Brief by Central Staff
Salida politics – January 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
After the litigation of 1998, when we and other media successfully sued the Salida City Council for violating the state open meetings law, we had hoped that the city had learned something in the process.
But we might have been wrong. The city council apparently circumvented the Sunshine Law in the process of replacing Municipal Judge Bill Alderton with a Crested Butte lawyer.
It has been no secret that some councilors were not happy with Alderton. After all, he’s read the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, he insists on real evidence in his court, and he doesn’t always impose the maximum sentence on errant teenagers.
The municipal judge serves a two-year term. Alderton, who had been judge for 13 years (he is also the county judge, and town attorney for Poncha Springs), informed the city in September that he was interested in another term.
In November, Alderton said, City Administrator Julie Szymula told him he would not be reappointed, and that Peter Bogardus of Crested Butte would get the job. But the City Council did not formally vote on the judgeship until Dec. 1.
So it appears that a decision was made in secret before the formal vote, and further, no notice was given of the meetings where judicial candidates were interviewed — meetings that, according to Alderton, fall under the Sunshine Law.
“I’m not angling to get my job back,” he said. “I just don’t deal well with secrecy and the inability to get a straight answer.”
We don’t deal well with secrecy either: Public business should be discussed in public. And the appointment of a municipal judge is certainly a matter of public business.
