Durango residents attending a City Council meeting this week said a plan to consolidate volunteer advisory boards is “unbelievable,” “unsupportable,” “improper” and a “bad look” for the council.

Joining the chorus was 16 former Durango mayors who signed a letter objecting to the idea of disbanding certain boards and commissions.

City Council is scheduled to hear recommendations on April 4 about whether to consolidate 10 boards and commissions staffed by residents, an idea that has stoked the ire of some volunteers serving on boards.

Boards and commissions that would be done away with include Parks and Recreation, Natural Lands, Multimodal, Strategy and Long-Term Finance and the Community Relations Commission.

In a February presentation to City Council, staff said combining some boards would reduce the number of boards and commissions from 23 to 15, savings hundreds of councilor work hours and thousands of staff hours and cutting city spending by $228,000 annually.

Douglas Snow, a Durango native and candidate for City Council, asked councilors to hold off on voting on the proposal.

“I ask that you hold off on that vote or decide to vote ‘no,’” he said. “It sets a bad precedent for elected officials and for those who are leaving, it leaves a – it looks like bad professionalism.”

City Council candidate Harrison Wendt asked City Council to vote “no” on the boards reorganization and said institutional knowledge held by boards and commissions members will be “really important” to incoming first-time City Council members who will be chosen by voters in the April 4 City Council election.

He said the volunteer boards and commissions are “a crucial part of our democracy and who we are.”

He referenced the fact that several residents attended the public participation segment of the City Council meeting on Tuesday to urge action in light of Lightner Creek and Animas River water quality issues.

“And as we can see today, we have a bunch of community members who showed up to talk about how important Lightner Creek is and our river and water quality,” he said. “And any type of public participation is absolutely crucial and important to our democracy and our city government.”

Durango resident Ellen Stein, who served two years on the Multimodal Advisory Board that will be disbanded if City Council decides to reorganize the boards and commissions, said her experience participating in local government as a volunteer was “incredibly satisfying” and she wants to see the opportunity preserved for residents.

“The Multimodal, Natural Lands and Parks and Rec (advisory boards) are proposed to be dissolved and there is no way that expertise (and) citizen input can be recreated with the structure that you’re currently proposing,” she said.

Financial responsibilities handled by those boards would be undertaken by a newly formed Financial Advisory Board if City Council pursues the reorganization, according to the staff presentation in February.

“You don’t even have a solid recommendation from staff on how to make up for the lack of public participation that dissolution would result in,” Stein said. “And there are specific concerns when I hear what (feels like) competing goals. You’re apparently trying to save us money, but who decides what’s too much to spend on boards and commissions and supporting them when so many citizens are actively engaged in our community?”

Stein said there has been a “consistent decline” in public access. Concerns from business owners who have pushed against the city’s Downtown’s Next Step project, a reimagining of Main Avenue to make it more pedestrian and cyclist friendly, have not been heard, and now boards and commissions – where residents can raise concerns, provide input and get more information about city projects – are on the chopping block, she said.

And, she said there is “no good plan” to replace the expertise board and commission members possess.

“This community was built on public participation and that has to continue,” she said.

Twenty-year Durango resident Spencer Compton, who has served as chair, vice chair and a member of the Multimodal Advisory Board over the past seven years, said he “strongly opposes” the city’s consideration of reorganizing its boards and commissions.

“Dismantling this valuable resource without careful consideration and extensive outreach to the boards is hasty, improper and misguided,” he said.

He said any improvements to boards and commissions can be accomplished board-by-board and the boards are “vital assets” for the Durango community.

The Multimodal Advisory Board is essential for creating alternative transportation in Durango, but the city is still years away from completing its multimodal transportation network, something residents voted for “overwhelmingly,” he said.

Former mayor Sweetie Marbury said voters approved 2005, 2015 and 2019 sales tax adjustments with the understanding that boards and commissions would field questions to and obtain information about various projects utilizing sales tax dollars.

Residents lose their voice if boards and commissions go away, she said. City Council would lose background knowledge the boards provide. And residents will in turn lose trust in the current and future city councils.

She said reassigning financial oversight from the Parks and Recreation, Multimodal and Natural Lands advisory boards to one Financial Advisory Board is “unbelievable.”

In a March 7 letter penned by former mayors Jasper Welch, Dick White, Leigh Meigs and Marbury, signed by 16 former mayors and titled “Who’s Driving the Train?” the boards and commissions were credited with bolstering “self-governance, citizen engagement, policy creation, and advisory input.”

The letter asks where the idea to restructure boards and commissions came from and what cause a reorganization would serve beyond saving staff time and money and reducing citizen participation.

It asks City Council to take more public input and make time for more discussion about the proposal.

Councilor Kim Baxter said the possible reorganization stands to increase the city’s effectiveness beyond saving staff time and money. For one, current processes require developers and residents to go before, at times, three or four boards to get projects greenlighted, and consolidating boards could simplify those processes.

The Design Review Board and Planning Commission, for example, are supportive of the recommended restructuring. In the past they have held joint meetings to streamline processes for community members, she said.

“So it’s not just about the city organization itself, it’s also about the community members that are going through this process,” she said.

Baxter said she would prefer to see the Natural Lands, Parks and Recreation and Multimodal advisory boards consolidated into one board with fewer total members. The boards all make recommendations to City Council on projects that utilize dedicated sales taxes, and they don’t always agree on what projects should be prioritized.

“So it’s better to get them all together to have those discussions and then have one recommendation for expenditures coming from one consolidated board, she said.”

She said she is concerned that having one Financial Advisory Board for multimodal, natural lands and parks and recreation recommendations will lose expertise held by current board members. But, she supports inviting the chairpersons of current boards to apply for a seat on the proposed Financial Advisory Board.

“One of the things we are looking at doing is taking some of the chairs from those boards that will be dissolved and putting them on the Financial Advisory Board or at least asking them if they would like to apply so that we don’t lose that expertise and that longevity,” she said.

Another option the city is considering is the formation of subcommittees that would advise the Financial Advisory Board, and placing current board members on said subcommittees could be a way forward.

Mayor Barbara Noseworthy also said the city will establish working groups to identify and include people who have input on certain issues the city hasn’t heard before. Many people can’t commit two hours a month to a regular meeting, but they could come together to provide input on certain community issues to the city.

“A working group could have the Infrastructure Advisory Board that performs a water/sewer rate analysis and seek community experience in that,” she said. “Or an open space working group that deals with fire mitigation, pulling people from the fire department, impacted neighborhoods and people with expertise with fire mitigation, and discuss if the fire mitigation plan is robust enough.”

She said the city perhaps hasn’t communicated as effectively as it could have, and staff is scheduled to breakdown how the restructuring, if approved by City Council, would take shape at the April 4 meeting.

The reorganization also is not a rushed job, she said. Discussions first started in late 2019, although the COVID-19 pandemic put conversations on hold.

cburney@durangoherald.com