The City of Great Falls has decided not to appeal a lawsuit it lost. At a special commission meeting held this afternoon (Wednesday, July 23rd), City Attorney David Gliko briefed the commission and city manager on the basis of the lawsuit. He said that interestingly enough the basis of the decision could be found in one line. He read the commission the line: “Judge Phillips says ‘if the city has those drafts they must be disclosed pursuant to the publics constitutional right to know’”. Last week, District Court Judge E. Wayne Phillips ruled in favor of the Montana Environmental Information Center in their lawsuit against the city. He called the city's decision to withhold documents "disingenuous". His ruling sates that the city must allow the public to inspect all of its documents with southern Montana Electric and they have to pay the environmental group's court costs. Those amount to $9,620. Members of the environmental groups opposed to Highwood have already taken advantage of this ruling and started looking through thousands of pages of documents between S.M.E. and Great Falls yesterday. But not all the documents will be released. Tim Gregori with S.M.E. was there and served the city with an affidavit demanding that documents containing trade secrets not be released. Gliko said if they did appeal it would be a very tall hill to climb. Commissioner Bill Bronson supported Gliko’s orginal decision not to hand over all the documents, but like all other members of the commission he voted not to appeal.