Opinion: The council should use open comment to engage with the rest of us

At the beginning of each regular council meeting, it is the tradition to hold open comment. This used to be a chance for citizens to raise issues or concerns they think the council needs to focus on. Unfortunately, it recently has become more of a forum for protests on various non-city issues.

The good news is that the council will be discussing how to fix this. But I feel that some more in-depth consideration is needed to avoid just changing the format or timing without really addressing the underlying desires of citizens to really be listened to, versus the apparent lack of value that council members give to what is said.

Supporting this perspective, the poll the City just did says that barely over half of respondents approve of the job the City is doing in providing services to residents. That low rating indicates a need for real change.

Council members are not better or smarter or even many times more well-informed than the rest of us. And the council is not supposed to be separate from the citizenry, but just a part that we hope is representative. The open comment period is an essential part of making that work.

During my 10 years on the council, at almost every meeting, someone would show up who knew more about a particular topic than anyone on the council. This should be no surprise, given that Boulder is one of the most educated cities in the country.

We found that being able to ask these citizens questions to further illuminate an issue was invaluable. Even if the testifier was not a complete expert, many times they brought unique points of view that illuminated dimensions to a problem that we on council had not fully considered. That further convinced me of how valuable citizen testimony is.

Occasionally, people ranted on repeatedly. We did not put up with that; the mayor would request that they wrap up since we wanted to conserve the time for other citizens’ more useful input. We did not consider the public comment periods as some public square where anyone could take up time on whatever. It was about city business, and we tried to keep it focused on that.

As for council members’ replies, we mostly kept them more in the realm of questions or comments designed to elicit more information, and not simply rejoinders.

In contrast, my recent experiences testifying to the council were not pleasant. There were no disturbances in the council chambers, but I felt like I was talking to a wall. I’m guessing that since the current rules do not allow council members to immediately respond, they tried to not react. But that doesn’t work; all it does is isolate the person testifying. After all, I didn’t take part of my evening to go down there just to hear myself talk. I really wanted to engage, and I suspect others do too.

I appreciate that, with the increasing use of email, it’s harder to actively engage with actual people. But it’s important; then council members get what there is to be learned, and the citizens feel like it’s worth the trouble of showing up.

Making all this work requires the mayor to take a very active role in regulating the process, not a trivial job. This may require addressing the potential speakers at the start regarding what will and will not be tolerated. And then enforcing them by shutting off the mic when appropriate, removing people from the council chambers who fail to follow the rules or instructions, and keeping council members in line who want to deliver their own rants.

Regarding issues like Israel-Hamas, how about holding a special meeting, with full citizen input? Give the protesters their time. Then fully discuss and make a final decision.

All this also relates to the council’s recent passage of the South Boulder Creek flood control bond issue “by emergency,” apparently to avoid having to listen to the public.

Leaving aside the serious Charter issue that there was no real emergency, shutting out the public caused the council to miss the chance to seriously consider recently developed alternatives to the current dam; the value of doing a detailed cost-benefit to evaluate flood-proofing buildings, as Frasier Retirement Community has done; and why using fees based on impervious surface for this dam is probably a TABOR violation.

Let’s return open comment to being a place where community members feel valued, and a time where new issues can be brought and discussed and recurring ones resurfaced.

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