Thread by @shayshinecastle

Next item: Recommendations to improve public engagement at city council meetings.

Presentation: www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Item_7A_-…

Council will be giving input on a whole list of things, but here are a few of the big ones:
More chats with council
Separate public hearings from council votes on major issues
Other barriers to public participation (suggestion that mayor can read submitted comments)

Council spent quite a bit of time on this at its January retreat. Suggestions generally fell into 5 buckets:
1. Changes to Open Comment and Public Hearings;
2. Community presentations (during open comment and public hearings);

3. Interpretation and Meeting Formats;
4. Council Correspondence;
5. Future of Hybrid Meetings

I could list out all the recommendations of the subcommittee now, but I think I'll just tackle them as they come up.

Engagement Manager Sarah Huntley: I want to encourage you all to remember that we have made a commitment to make engagement as "meaningful and inclusive" as we can.

BUT, Huntley says, we also have constrained resources.

First issue: Make public participation more conversational; that is, encourage a two-way dialogue between council members and public, rather than speakers speaking and council making blanket responses.

The committee is recommending open comment at ONLY one meeting per month (down from twice) and INSTEAD do more Chats with Council (1X per month)

2 council members are usually there, and it's held at various places around town. Attendees set the agenda (there's a facilitator) and then talk to elected officials.

The catch: EVERY council member has to commit to 2-3 chats per year. (This has been an issue in the past; Nagle generally doesn't do anything other than attend required meetings.)

Of course, she'll be off council in November, so maybe it's a non-issue.

Open comment usually lasts 45 min - 1 hr; chats would be ~2 hrs.

So "it's not a significant time savings," as Yates says. But it would be higher quality engagement.

I think one of the issues with Chats in the past was that they were:
1.) poorly attended
and
2.) attended by the same ol' people

Friend: Open comment is on the record, so we'd need to "build in" some mechanisms to report back what we hear to our fellow council members.

Brockett: We started chats with council 4 yrs ago. I did a number; some where really productive and some were less so. When we really ramped them up, we ended up not having good attendance. And it was a lot of the same ppl.

He liked the "Walks with council" events — "those were really great."

Swetlik: We've had better attendance virtually, so if we can replicate that somehow...?

Wallach: My concerns are that if we exchange open comment for better dialogue...."Out of necessity, we'd be having that dialogue with fewer ppl. I'd be v reluctant to cut out one open comment period per month. We'd be getting far fewer opinions."

Nagle: It's a good idea to bring back Chats with Council or Walks with Council. I agree with Wallach; idk if it's the best idea to cut out one open comment per month. Maybe make one open comment more geared toward interaction.

Nagle can't commit to chats with council, but thinks it's a good idea to set that expectation moving forward, for new council members.

Young: "This is still a 'you come to us' approach rather than 'we go to them'"

Why not find an event, already happening, within a group that would "never ever" come to council, and just get on their agenda?

"Something where we are meeting people where they are at, rather than them coming to us," Young says.

Joseph: Open comments are an opportunity for people to speak with ALL of us. It's also a platform as well, to the entire community.

Joseph likes the Chats with council, but "I don't believe it should be mandatory. We barely get paid; some people are working" just to be on council.

"We have a lot of committees," Joseph says. "It should be up to the council member" to get community input, rather than being "forced on them."

Friend: The thinking was we'd be spending less time from fewer open comments, and that we'd give those hours back to the community.

Good time to point out that low ratings for city council are consistent in the community survey: Last time, 10% said they felt CC considered their input before voting; 34% felt their values were represented. boulderbeat.news/2019/01/22/bou…

Of course, Boulderites are very happy overall with the city and the services it provides. (Aside from housing — and there were notable gaps based on home ownership and race/ethnicity and income.)

So residents like the city and what it does, but doesn't like council and what THEY do.

Yates reminding me of some othere interesting info on what other cities do RE: open comment. A lot of that just not feasible for Boulder, which has a lot of engagement and participation in local gov't.

Denver, for example, allows 30 min of open comment; 10 ppl max; time per speaker is determined by how many sign up; preference given to those who have not spoken at previous meeting; voice recordings can be played at the meeting

Westminster: 5 min per person, no limit on # of speakers; recorded messages played at the meeting

Aurora: 3 min per person; no max # of ppl

Longmont: 3 min per person; no cap on # of speakers; written comments read and recorded comments played by staff during the meeting

Lakewood: 3 min per speaker; no cap on # of speakers

Lafayette: Mayor reads aloud emails received ahead of time

Boulder city council receives HUNDREDS of emails, so reading those out loud would take forever.

Weaver: "I'm loath to take away an open comment. Sometimes they are enjoyable; sometimes they're just painful."

But they're always what's on the community's mind, Weaver says. That's valuable.

Weaver: On the other hand, engagement with the community is part of being an elected official. I think setting it as an expectation for the next council makes sense.

"None of us can dictate to other council members what they should or shouldn't do," Weaver says. But "social pressure" is important.

To sum up: Not enough support to eliminate one open comment period per month, but there is support to add more council chats, possibly paired with existing events.

Next suggestion: Limit the frequency of participation on the open comment, so it's not the same ppl over and over again. (It's done by lottery)

Some stats on that:
Total Number of Slots Used: 363
Number of Unique People: 219
Number of ppl who spoke more than 5 times: 13
Slots used by ppl who spoke more than 5 times: 104
6% of unique people spoke more than 5 times
29% of Slots used by People who spoke more than 5 times

Weaver likes the idea.
Friend, too: It's to make space for other ppl and to make sure we're not hearing the same viewpoints/perspectives again and again.

That data was from 2020, btw.

Huntley: We see a lot of the same ppl writing to council and a lot of the same people speaking at open comment.

Lots of references to the Camera's letters to the editor policy, which limits how often you can get your letter published.

The Boulder Beat has no such policy (yet) bc LTE are so infrequent. Sadly.

Young pointing out that the post-shooting council meeting was very diverse bc each council member got to invite a certain number of people.

Did not know that. V interesting.

To sum up: Broad support for this idea of limiting frequency IF open comment capacity is reached.

It will be a while before this change happens, if it does.

A bit of convo about ways to curb course language. There's been a bit added to the mayor's "script" before s/he launches open comment. Staff suggesting putting up a slide with the rules; Friend, Joseph suggesting they are emailed to participants ahead of time.

Joseph also wants them posted online.

Brockett suggesting that, instead of requiring ppl to use their legal name (which can discriminate against trans folks) they can use the name they're commonly known by. Staff concurs.

Young wants to swap out language that discourages profane language with the phrase "dehumanizing language."

Huntley says the rules actually ban obscenity, not profanity.

Weaver: I think we care less about profanity than about derogatory language.

For someone who curses A LOT, I sure get uncomfortable when public speakers do it. Full-on panic sweats.

Since we're on the subject of obscenity, Carr and council still haggling over how to decide if community members' presentations include obscene content. Tough call for gov't officials, given the first amendment.

The "solution" is to somehow mark the presentation as community-generated — therefore NOT an official city document.

It's rare, council is arguing. Carr pushing back: We have never broadcasted community member presentations on Channel 8. If you start, it's a new opportunity for people.

Carr: "It's a slippery slope. It's a slope I advise you not to get on."

Wallach Sigh-O-Meter: 3

Wallach Sigh-O-Meter: 4

Wallach: I don't think it's a very substantial risk, bc I don't think ppl will put obscene images in their presentation. Plus I think our positions will be defensible.

Joseph: "This responsibility is not one I think a council member should have. It should be on the city attorney."

"We can def be sued if we take away people's speech rights," Joseph says.

We are WAY over time and only on slide 13 of 28(!) on this item. BLAH!

Swetlik: Ppl have plenty of ways to get their content out there. I don't think we should pursue something that has such serious consequences as lawsuits.

Wants to stick with NOT broadcasting presentations on Channel 8. Young and Brockett concur. (As did Joseph)

And Friend.

And Weaver.

So community presentations will continue NOT being broadcast, but visible to those in the meeting, whether in person or on Zoom.

Some positive developments: The speaker sign-up page for meetings (bouldercolorado.gov/city-council/p…) will soon be available in Spanish

Also, EVERY motion on which council is taking a vote will be scheduled either under the Consent Agenda (not a lot of discussion and no public input) OR as a Public Hearing.

One exception: If something urgent or emergent happens

We're super in the weeds here.

A big suggested change: Separating public hearings from the council vote. So, hearing first, then the vote at another meeting. This would only be for "big" issues (with long public hearings).

I see both good and bad in this.
Good: Makes ppl feel like their input matters
Bad: More time for behind-the-scenes politic-ing

But we'll see what council has to say.

Young: How is this dif from what we're currently doing?
Huntley: We have done this more often recently, but that's not consistent and it's historically new. We're suggesting to continue that practice.

Literally no other comments from council, so... this will start becoming routine.

Well ok then.

Not sure why my last tweet didn't add to this thread, but we're talking council emails. Some want every email answered within 24 hours; staff arguing for 3 biz days, due to the sheer volume of emails council gets.

Friend: I'm not a particular about the timing. I think the goal is to make sure people know their emails are being read.

Yates concurs. Half of emails aren't political opinions; they're requests for help.

Brockett: It's my understanding that most emails don't receive a response.
Huntley: They don't, bc most are political opinions and staff is uncomfortable handling those. But there are inquiries that also go unanswered.

A new system might be better able to handle this, Huntley says. That's being explored now.

Carr: Council got 17,000 emails in 2020, up from 7,000 in 2019.

That, combined with "significant layoffs" makes it hard to answer all emails, Carr says. If you spend 1 min answering each email, that's 283 hours of work. You can prioritize this, but staff will have to sacrifice other work.

Friend suggesting a system that can "triage" emails — sending appropriate ones to staff and political ones to council.

Weaver suggests a specific staff member becoming the "email shepherd."

Weaver: "I think council agrees this is a big deal, it's a big problem, it's a tough problem."

Staff is going to mull over council feedback and return at some point with possible solutions.

Moving on to another item, same topic: How to handle hybrid meetings.

Some suggestions:

-R etain ability for remote open comment and public hearing participation

- Council members can attend up to 4 study sessions per year remotely; no more than 3 council members may participate remotely during study sessions (sign up in advance)

- CAC meetings will go fully remote. Other committee meetings may, but public and press remote attendance should still be allowed

Huntley: We are aiming to be starting with hybrid meetings when council comes back from summer break. So second week in July.

Unrolled that other thread too soon: Study sessions will remain fully remote for the time being.

And, again, boards and commissions will stay remote until Sept. 7 when they can go remote OR in-person; that's up to them.

Not all the boards and commissions are live-streamed; in fact, most don't, so the hybrid option isn't being considered for them until perhaps 2022.

Swetlik: I think it would be weird to ask our board and commission members to be at the same level that we are, especially answering qs about vaccines and stuff.

Joseph asking a q that was answered in the packet.

That's the end of this one, which crossed two threads. I'll pull it all together for you.
@threadreaderapp please unroll.