SAGUACHE — For the second year in a row, Saguache County commissioners were 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.

Lisa Cyriacks, who contributes articles to the Crestone Eagle, sent a reminder to Saguache County administration last week concerning the Oct. 24 special meeting that listed an executive session scheduled to interview candidates for the county administrator position.

The following four candidates were scheduled for interviews: Tina Wilson, Saguache County Office of Emergency Management director Bobby Woelz, Amanda Hill and acting county administrator Wendi Maez. Woelz and Maez are Saguache County employees, but Wilson and Hill are not. Hill was not interviewed Oct. 24 but will be interviewed separately.

It is not clear from the wording of the state statute regarding executive sessions for personnel matters, whether Maez and Woelz can be interviewed in executive session for a potential position not involving their current employment or job duties. But the law states below that:

“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 time-frame for appointing or employing the chief executive officer of such entity at an open meeting.”

Some, but not all of these details were provided on the county’s official website. When interviews are completed and the search narrows, the statute continues, “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).

Until Hill’s interview is conducted, the list of candidates cannot be narrowed. The agendas published for the November commissioner meetings do not list any items to discuss candidates for county administrator.

BACKGROUND

In a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request to County Administrator Wendi Maez dated Aug. 13, 2018, 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 above statutes were cited in the request. 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 statutes 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” just as the session held last week.

In the minutes for the Sept. 4, 2018, 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 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 and therefore did not qualify as personnel, a state requirement for holding executive sessions for personnel matters.