Montezuma County resident Sheila Wilson has filed a lawsuit alleging that the Cortez Journal and the Montezuma County Hospital District board, along with certain individuals and corporate entities related to those two organizations, defamed her during her 2000 candidacy for the hospital board.

The action has been filed in La Plata County District Court. Although the initial complaint was filed on April 11, Wilson represented herself until June 22, when she named Rebecca Pescador as her attorney of record.

The suit stems from an incident that occurred at an April 12, 2000, MCHD meeting. The board adjourned to executive session — a practice Wilson had frequently criticized — and Wilson later wrote a letter to the editor describing how she had "eavesdropped" on that closed meeting, which she maintained was an illegal secret session.

At the next MCHD board meeting following Wilson’s letter to the Cortez Journal, certain board members and the board’s attorney, Kelly R. McCabe, raised concerns that Wilson’s conduct constituted the crime of eavesdropping, a Class 6 felony under Colorado law.

On April 22, 2000, the Cortez Journal published a story concerning that second MCHD board meeting and the allegations of eavesdropping that were raised against Wilson.

On April 25, 2000, the Journal published an editorial setting out the Journal’s editorial opinion that eavesdropping was not appropriate behavior for a candidate for elected office, but that such behavior would not be necessary if public bodies conducted their business openly.

When contacted by a Journal reporter, Wilson declined to comment on her case.

"We believe the Journal published a fair and accurate representation of the events leading up to the special-district election," general manager Suzy Meyer said.

"The newspaper will defend itself on the basis of the First Amendment and the substantial truth of the publication."

The Journal is being represented by Faegre & Benson, a Denver firm specializing in publications law.

Wilson, who had been critical of the 1996 privatization of the hospital and had continued to be a watchdog for hospital affairs, was not successful in her bid for election. The other Concerned Citizen Committee candidate, Marvin Smith, also lost.

At the next MCHD meeting, incumbents Don Jolovich and Florence Bane — who had shared Wilson’s vision for the hospital and who with Joe Reed had consistently voted as a 3-4 minority — resigned their board seats. Reed has since died.

Wilson initially named Cortez Newspapers, Inc.; Ballantine Development, Meyer and then-managing editor Josh Moore among the defendants. Cortez Newspapers, which sold the Journal in April 1999, was not the owner of the newspaper at the time of the events cited in Wilson’s complaint.

Ballantine Development is the owner of the real estate leased by the Cortez Journal; a summary judgment has been issued dismissing the claims against Ballantine Development.

Attorneys for the Journal filed a motion requesting a court order to Wilson to provide a more definite statement of her claims, and Wilson filed an amended complaint listing other corporate entities and Journal publisher Richard Ballantine.

Neither those defendants nor their attorney have yet been served with a complaint, however.

La Plata County District Court Judge David Dickinson initially dismissed the plaintiff’s amended complaint against Meyer and Moore for failing to specifically set out the allegedly defamatory statements by the newspaper.

On Friday, Wilson filed a second amended complaint that alleged certain defamatory statements in the Cortez Journal’s news coverage and in its editorial on the incident.

Also named in the suit were the MCHD board, board attorney Kelly McCabe, and individual members Rick Beisel, Susan Keck, Lois Rutledge and Randy Smith.

The complaint against MCHD is based on discussion during an April 18, 2000, meeting and a letter critical of Wilson that Keck read into the meeting minutes. The letter was not published in the Journal.

Dickinson has dismissed the complaint against the district on the basis of governmental immunity. That dismissal means the district can recover its costs in defending against Wilson’s suit.