O’Connell v. Woodland Park School District

Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Date Filed: Oct. 24, 2024

Background: In January 2022, the Woodland Park School District Board of Education held an improperly noticed public meeting to discuss and unanimously approve a memorandum of understanding with a charter school. After hearing complaints from community members about how the agenda item was described — as “Board Housekeeping” — the board added the MOU to the agenda for a meeting the next month, during which it heard public comment and once again unanimously approved the item.

Erin O’Connell, a local community member, sued the school district alleging that the board violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law. In her lawsuit, she argued that the board failed to properly inform the public about the specifics of the agenda item and that the reapproval of the MOU during the second meeting essentially served as a rubber stamp of the initial invalid vote.

Following the lawsuit, the board held another meeting in April during which it discussed the MOU for a third time and re-approved it once again, this time with one board member voting against it.

The district court initially sided with O’Connell, issuing a preliminary injunction against the board for failing to properly notice the January meeting and for rubber-stamping the vote during the two follow-up meetings. However, the district court later partially reversed its ruling, concluding that the board had, in fact, “cured” its initial violation of the COML when it met in April for the properly noticed session. Because the court found that O’Connell had failed to prevail in her lawsuit, it denied her request for attorneys’ fees. 

O’Connell appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which affirmed the district court’s decision. O’Connell then appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court.

Our Position: In a friend-of-the-court brief, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Colorado Press Association, and the Colorado Broadcasters Association urge the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals. 

• The press plays a vital role in ensuring that the COML fulfills its statutory purpose.

• Violations of the COML impose tangible harms on the press and public that after-the-fact ratification does not remedy.

From the Brief: “If public bodies are allowed to rubber-stamp prior actions taken in clear violation of the COML’s requirements and avoid paying the attorney fees guaranteed under the Law for reporters and members of the public who successfully challenge violations of the Law, journalism will be stifled in Colorado, and the public will ultimately suffer.”

Related: Rachael Johnson, the Reporters Committee’s Local Legal Initiative attorney for Colorado, has represented news outlets in several cases in which local governments and school boards in the state violated the COML by failing to properly notice closed executive sessions. In one case, for example, a media coalition represented by Johnson and attorney Steve Zansberg of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition successfully challenged the Denver Public Schools’ refusal to turn over the recording of a secret meeting during which school board members discussed returning armed resource officers to high schools following a local school shooting.