A Colorado Court of Appeals panel has thrown a wrench into Douglas County’s home-rule saga, reversing a lower court ruling in an open meetings lawsuit and sending the case back for another round. The June special election that sank the home-rule charter still stands, but the judges have reopened the fight over how county leaders got there in the first place and whether they played by Colorado’s transparency rules.
Appeals court sends case back
The panel found that the trial judge had not made all the factual findings required under state law and ordered a new hearing where both sides can put more evidence on the record. According to Douglas County, the appeals court reversed the denial of the plaintiffs’ motion and remanded the case for further proceedings, while declining to issue an injunction because the special election had already come and gone.
What plaintiffs alleged
The residents who sued say all three county commissioners met in a series of un-noticed gatherings on 13 dates between Dec. 17, 2024, and April 14, 2025, to talk through a possible home-rule charter. They allege that County Attorney Jeffrey Garcia even presented a formal PowerPoint on March 3 that laid out a nine-point plan for launching the home-rule campaign. Those details are laid out in the complaint filed in Douglas County District Court.
The plaintiffs told The Denver Post, “from the beginning, this case has been about a simple but fundamental principle: the public’s business must be conducted in public.”
What happened at the ballot
When the question finally went to voters, the answer was not subtle. The county’s home-rule proposal failed in the June 24, 2025, special election by roughly 71 percent to 29 percent. According to CPR News, the defeat was so lopsided that the commission races tied to the charter measure became moot the moment Question 1A failed.
Hoodline covered the county’s early push to put the proposal in front of voters; see its report on the commissioners’ early move to float a home-rule charter.
County response
After the appellate ruling, Douglas County officials were quick to stress that the court did not unwind the June election. The communications office said the decision centered on procedural findings the trial court needs to make, not on the validity of the vote itself. In a county news release, officials said they remain committed to transparency and are weighing whether to present additional evidence to the trial court or to ask the Colorado Supreme Court to take a look. Douglas County also pointed out that the panel explicitly left the election results intact.
Why the court's findings matter
Colorado’s Open Meetings Law is grounded in a basic idea: the formation of public policy is supposed to happen where the public can see it. Any meeting of a quorum of a public body to discuss public business generally must be noticed and open, unless it fits one of the law’s narrow executive-session exceptions.
Open-government advocates warn that serial or daisy-chain meetings, where officials hold a series of smaller conversations that effectively add up to a decision out of public view, can run afoul of the statute. Appellate courts frequently send cases back when trial judges skip key factual findings that the law requires. Guidance from the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition notes that courts tend to scrutinize whether conversations truly fall under legitimate executive-session topics or whether officials improperly conducted public business in private.
What's next
The remand gives the Douglas County District Court another chance to dig into the details: who met, when they met, and what they talked about. County officials told The Denver Post they may use the opportunity to introduce more evidence in the lower court or instead seek review from the Colorado Supreme Court.
If a judge eventually finds that the open meetings law was violated, state law allows courts to void actions taken at unlawful meetings and to award costs and attorney fees. Those remedies are set out in Colorado’s open meetings statute, cited as C.R.S. 24-6-402.
Where this leaves residents
Opponents of the home-rule effort say the Court of Appeals decision underscores the need for vigilant public oversight of local government. Supporters of the commissioners’ approach counter that the ruling is a procedural reset, not a finding that county leaders tried to hide anything.
The appellate decision reverses a May 21, 2025, Douglas County District Court ruling that had declined to block the special election, as reported by The Colorado Sun. Now residents are staring down another round of hearings, filings, and legal wrangling before they get a final answer on whether their leaders crossed the line on open meetings rules.
