LETTERS: Aurora City Council should get 'back to basics', embrace civility - Sentinel Colorado

Editor: Potholes. Street signs. A commission appointment. Not the most exciting or pressing issues in a community with a lot of issues big and small but these are the issues I’ve approached Aurora city government with in my little over a year of living here.

I’d give the City a mixed report card on how these issues have been handled. I have about a 50% response rate when I email the Mayor and City Council. I recently approached my District Councilmember and I gave her 3 weeks with no response before I approached our four At-Large Councilmembers. My hat is off to Councilmembers Gardner, Hiltz, and Gruber. You responded quickly with concern and empathy. Our City will be at a loss when we lose Councilmembers Hiltz and Gruber when their terms expire.

To the other members of our City government who did not respond, as someone who also has a full email inbox myself, I can relate, however, in representative government, we, your constituents, need to hear back from you. I doubt it would be tolerated by our elected officials for city employees to not respond to our citizens, and our elected officials should be held to the same standard.

I recently applied for the Planning & Zoning Commission. I missed the Charter’s residency requirement by a few days, but it was a window into how our City government works. I learned more about our City Charter, the appointment process, how our citizens navigate this process, had my name on a screen at a live meeting, and perhaps some of the unspoken expectations of our elected officials that are not present in the Charter. I wanted to join the Commission for many reasons not the least of which was a 100 page+ meeting agenda that took several minutes to load on my phone that had nearby projects I had no idea were under review and ready for approval.

While I may be fairly new to Aurora, I am neither new to Colorado nor municipal government. I stay as informed as I can at the local, state, and national levels. I am a civics geek which means devoting hours of my days to reading the news and watching government meetings. As I grow older, I care less on where elected officials stand on hot button issues than how they conduct themselves, their ability to accomplish public policy that helps their constituents, and whether or not they make themselves available to the constituents they serve.

I would like to strongly urge our City Council to set aside the issues that have divided you at the expense of moving our City forward. Instead, I would request that you focus your efforts on a back to basics agenda for our citizens. My suggestions for this agenda include: explore either an expansion of the City Council or hiring full time constituent services staff to help you meet the needs of our growing City; expand, split the duties of the Planning & Zoning Commission, or delegate some of its administrative review powers to our highly capable staff; study and implement an infrastructure agenda through bonding that is modeled on successful programs in other communities in Colorado or in similar-sized jurisdictions in other states; implement municipal broadband and television service to expand access equitably to all Aurorans for these services. You may be hard at work on these issues, and my apologies in advance if I am not aware of your efforts. I see none of these issues as liberal or conservative issues. Instead, these are Aurora issues.

As we grow up and out as a City, we should be thoughtfully asking if we can not only serve our new citizens but the citizens we already have. If we want to walk and chew gum at the same time, we can’t let the “little things” like infrastructure and constituent service be set aside while we address the “big things” like police reform and affordable housing.

Finally, please embrace civility as a means to accomplish public policy successfully. Our elected leaders should be role models. A functional City government not only relies on the civility of the elected leaders of today but on the willingness of future citizens to step up and serve when our current leaders leave office. Let’s encourage them to step up and lead a highly functional City government and not ask themselves why anyone would choose to serve when the issues seem too great to ever resolve.

— Steve Elkins via [email protected]

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LETTERS: Aurora City Council should get 'back to basics', embrace civility - Sentinel Colorado
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