Burning outrage. Disruption of public meetings. Officials’ attempts to clamp down.
As that pattern has played out in Aurora over the last year, the City Council has struggled at times to maintain decorum inside — and occasionally outside — its chamber. Last week brought the latest attempt in Colorado’s third-largest city to tighten its rules for public participation as it tries to manage what has become a highly combustible and disruptive atmosphere, spurred by the 2024 police killing of an unarmed Black man.
The council voted 6-4 on May 5 to limit speakers at the lectern to one at a time, with exceptions for children, those needing interpretive help and people with physical disabilities. A second — and more legally dubious — proposal to forbid photography or the recording of videos in an area close to the dais was withdrawn at the last moment.
Last week’s rule change comes after Aurora’s council already did away with call-in comments last fall. Earlier this year, it moved the general public comment period to a 40-minute window before each meeting’s official start.
Since the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Kilyn Lewis by a SWAT officer with the Aurora Police Department, protesters have regularly come to council meetings demanding accountability. In that May 23, 2024, incident, police were trying to arrest Lewis on suspicion of attempted murder; after a review, the Arapahoe County district attorney last fall declined to file charges against the officer who killed Lewis, Michael Dieck.
In the Aurora council chamber, meetings have descended into chaos as protesters have become loud and unruly, on occasion sending elected leaders behind closed doors to finish business virtually.
Disruption at the most local level of the democratic process is hardly an Aurora-only phenomenon. In late 2023, pro-Palestinian demonstrators took over the Denver City Council chamber to oppose a pro-Israel conference in the city, prompting the council to postpone the second half of its scheduled business.
In Fort Collins last year, three women glued their hands to the wall inside the City Council chamber as part of a pro-Palestinian protest. The incident prompted the council to pass a measure allowing it to go remote in the event of future disruptions.
The ongoing violence in the Middle East has also regularly brought activists to Boulder City Council meetings over the last year, with protests as recently as last month resulting in the council taking multiple recesses before clearing the chamber of audience members.
Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, said his organization often gives city leaders around the state advice on “civility in governance” and “how to respond graciously while respecting First Amendment rights and the need to conduct public business.”
But an intensified political atmosphere, along with novel technology that has allowed just about anybody to become a broadcaster, have made the task harder, he said.
“Perhaps political mood has aggravated it, but live-streaming and social media presence likely has had a bigger impact,” Bommer said. “The meeting now provides a greater opportunity for performance by the public, and sometimes by officials.”
Official says rule addresses ‘a safety concern’
Over the last year in Aurora, multiple speakers have sometimes gathered at the lectern to address the council. Councilwoman Francoise Bergan, who proposed the new public participation rule, said she did so for safety reasons.
“It has always been respected that one person is at the podium until recently,” she said. “It is indeed a safety concern for our police as they need to control the environment in our large chamber. Additionally, it allows City Council and the mayor to focus on the speaker, without distractions.”
Alli Jackson, who is running for an at-large Aurora council seat in November and took to the lectern during the May 5 meeting, said the council was going in the wrong direction.
“If council members are serious about easing community tensions, they must respond with compassion and accountability, not more restriction and silencing,” Jackson told the council. “We are not a threat — we are the public.”
Bergan doesn’t believe the measure “takes away the democratic process.”
“We allow for a listening session that precedes our council meeting where we conduct business and have opportunity for the public to speak on agenda items,” she told The Post. “We are available to constituents by email, by phone and in town halls, as well as through social media.”
According to a National League of Cities survey conducted last August, 73% of participating mayors, city council members and city managers reported experiencing harassment as part of their work. Nearly 90% of those who said they were harassed said it happened on social media, while 84% said they were harassed during public meetings.
“Using the (public comment) time for protest, disruption or promotion of personal agendas threatens efficiency, order, decorum — and sometimes even safety,” Bommer said. “We haven’t really seen the latter as an issue in Colorado, but I know my colleagues are dealing with it in other states.”
On the same night Aurora was passing its new rules last week, officials in Decatur, Alabama, announced that all City Council public comment periods would be suspended for two weeks after six people were arrested at a meeting amid protests over a police killing there. It’s one of several recent examples across the country of city councils suspending or shutting down public comment.
Jeff Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, says public input at city council meetings isn’t actually required by law.
“The open meetings law is silent on that,” he said.
But it has long been a custom for councils to offer it, he said, and an open mic is good for governance. That said, city officials are empowered to take steps to preserve decorum in the chamber and impose time limits on speakers.
What they can’t do, he said, is control the content of what comes out of people’s mouths.
“They can’t discriminate based on what people say,” Roberts said.
That challenge came into full view in the last couple of years, as city councils in Wheat Ridge, Lakewood and Durango were bombarded by callers using antisemitic and other offensive slurs during council proceedings. Aurora experienced its own incident of racist remarks at a meeting last year, resulting in an end to call-in comments at council meetings.
All the recent tumult in Aurora has had the effect of pushing other members of the community away from participating in the process, Bergan said.
“Some have reached out to us to share their concerns about feeling uncomfortable, intimidated and even frightened to the point that they won’t attend our meetings,” the councilwoman said. “Some have been heckled and called names.”
That goes for the members of council, too.
At a Feb. 10 council meeting conducted remotely online, a speaker during public comment wished — in prayer form and with Old Testament language — ill will upon the city’s elected leaders. During the same meeting, a member of the public called in and accused Mayor Mike Coffman of having “a long history of hating Black men,” without providing evidence.
‘There is a huge pain in the community’
Even Councilwoman Alison Coombs, one of four council members to vote against the measure further tightening public participation last week, acknowledged some of what is said from the lectern is inappropriate, even threatening at times.
But Coombs said the closest she had seen to a potential physical altercation at city hall was when Coffman confronted Auon’tai Anderson, a former Denver school board vice president and a frequent protester at Aurora council meetings, in the hallway after a meeting in January.
She also thinks the majority of council members disproportionately direct their ire at the Justice for Kilyn E. Lewis advocacy group.
“The council has not been unclear that they are targeting this specific group of people,” Coombs said.
Jackson, the council candidate, said people are coming to city hall to make their voices heard because of a pattern of violence by Aurora police against Black men and teenagers. She cited the shooting deaths of Elijah McClain in 2019, Jor’Dell Richardson in 2023 and Lewis last year.
Aurora police have been operating under a consent decree since late 2021. The legal agreement with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office is meant to bring about changes in practices at the department, including on use-of-force, hiring and training policies.
“There is a huge pain in the community that is not being resolved,” Jackson said. “Just say, ‘We’re sorry.’ We should be opening doors for people to express their authentic selves.”
She doesn’t like the recent practice of some council members choosing to attend meetings virtually, sometimes from elsewhere inside the municipal building, according to reporting from the Aurora Sentinel.
“It’s disheartening when you have to speak to an empty chair,” Jackson said. “It sends a message that the public isn’t welcome to be heard.”
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