Durango City Council received few, if any, public comments in favor of dissolving and combining various resident-led advisory boards and commissions.
In fact, just the opposite. It received dozens of comments from people opposed to eliminating and consolidating advisory boards, including a letter signed by 16 former mayors.
But that didn’t stop City Council from voting 4-0 (Councilor Olivier Bosmans abstained) last week to create a Financial Advisory Board, the first step in a proposed reorganization that would reduce the city’s boards and commissions from 23 to 15.
The decision has led some to question whether City Council truly represents its constituents.
Tom Sluis, city spokesman, said the reorganization of boards will improve public access with more meetings, greater outreach and additional opportunities for a greater variety of community members to engage in projects.
The restructuring would reduce staff and councilor hours and money spent on board meetings; prevent boards from competing with each other on project priorities; and relocate financial oversight under the new Financial Advisory Board, according to a February staff presentation.
Residents are upset the decision comes just as two new city councilors are about to be seated, and a common request to City Council was to postpone any decision until they took office.
Jasper Welch, one of the “sweet 16” mayors who wrote a letter objecting to the proposed reorganization, said serving as a liaison to boards and commissions helped bring him up to speed on city business and processes.
He said reinventing the city’s boards and commissions might not be a bad idea, but a transition period is needed.
Seth Furtney, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board member, likened the city’s push toward reorganization to a “coup” with the intent of stifling public engagement.
Rick Cobb, a resident who frequents Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meetings, said the city is “apt to lose a lot of qualified, knowledgeable people who are volunteering their time.”
Sweetie Marbury, another “sweet 16” former mayor, called the project a “disaster” and said there’s been no public input about it.
Matt Payne, who serves as chairman of the Planning Commission, said if the city is looking to improve community engagement, it could have started with its volunteer boards and commissions for input.
“You have engaged citizens. Start there,” he said.
Some board members had no involvement with the reorganization and weren’t aware of it. Payne said he learned about the project from the newspaper.
“You would think someone would reach out to the chair of the Planning Commission and be like, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re thinking about doing. Do you have any feedback? That certainly didn’t happen,’” he said.
The Planning Commission will be combined with several other boards. Despite the lack of involvement or communication, Payne said he isn’t angry and doesn’t feel slighted by the proposal to reconfigure boards, unlike some other board members.
He said overall, efforts to enhance public engagement are headed in a positive direction.
City officials have said combining some boards and eliminating others would save hundreds of work hours for councilors, thousands of hours for staff members and cut spending by $228,000 annually.
The city provides numerous opportunities for public engagement, including open houses, special forums, and public comment periods at board meetings.
Sluis pushed back at the notion that the city made a rushed decision or didn’t include the public in its decision to trim back on boards and commissions. He said the city first notified some boards that would be affected as early as 2021.
“Council gave the direction over two years ago,” Scott Shine, community development director, said in an interview with The Durango Herald. “There’s been some staff turnover which has kind of affected the timeline and the messaging. But overall, I think we’ve taken appropriate steps.”
Erin Hyder, assistant city manager, said the city slowed down its process of reorganizing board and commissions as a result of public input.
The resolution City Council passed last week to create the Financial Advisory Board was originally supposed to dissolve five advisory boards. But during the meeting, council worked with Bill Tuthill, interim city attorney, to scratch out and reword the resolution that allows for a smoother transition into the restructuring.
At a staff presentation April 4, Hyder and Shine presented a number of ways to improve public engagement and bolster residents’ voices, including more public meetings with more opportunities for public input than afforded by current advisory boards.
They said more public comments are generally shared at general City Council meetings than at resident-led board and commission meetings.
One proposal to increase public engagement is to create an online hub dubbed Engage Durango that would provide links to information on city projects, feedback submission forms and volunteer opportunities.
Another is to form a working group in which the city would perform targeted outreach to community members with expertise or lived experience on a specific subject. The aim is to gather community members who can contribute their knowledge to relevant projects.
During a study session, Councilor Kim Baxter said she likes the new and improved model for public engagement, but it hasn’t been implemented and it will take time to do so.
She said the city should move slowly in reorganizing boards and commissions, because residents are used to a particular process and it will “feel like they have lost it” if the city drives its boards off a figurative cliff.
“They won’t have confidence in the new proposed process,” she said.
She said she prefers the city takes six months to a year to deploy the city’s new model for public engagement. Other councilors said they agree to a transition, but maybe not so long of one.
Bosmans said he doesn’t like the direction City Council is going, but “it is what it is.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
An earlier version of this story misspelled Erin Hyder’s last name. Also, a quote by Scott Shine, community development director, was incorrectly attributed to Tom Sluis, city spokesman.
