Personally, I have the impression that the whole topic of the community awards was very openly discussed in advance. There was at least the corresponding thread here on tmo and the mailing list in which discussions could have taken place.
I felt very much informed about what was going on and what decisions were made. The information even reached the degree where I was almost a little bit annoyed of all the "spam" caused by the self-nominations and the discussion in the mailinglist.
However, seeing this whole discussion here, choosing the mailinglist was just right as it very well documents publicly what was going on without the possiblity to change/edit posts later on.

With respect to this discussion: imho, all the concerns voiced here should have been brought up in advance. This thread pretty much proves that the people having objections are capable of making themselves heard.
There is no need to follow the council in everthing it does. But as a political mature person who is interested in this community one has to also inform oneself about what's going on. Honestly, the discussion about the community award was nothing that had been discussed behind closed doors. In fact this topic was publicly discussed for quite some time in the corresponding media like tmo or the mailinglist.

As said also in the other post: maybe we all can take this as a lesson to participate in things while they are discussed and if there are objections voice our opinions loudly enough for them being heard.