## Facts

- Several homeowners applied to the City of Cheyenne’s Historic Preservation Board for permits to demolish six houses located in a historic district.
- The Historic Preservation Board denied the demolition-permit applications.
- The homeowners appealed to the Building Code Board of Appeals of the City of Cheyenne (the Board), a municipal board created by city ordinance with authority to hear certain appeals.
- The Board held a public contested-case hearing, with counsel present, where it heard witness testimony and received evidence.
- After the hearing closed, a quorum of the Board met to discuss the case and deliberated in private, treating its discussion as “quasi-judicial” deliberation rather than an executive session; the private deliberations continued at a later closed meeting.
- The Board later convened a properly noticed public meeting, discussed its earlier deliberations, and voted in public to adopt a written decision affirming the permit denials.
- Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc. (the Newspaper) filed a district-court petition seeking an injunction requiring the Board to deliberate in public, but the Board issued its decision before the petition was heard.
- The Newspaper then filed an amended complaint seeking a declaration that the Board’s action was “null and void” under the Wyoming Public Meetings Act (WPMA).
- On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court ruled for the Board, concluding the WPMA did not apply to the Board’s quasi-judicial deliberations after a contested-case hearing.
- The Newspaper appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Are quasi-judicial deliberations following a contested-case hearing subject to the Wyoming Public Meetings Act?
2. If the Board violated the WPMA by deliberating in private, must the Board’s later decision be treated as null and void when the final vote occurred in an open meeting?

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court held the WPMA applies to the Board’s post-hearing deliberations even though the Board was performing a quasi-judicial function.
- The Court held the Board violated the WPMA by conducting deliberations in private.
- The Court nevertheless declined to declare the Board’s final decision null and void because the binding action—the vote to adopt the decision—occurred at a properly noticed public meeting.
- Disposition: affirmed in part and reversed in part.

## Legal Principles

- The WPMA is construed in favor of openness, and any exception to public meeting requirements must come from the statute’s text rather than from a label such as “quasi-judicial.”
- A “meeting” under the WPMA includes a gathering of a quorum for discussion or deliberation about public business; it is not limited to final voting.
- Municipal boards created by ordinance that conduct public business are covered by the WPMA, including when they act in an adjudicatory capacity.
- Private deliberations can violate the WPMA even if the public is later told what was discussed.
- The WPMA’s “null and void” remedy turns on whether the governing body took the operative action in violation of the Act; a later public vote can keep the final decision effective even when earlier deliberations were improperly closed.
- Declaratory and injunctive relief may be available to address WPMA violations, but invalidation of an agency decision is not automatic on these facts.

## Conclusion

Cheyenne Newspapers held that the Wyoming Public Meetings Act applies to a city building-code appeals board when a quorum meets to deliberate after a contested-case hearing, so the Board’s closed deliberations violated the Act; however, because the Board’s final, binding vote occurred in a properly noticed open meeting, the Wyoming Supreme Court did not treat the Board’s decision affirming the permit denials as null and void.


Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc. v. Building Code Board of Appeals, 222 P.3d 158 (2010)