Opinion: Opportunity for the new Boulder City Council

Congratulations to the four new Boulder City Council members! You have a great opportunity to make a contribution to the Boulder community, but it will take a lot of work to do it responsibly; the learning curve is pretty steep. Here are some suggestions for you (and other Council members) that may help improve the process.
Read the Charter. It is the document that governs how you, city staff, and board and commission members operate, and how you relate to each other. It defines the limits of your and their power, and can only be amended by a citizen vote. You don’t have to remember every word. But just knowing what’s there makes you more self reliant and less at the mercy of others’ opinions.
For example, relative to the recent meeting discussion over diversity, the council does not have the power to suspend the rules as to when the mayor is selected. Charter Section 14 specifies, “The mayor shall be chosen by the council from its own number, upon the convening of the new council, following each general municipal election.” So the mayoral selection should have been the first order of business last Tuesday evening. By the way, for those who evaluate people by category, since the early 1980s, when I first got involved, half of the mayors have been women.

Also, scan through the Boulder Revised Code. For example, B.R.C. 9-2-14, “Site Review,” gives a sense of Boulder’s confusing and arbitrary approval processes. In particular, note the 29 sections of the B.R.C. that can be “modified,” meaning ignored. I suggest putting a link to the Charter and B.R.C. on your computer.

The goal setting session in January is a chance to start on the right foot. After some tries, our Council found a process that worked. Here it is, with some additions:
• Make each initiative or project operational by reducing it to what specifically can get done in the next two years. This includes ongoing staff efforts, so nothing significant is left out of the discussion.
• Let whoever is advocating the project take a few minutes to present it; then the rest of the Council and staff critique it; finally, take a vote to see if a Council majority supports pursuing it.
• Then evaluate the approved goals for time, effort and cost, and then prioritize and winnow them down to a list that looks feasible, knowing that unanticipated items will come up. The objective here is to clarify exactly what is to be accomplished, and also to set limits, so that the citizens are not left in the dark and worried that vague goals will expand in ways no one expected.
The Council Agenda Committee has a critical role in the process. Its primary function is to vet the meeting agenda materials to make sure that they are concise, clear, and address all the issues that are likely to be brought up. One useful approach is to have the three CAC members try to think of questions the other Council members and citizens will have, and make sure that there are answers. If not, the item goes back to the staff for more work. This review can save an enormous amount of meeting time — something that you will come to value dearly.
Another action that can really help is for the CAC to invite citizens who are particularly knowledgeable on a topic to testify at the Council meeting or study session, and then for Council members to ask them questions. Boulder citizens are plenty smart and involved; having them participate in this way both gives the Council a chance to become more educated (remember, Council members and city staff don’t know everything) and also reduces the sense that citizens often get when testifying that they are talking to a glass wall.
The use of working groups takes advantage of experts and involved citizens to help develop the more complex projects. They worked very well in revising elections and marijuana laws, for example, and could help with proposed ADU/co-op law changes, which are bound to create controversy, and the online petition process. Working groups also ensure that non-staff perspectives are included, and avoid the paranoia that many citizens have that critical decisions are being made in the dark.
The more significant the project, the more citizen involvement is necessary. It’s more efficient and productive, and citizens will feel that the results better represent what they want. And finally, if you make a mistake, please acknowledge it publicly, so that trust is restored.


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