired.
Maez provided the job description and the requirements, but by law all the things mentioned in the statute above were to be discussed in an open meeting, not provided later in a CORA request. While all the succeeding meetings read “special meetings” as the law requires, the executive header for discussions with administrator candidates were held for “personnel matters.”
Commissioners and county attorney Ben Gibbons were previously advised by Colorado Press Association attorneys that the type of executive session listed for the meetings was not in keeping with the law. This occurred in 2010, when the Center Post-Dispatch won a lawsuit against the county for the very same thing: discussing county matters with non-employees in an executive session titled as personnel matters.
Bitler and fellow candidate Glen Simpson were potential employees, not county employees. While the final hiring process might possibly have been covered had commissioners invoked the negotiations clause under which executive sessions also may be held, it is not clear if this would apply to contract negotiations with a non-employee or not.
Subsequent interviews were held with the candidates(s). One was conducted Aug. 20 under personnel matters and was listed as a special meeting.  Another meeting agenda for Aug. 28 lists an executive session for personnel matters to conduct department head evaluations.

Commissioners report meetings not publicly announced
In the minutes for the Sept. 4 regularly scheduled county commissioners’ meeting, Commissioners Chair Jason Anderson and Commissioners Tim Lovato and Ken Anderson all three report that they attended a meeting Aug. 22 to interview two candidates for the county administrator’s position as well as the meeting Aug. 28 for the department heads. The Aug. 22 meeting date cannot be found on any agenda. Jason Anderson lists this as the “second interview.”
Jason Anderson then lists a third interview with candidates on Aug. 29. Lovato describes it as an executive session. Ken Anderson does not mention it. (Actually this would have been a fourth interview, counting the Aug. 14 executive session.)  But the Aug. 29 interview is not listed anywhere on the agenda either. So both the Aug. 22 and Aug. 29 meetings were illegally held because they were never noticed as required by law.
Even the meetings noticed were noticed illegally, since the candidates were not county employees. So the unanimous approval of Bitler’s hiring by commissioners at the Sept. 4 meeting, while done publicly, is likely not valid.
According to court documents submitted by CPA attorneys during the 2010 case against Saguache County: “25. Under the COML, actions that are taken improperly in an executive session are void and of no legal effect. See § 24-6-402(8), C.R.S.; see also Van Alstyne, 985 P.2d at 101{00316595;v2} 5  (‘[A]ny such actions taken at any meeting that is held in contravention of the Open Meetings Law cease to exist or to have any effect.’)
“59. On information and belief, the plaintiffs allege that the Board intends to continue to engage in this pattern of violations of the COML [Colorado Open Meetings Law] by convening improper closed-door “personnel matters” meetings to discuss persons who are not employees of Saguache County.” This has proven to be true.
Under the COML, the burden is on the public body that conducted an executive session to demonstrate that the closed meeting was proper.
Commissioner Jason Anderson commented last week that the county may not need to repeat the entire selection process to rehire a new county administrator, owing to a policy which allows the county to bypass the entire process because Bitler was still on probation.
However since the entire process to hire Bitler is questionably legal, and no notice of the finalists for the position was ever published in the Saguache Crescent, the county’s preferred newspaper of record, it seems the county should this time conduct a fair and transparent review of administrator candidates according to state statute.