Economist Friedrich Hayek & The Inescapable Flow of Knowledge
Information is knowledge and public documents contain information
This is Part II of an ongoing series. Part I — “Loveland’s Parade of Horrible Lacks Merit” (Judge Juan Villaseñor) — can be read here.
The following is The Book of Dog, who speaks sagely when he speaks thus:
“The flow of knowledge is the central issue in all social organization, which is overwhelmingly economic,” wrote Nobel-Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek.
It’s in this context that I now ask you to ask yourself:
Have we been cut-off from flows of knowledge to which we’d otherwise have access were such issues left to non-governmental sectors — sectors removed from the state?
Open Records Acts, like Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA), are laws that recognize our right as individuals to access public documents, which consist of anything in the possession of any public agency.
Public documents represent a flow of knowledge.
Public documents are, I repeat, a flow of knowledge.
The Colorado Open Records Act is called CORA.
Freedom of Information laws came into their current iteration in direct response to governmental secrecy, and this was in 1966, during the Vietnam War.
These laws affirm the public's right to view government documents.
My friend filed an open files request in June of 2021 — exactly nine months before Judge Juan Villaseñor, of the 8th Judicial District Court, cited “corruption issues” and as a result of which corruption issues ruled, on March 22nd, 2022, that the city of Loveland did not act in good faith in filing a petition in early March.
This March 22nd ruling was not in response to my friend’s case, which remains separate — separate yet eerily similar.
My friend’s name is Stacy Lynne.
Stacy Lynne filed a June, 2021, request so that she might access erstwhile detective Brian Koopman’s employment files.
Though this was her first open files request concerning this particular person, it was not her first-ever open files request.
As she eloquently explained it to me:
I began filing CORAs in 2009 throughout Colorado and Wyoming primarily with city councils and county commissioners — and with great success. The power that public records laws hold cannot be overstated. It was when I began requesting law enforcement records that things got combative.
The first time I sued using the CORA remedy was in 2018, when the Larimer County Sheriff's Office denied access to employment files of a former corporal. I won that lawsuit after the Larimer County Sheriff's Office records-custodian testified at a show cause hearing. The district court judge in that 2018 CORA case — one Stephen Jouard — ordered Larimer County to provide unredacted employment file narratives for Corporal Ryan Berg. I became interested in Berg's files in part because of a conversation I had with an FBI agent about some collateral cases. The FBI agent said "Oh, yeah, we know Ryan Berg." How could I not be interested in why the FBI knows about a corporal from Fort Collins, Colorado?
And so I filed a CORA for Ryan Berg’s employment files.
The sheriff's office answered with blackened pages.
After Judge Jouard's order forced the sheriff's office to provide Corporal Ryan Berg's unredacted employment file narratives, it became instantly clear to me why the files were initially blackened: Corporal Ryan Berg was habitually taking personal property from people who went through security screening at the Larimer County Justice Center. Berg then listed those stolen items on sites like Craigslist.
I was also interested in Ryan Berg because of another habit he had: namely, always being in the same space as me while I was inside the Larimer County Justice Center. He's a big dude with a gun and a giant club and he wasn't handing out donuts when he was following me around the courthouse. Also, he was part of a secret hearing that commenced after a judge fled from the courtroom with her black robe flying in her own wind…. The point to this diversion is that public records laws are phenomenal tools if one knows how to use the law to the public's advantage.
Stacy Lynne’s initial request for ex-detective Brian Koopman’s employment files was ignored — ignored on what the city of Loveland later testified “a clerical error.”
There exists in Colorado law a remedy for exactly this sort of thing:
When a request has been improperly answered, the remedy, as dictated by Colorado law, is to file a subsequent hearing request, wherein you state precisely why you think your initial request was improperly answered.
This hearing request must in turn, according to the language of the law, “begin at the earliest practical time.”
After which, the records custodian, who, not insignificantly, is also in this case the city clerk, has fourteen days to respond to said hearing notice.
This means that the city clerk is required by law to respond within fourteen days to the notice of intent to file a motion in district court for a show-cause hearing.
In Loveland, Colorado, the current records custodian is Ms. Delynn Coldiron.
In response to Stacy Lynn’s hearing request, Ms. Delynn Coldiron remained mute.
The city of Loveland did not reply as the law requires.
The city of Loveland in this way acted in direct defiance of the law.
Perhaps this was because Stacy Lynne had previously sued, for defamation, Loveland city councilor Joan Shaffer — previously and, I should say, successfully sued. Or perhaps this was purely coincidental.
Stacy Lynne’s second request was in any event eventually answered with these redacted files.
In the end, it took a full six months — six months circulating through district court — before Stacy Lynne gained access to ex-detective Brian Koopman’s unredacted employment file, and his leave file.
These unredacted files tell a story drastically different from the tall tales told by the official documents. In Stacy Lynne’s words:
The city of Loveland, in their mostly blackened original CORA answer, was not hiding any negative or inflammatory evaluations about Brian Koopman’s work history —as one might suspect when a municipal organization improperly redacts public records.
Instead, the City of Loveland blackened the file because there was not a single mention — not a single one — of Brian Koopman’s various lawsuits, his felony charge for lying under oath, his botched cases. Indeed, there was not a single negative comment made in the entirety of Brian Koopman’s official files.
That, then, is what the city of Loveland was hiding — and this too:
The unredacted files disclose in no uncertain terms who’d been involved in helping Brian Koopman get away with innumerable policy violations and improper actions.
The unredacted files show as well how Brian Koopman’s supervisors sanctioned, blessed, praised, and even promoted this Brady-listed detective, who has a proven history of pathological dishonesty.
The unredacted files furthermore provide a partial listing of cases that demand reexamination — reexamination with honest eyes, uncorrupted hands, clarity of thought, purity of heart in the name of justice.
The unredacted narratives also list the names of numerous local, state, and even federal agencies with which Brian Koopman had worked and which as a result of their collaboration are at real risk of cross-corruption and cross-contamination.
It is, if you don’t know, absolutely unheard of for any government employee to have a twenty-year history without a single negative comment in her or his evaluation narratives.
This is especially true in law enforcement.
Ex-detective Brian Koopman’s employment file is for this very reason suspect — suspect and entirely misleading — and that’s to say the least of it.
In his official file — i.e. his heavily redacted file — ex-detective Brian Koopman is to all appearance the epitome of perfect police officer: honorable, just, unblemished, uncorrupted, incorruptible.
This, however, is appearance only — a whitened sepulcher, a farcical facade and superficial veneer — arrantly inconsistent with the actual facts of reality, as divulged by court documents, internal files, and discovery files directly related to quondam detective Brian Koopman.
These discovery documents strongly suggest a shocking depth and degree of police corruption and dishonesty.
As you will soon see.
(to be continued …)