Opinion: The role of Boulder’s mayor
The role of the mayor in Boulder’s government has undergone some significant changes over the 30 years I’ve been involved in local politics, even though the basic form of government has remained the same — the weak mayor-strong city manager system. Although the structure generally works well, sometimes it needs a few fixes. Many of the current concerns over the selection of the mayor stem from people thinking that the mayor has a strong (or sometimes excessive) influence over what the council works on and the outcomes of the meetings. Similar concerns existed when I was elected to the council. Our solution was to create the three-member Council Agenda Committee (CAC) to work with the city manager on the agenda, a job previously relegated to the mayor, with help from the deputy mayor. You might not think that simply adding one more person would make any difference, but at least for a number of years the CAC worked very well. The reasons our CAC worked were multiple: First, the thi...