By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director

Erin O’Connell, whose open meetings lawsuit against the Woodland Park school board “sent a message to public bodies across Colorado,” is the newest recipient of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition’s Ruth Anna Citizen Champion Award.

CFOIC honored O’Connell at the Denver Press Club on Friday during its Sunshine Week transparency slam, co-hosted by The Colorado Sun.

“Erin is clear-eyed and unrelenting in holding her local school board accountable for its conscious decisions to hide controversial issues from the public,” said Eric Maxfield, a CFOIC board member and O’Connell’s attorney. “Looking at Erin’s local board, its behavior showed what the U.S. Supreme Court admonishes: ‘Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws’ and ‘if the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law.’”

In February, Teller County District Court Judge William Moller ordered the payment of $148,822 in attorney fees and court costs to O’Connell, ending a legal battle that began in 2022 after the Woodland Park board publicly noticed the discussion of a contentious charter school memorandum of understanding under a vague “BOARD HOUSEKEEPING” agenda item. Moller in his order wrote that O’Connell’s lawsuit “sent a message to public bodies across Colorado” and that the results of her litigation “have state-wide implications.”

The Colorado Open Meetings Law (COML) requires public bodies to post notice of meetings at least 24 hours ahead of time with “specific agenda information where possible.” Whether a notice is adequate “should be interpreted in light of the knowledge of an ordinary member of the community to whom it is directed,” the Colorado Supreme Court justices ruled in 2008.

A different Teller County District Court judge, Scott Sells, determined in April 2022 that the “BOARD HOUSEKEEPING” agenda item “was a conscious decision to hide a controversial issue” — the MOU with Merit Academy charter school. He ordered the school board to comply with the COML’s notice provision “by clearly, honestly and forthrightly” listing future agenda items concerning Merit Academy. But later, in a ruling upheld by the Court of Appeals, Sells determined that O’Connell was not a “prevailing party” — entitled under the law to recover costs and reasonable attorney fees — because the board had cured the violation at a subsequent meeting.

The Supreme Court reversed that portion of those rulings last September, concluding that O’Connell should be awarded fees because she successfully proved a violation by the school board that wasn’t cured until after she filed a lawsuit. It sent the case back to district court to decide the amount.

At Friday’s press club event, Maxfield noted that O’Connell “put her own money and resources on the line. She pressed her local board again and again, in person and in court, resulting in course correction after course correction, locally and now statewide.”

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

None of the Woodland Park school board members sued by O’Connell in 2022 are still on the board. The current board approved the payment of attorney fees and court costs to O’Connell during a meeting on March 11.

“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,” said board president Keegan Barkley. “I think we can all agree that the only real winners here were the attorneys. Our district as a whole — our community as a whole — paid pretty dearly with time, with our resources and with a breakdown of trust.”

The Ruth Anna Citizen Champion Award presented to O’Connell is named for Ruth Anna, who served on CFOIC’s board for nearly 30 years, many of them as treasurer. She was the first recipient of the award bearing her name. 

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