Erin O’Connell received the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition’s Ruth Anna Citizen Champion Award last month.

The award stems from O’Connell’s lawsuit against the former Woodland Park School Board, charging the board with violating the Colorado Open Meetings Law. The law requires public bodies, including school boards, to post notice of meetings at least 24 hours ahead of time. In addition, the law requires the notice to include information about a specific agenda.

For a meeting in April 2022, the board posted a notice that stated: “Board Housekeeping,” when, in fact, the former board intended to discuss a memorandum of understanding with the school district’s charter school, Merit Academy.

O’Connell noticed.

In February, Teller County District Judge William Moller ordered the board to pay O’Connell $148,822 in attorney fees and court costs.

Moller’s decision put the case to rest. The ruling follows a reversal by the Colorado Supreme Court that previously allowed the board to cure the violation at a future meeting. In its recent ruling, the court acknowledged that the board had not cured the violation until after O’Connell filed the lawsuit.

Since O’Connell filed the suit, there have been several rulings. In April 2022, Teller County District Court Judge Scott Sells determined that the agenda item “was a conscious decision to hide a controversial issue,” according to court documents.

Accompanied by her attorney Eric Maxfield, O’Connell received the award March 20 at the Denver Press Club during Sunshine Week.

In a March 23 news release from the coalition, Maxfield said, “Erin is clear-eyed and unrelenting in holding her local school board accountable for its conscious decisions to hide controversial issues from the public.”

“It has been the hardest four years of my life, and I would 100% fight for my district and my community and my kids and freedom of information and public education and all of our communities again,” O’Connell said in the release.

“I think it’s beyond disappointing that a parent had to put themselves through this in order to get the school district to follow the law, to be transparent,” Keegan Barkley, the school board’s current president, added. “I think we can all agree that the only winners were the attorneys.”

The school district was represented by Bryce Carlson, attorney with Miller Farmer Carlson Law. Ruth Anna served on the CFOIC board for nearly 30 years and was the first recipient of the award bearing her name.