Litigant abandons effort to force Boulder County to rebid Marshall Fire cleanup contract

BOULDER — Former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown and his group Demanding Integrity in Government Spending will not continue to seek a court order requiring Boulder County to rebid its contract for Marshall Fire debris cleanup, an effort that county leaders say has been delayed due to Brown’s lawsuit. 

The February lawsuit filed in Boulder County District Court accuses county leadership of violating Colorado open meeting laws in the lead up to the decision to offer a contract to DRC Emergency Services LLC.

In a court filing this week, DIGS’ attorneys claim that Boulder County officials “have beaten this drum privately and publicly, prompting media sensationalism and the false storyline that Plaintiff is causing and will continue to cause cleanup delay. This sideshow must end: DIGS will no longer seek an order from this court directing defendants to rebid its contract in a Colorado law compliant bidding process.”

A hearing on the injunction request was set for Friday.

Brown is a radio talk-show host on KHOW and KOA who led FEMA under President George W. Bush prior to resigning in 2005 amid controversy surrounding his handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. 

The county has maintained that officials did not violate open-meetings laws. 

In selecting a contractor, county officials “made a critical decision for the benefit of its impacted community, and its process was far from secret,” Boulder County’s attorneys said.

Rather than seek a court order forcing a rebid, Brown’s suit demands that Boulder County commissioners and members of the county’s bid-evaluation committee sit for 3.5-hour depositions and produce certain requested documents.

“While not a perfect solution, such court-supervised discovery is a sensible remedy that will provide some level of transparency to Defendants’ bidding and selection process, effect the policies that underpin the OML [open-meetings laws], and substitute for statutory remedies that are unavailable due to Defendants’ noncompliance with the OML,” according to court documents. “This remedy will also inarguably permit defendants to continue to plod along in their now 75-day effort to begin the cleanup of debris that covers approximately 6,000 acres in Louisville and Superior, Colorado.”

Brown’s filing indicates that the deposition proposal was raised with the defendants’ attorneys on Monday and the county objected to the idea. 

“DIGS’ change of position will likely allow the county to move forward with signing the private debris removal contract with DRC as early as March 22,” a county spokesman said in an email. “Nonetheless, the county believes the lawsuit remains a distraction from important recovery work for the community, especially depositions of staff who should be focused on planning and implementing PPDR [public protection and disaster relief]. The county continues to maintain that it complied with all applicable laws in selecting a winning bidder for the PPDR contract.”

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