Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: “The public has a right to know what’s going on,” said Mort Stern, chairman of the Department of Journalism at the University of Northern Colorado, and president of Citizens for Open Government.

A petition drive called “Project Sunshine” was unveiled by COG at the Colorado Press Association’s annual meeting, which sought to establish uniform open meeting requirements for all units of government so the formation of public policy was not conducted in secret.

“The crucial point is to have sunshine provisions at all levels of government and to have uniformity,” said Stern. “School boards and board of county commissioners are probably the most difficult for some reasons. But the burden to justify secrecy should be on the public body rather than the burden being on the citizens to justify openness.”

Stern said that COG was optimistic that the organization could gather enough signatures to petition onto the November ballot and thereby amend Colorado’s constitution.

Sanda Eid, first vice-president of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, was hired to work on “Project Sunshine” and said that the group had established a hotline to keep track of complaints about abuses. Rural areas specifically suffered from a lack of transparency in government, she said.

“Opposition might come from county commissioners, cities, and school boards,” Eid said. “That’s why it wasn’t feasible to try to get the legislature to put it on the ballot, because it takes a two-thirds majority vote of both houses and might be subject to strong lobbying efforts by those who oppose it.”

Eid said that she was distributing the petitions to publishers throughout the state and that many had already indicated an interest in getting signatures.

“Carrying a petition might be a tough ethical decision for a reporter,” Stern said, “but supporting open government isn’t a partisan political issue, so it shouldn’t prove to be a problem for reporters to maintain their objectivity.”

Fifteen Years Ago: Just days after the General Assembly’s passage and the governor’s signing of Senate Bill 10-1 a group known as “SavePERACOLA.com” filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court, charging that the law was “unconstitutional” because it impaired “retirees’ contractual right to receive pension benefits at the level promised.”

The bi-partisan SB10-1 was largely the work of Senate President Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, who said it was his top legislative priority for the session. The bill pledged to restore Colorado’s pension plan, PERA, to full financial health within 30 years. In order to do so, the 3.5 percent cost of living increase benefit check that was due to go into effect at the end of March would be eliminated.

PERA employers, under SB10-1, were also required to increase their contributions to 2%, and most public employees would have to wait to age 55 to retire with at least 30 years of service.

But during committee hearings, dozens of PERA retirees protested the bill, arguing that COLA elimination and changes to retirees’ benefits would not survive legal challenges.

In signing the bill, Gov. Bill Ritter said, “Colorado is the first state in the country to pass legislation that really addresses public employee pension concerns.”

The lawsuit filed in Denver District Court, sought class-action status, and Gary Justus, the named plaintiff in the case said that, “This lawsuit is about the state complying with its own Constitution. The General Assembly is trying to correct its past mistakes on the backs of the retirees.”

Justus cited a 2004 opinion by former Attorney General Ken Salazar that stated when a PERA member retires and starts receiving benefits, “the pension becomes a vested contractual obligation of the pension program that is not subject to unilateral change by any type by the General Assembly.”

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Denver Gazette.