Thread by @shayshinecastle

New topic, new thread: Adding 2 members to the Arts Commission. Council is going to send this to the ballot (since it's in the Charter, voters have to OK)

Presentation: www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Item_5A_A…

This is super straightforward and not controversial at all. The Arts Commission needs more ppl bc it is struggling to hand out grants. Extra ppl = less work for each person.

Kathleen McCormick, Arts Commission chair, explaining that a bit. Not really much to add on my end... I mean, it's pretty easy to understand.

Brockett: I'm really glad you brought this to us. "It's really nice for once" to be able to grant a board and commission request.

(They send letters every year asking for stuff. Here's 2020's) boulderbeat.news/2020/01/09/bou…

Young moves to put this on the ballot; Brockett seconds.

Unanimous vote. An end to the last boring item of the night.

I mean, this one's not super thrilling, but still.

Should council have the power to change the charter in emergencies? That's the ballot issue at hand. Presentation: www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Item_5B_E…

Carr: As we've been in the pandemic, "there's been many times I've looked at the charter and thought it would be great if council could change that."

It would be super limited:
Would require ⅔ majority to amend charter
Would only apply to 19 charter provisions
Would only last 60 days, unless extended by another 2/3 vote, and last no more than the length of emergency

Could only be in declared emergencies by Pres of U.S. or governor of Colorado (of which there have been 11 since 2000, in case you were curious)

I'mma share them bc I find it interesting:
Walker Ranch wildfire (Sept. 16-Sept. 20, 2000)
Colorado wildfires (April 23-Aug. 6, 2002)
Colorado snowstorms (March 17-March 20, 2003)
Overland Fire (Oct. 29 - Oct. 31, 2003)
Hurricane Katrina evacuation (Aug. 29 - Oct. 1, 2005)

Colorado snow (Dec. 18- Dec. 22, 2006)
Od Stage fire (Jan. 7, 2009)
Four Mile Canyon Fire (Sept. 6 - Sept. 17, 2010)
Storms, flooding, landslides, mudslides (Sept. 11 - Sept. 30, 2013)
Storms, tornadoes, flooding, landslides, mudslides (May 4 - June 16, 2015)
COVID-19 (now)

anyway, it would only apply to 19 provisions in the charter, mostly around timing and/or deadlines.

I already went over those in my story, so I'm not going to list them again. boulderbeat.news/2020/07/17/cou…

Yates: One stood out to me as not time-related, which relates to how many signatures must be on a petition for a ballot measure. I was struggling a little bit with how that would work. Would council have the right to lower that during an emergency? Would it go back up after?

Carr: "This arose in my thinking of how council struggled with the initiatives that were proposed this year and how folks struggled to collect signatures .... That's why I included it. Council can eliminate it if they like."

Carr: It's not unusual to go through many drafts of a city-led ballot issue. Council should feel free to add, subtract, etc.

Friend: Do counties ever declare emergencies?
Carr: I wasn't able to find a list of county emergencies, just state and national list of emergencies that impacted Boulder County.

"I don't think there would be a situation where the county would declare and emergency where the president or governor wouldn't," Carr says. The list of emergencies is "pretty all-encompassing."

Friend: Is there any harm in adding county emergencies?
Carr: No

Wallach: In any of the 11 emergencies you listed, did we ever have an issue fulfilling the duties we're talking about altering now?

Carr: "I've been worried in this crisis" about things we are doing that possibly violate the charter.

Suspended meetings of boards and commissions, council meetings online... "I would feel much more comfortable if council had the power to fix some of these things."

The floods of 2013 were shorter than this pandemic, Carr says. If council had been unable to meet, or if it had lasted longer, that would have been an issue.

Weaver: There's something in the charter about the mayor taking control of police. Why isn't that on here?
Carr: It's really only appropriate in emergencies, so I'm not sure suspending that bc of an emergency makes sense.

Weaver: "I don't have any skill or ability to decide what the police should do." It seems like a holdover from the past.

3 speakers for public hearing.

Peter Mayer speaking for PLAN Boulder: "The issue is Tom Carr. ... We are very cautious about allowing any suspension of charter provisions."

He's mentioning PLAN's petition (about CU South) being rejected by Carr. They sent a letter asking for him to not weigh in on elections

"He has shown he can not be trusted to do his job ... to follow the state constitution or treat residents fairly."

I was surprised to see that letter, bc that group withdrew their petition and Mayer emailed me that after consulting a "knowledgeable" attorney, Carr was right RE: petitions and the group was wrong.

Perhaps they consulted ANOTHER attorney that caused them to reverse course.

I'll touch on this latter when we talk about ballot initiatives again.

Back to council: Wallach is not super hot on letting coucnil change the charter unless it's strictly related to timing or deadlines. Does NOT want to include petitions or other election items.

Yates agrees.

Friend: Regarding the police powers and the mayor, could we extend that to all of council so it wasn't just on one person?

Weaver: I think having a majority of council make that decision makes more sense than a single person.

Friend: "I think we got caught off guard in the pandemic, and we didn't have all the tools we needed."

Council should "take into account all that's going on, in a narrow way with really good guardrails" and make decisions at the time of the emergency.

"I don't think it's us being sinister and take over the community. It's us trying to help the community ... in an unforeseen catastrophe," Friend says.

She's suggesting putting certain things off limits for council to change, but otherwise leave it open.

Joseph: Some of these powers are too broad, so I'm not sure I can support them as-is.

"As a council, we are slightly more conservative than even our own governor."

On petitioning and ballot issues, "we have not been the most progressive on those ideas," Joseph says.

Carr: "This is my wishlist" of things I wish council could have changed during this pandemic. The council has no power to change the charter.

That was in response to Swetlik, who also doesn't want to include election-related items.

Young: What we want to remember is that these emergency powers are "not for this council. They are for councils in the future. This council has a certain personality, I guess you could say. ... Future councils may do so as well."

Young: "There could be a nefarious council. There could be the desire to usurp power."

Also wants to remove election-related powers.

Doesn't want to include emergencies declared by county commissioners, since there are only 3 of them. It would be easy to get 2 votes out of three and convince them to declare an emergency, she says.

Brockett: What happens if the city manager is incapacitated? (S/he issues emergency orders)
Carr: Council appoints a successor
Brockett: Is there an automatic process for that?

There is a chain of command, says Tanya Ange, deputy city manager

She's standing in for Jane Brautigam right now, as Brautigam is on vacation

Not incapacitated, as far as I know.

Although if it's a good vacation, maybe.

Brockett: If there's a line of succession from the city manager, why would council need to take over the police? (City manager directs them now, technically)

Let's just get rid of that power for mayors.

Brockett: Future emergencies might bring their own challenges we're not aware of. So I think having that flexibility makes sense, including in election issues.

Swetlik: Can council hire and fire an active city manager?
Carr: Yes. The succession only applies in an emergency; if there's a vacancy, council appoints city manager

And the mayor pro tem takes over if the mayor can't. (That was a Joseph q)

Wallach: None of these provisions address the greatest issue in times of calamity, which is economic flexibility.

If we had 5,000 ppl not able to eat, I'd want to spend money even from dedicated sources to meet that need, he says.

Weaver specifically asked that budget stuff be left out, so that dedicated funds couldn't be "raided"

Young: If there's a creative way to address this, that's what we should do, bc that's where the rubber meets the road.

I think she's talking about budget stuff, as Wallach was.

Now repeating her arguments about nefarious councils and why they shouldn't be able to mess with petition requirements in an emergency.

More discussion over petitions. Language is too vague, Yates says.
"I think we're leaving it to future councils to do whatever they want to do."

More haggling over language and details. Very city council-y

We're talking about council's ability to move an election in an emergency. Wallach could be OK, so long as they say it happens within a certain, set time, rather than leaving it open-ended for that council to decide.

A somewhat moot point in Colorado, where we have mail-in ballots.

A point Wallach is making now.

Young: Let us remember that the current federal administration is on the move to diminish our postal service

Oh, she's upset that elected officials are making it harder for citizens to participate in democracy? How bout that.

Wallach: "At the end of the day, I fear the risk of abuse of these provisions more than I fear" our inability to govern during an emergency.

Friend suggests, bc of all the questions, that the charter subcommittee revisit and then bring this back to council.

That might include looking at council's financial powers during an emergency, RE: Wallach's suggestion earlier.

Joseph: We need the budget to be "malleable" during crises. We have community members in need.

These emergency powers need "deeper analysis," Joseph says. It's not responsible to agree to them as-is; "there's too many holes."

Weaver: There's some guardrails already, being that these only apply in a declared emergency.

"Unless there's a despot involved, there's really not much advantage to declare a state of emergency."

Ok so we'll be coming back to this, maybe Aug. 4

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!