A member of the Olympia Planning Commission was recognized for taking a stance on open public meetings, but not everyone applauded.
Judy Bardin received a Key Award from the Washington Coalition for Open Government, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that defends open-government laws. She was honored for blowing the whistle on a series of private meetings between other commissioners and developers. But the award drew stinging comments from her fellow commissioners, who defended the meetings as legal and said they felt maligned by her “false accusations.”