Opinion: Why public input should count more in council decisions

I follow the Boulder City Council’s Hotline, so even when I’m staying elsewhere, like last week up in Dillon, I’m kept aware of some of what is going on at the city. For those of you who don’t follow it, the Hotline is the public email service that council members and city staff use to communicate with each other, and which anyone can sign up to receive.

What has struck me over recent years is the almost total lack of substantive commentary by council members on the actions that the council is considering. The Hotline is not legal for the council members to use for detailed back-and-forth discussions; those are supposed to take place at open public council meetings. But, other than council member Mark Wallach, who does an excellent job of it, almost no council members ever raise substantive issues with the staff presentations, or bring up issues that were not addressed or need further discussion.

The Council Agenda Committee used to do in-depth substantive reviews of agenda materials. But now it apparently only focuses on scheduling. I see this lack as a critical omission. But it goes right along with what I see as a huge missing piece in Boulder’s supposedly open government — the lack of attention paid to what citizens can contribute to the policy discussions.

For example, there has been a lot of discussion in the media about whether Iris Ave. should be reduced to two lanes. In my opinion, the citizens who have raised issues with doing this have done a very good job in identifying and analyzing the problems. But there does not seem to be any official forum for this to be debated, nor are council members publicly engaged in this, at least that I have seen or heard. It’s as if they don’t want to get down into the weeds and discuss the pros and cons with the “public.”

Another example is the homeless issue. The city’s “Point in Time” surveys indicate that most of Boulder’s homeless population comes here from elsewhere. But there is no official place to house a real debate over whether Boulder’s “welcoming” policies (apparently responsible, at least in part, for this influx) are what the majority of citizens really want, or what Boulder should have.

The recent opening of the Homelessness Day Services Center on North Broadway (opposed by many neighbors) and the expansion of the activities of the Community Court (that apparently mostly serves homeless people, and about which Mark Wallach raised many legitimate questions) are examples of controversial actions that deserved a lot more public discussion in a formal setting.

Within a governmentally legitimized forum, people can debate the pros and cons without the stigma that is automatically attached to objections that are raised without such a forum. This lack of such forums comes across as being based on some moral objections to alternative perspectives being given any legitimacy. (To put it baldly, “We don’t want to give you a forum, because we’re morally right, and so you’re a bad person if you raise issues with our policies.”)

One other example is the notion of closing the Boulder airport and converting it to housing. Citizens have raised many issues, including about the potential for resumption of overflights from DIA and the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in JeffCo once the FAA no longer needs to avoid high altitude gliders, etc., flying over Boulder. But where is the open discussion about these issues? Why is the council not providing more complete and accessible information? Similar constraints on debate have occurred over Boulder’s growth, densification, potential water supply restrictions, traffic increases, etc.

If the City Council majority really wants more robust citizen input, they could easily implement changes to promote it. Identify the issues where discussion is needed or desired by the citizens. Then create public forums where people can actively participate in discussions on equal footing and engage council members way before options are fixed in stone. The Council Agenda Committee should make sure all material is accurate, complete and accessible well before council meetings, and not at the last minute like now. And the CAC should invite informed citizens on all sides to lay out their positions and analyses, with council members asking specific questions so that every issue of concern is illuminated.

But the real key is attitudinal — council members need to acknowledge that they are not any smarter or better informed than every other citizen, and that their values are no more important than those of other Boulderites.

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