Governments in Colorado would get extra days to fulfill citizen requests for public records under proposed legislation that passed its first committee vote last week. News media would get preferential treatment, which caused one lawmaker to vote against the measure.
Local governments, from school boards to counties, claimed in testimony before lawmakers that voluminous requests for records crowd out work on other core services.
“As we know, money is in short supply around all of our governmental entities,” said state Sen. Cathy Kipp, D-Fort Collins, the prime sponsor. “And we really felt that there was some relief that needed to be done in order to give people a little bit more breathing room in fulfilling these requests.”
