YES on Boulder Ballot Question 2D
YES: City of Boulder Ballot Question 2D - Executive Sessions
Boulder Progressives supports Boulder Ballot Question 2D. Here’s why:
Executive Sessions solve an important problem that many residents of Boulder may not realize currently exists. Currently, the city attorney’s office meets with city councilors one or two at a time in a series of time-consuming and inefficient meetings in order to communicate privileged information without violating open meeting laws. The current practice actually decreases transparency, harms effective council conversations, and causes unnecessary delays. Measure 2D solves all of that.
Moving from individual meetings to executive sessions actually gives us more checks and balances - in this format our city councilors all hear directly from one another and are clear on what their colleagues have said, heard, and asked for, and they are able to use that information moving forward to hold one another accountable. This change will eliminate the possibility of staff communicating different information to different council members, and it reduces the potential for disclosure violations amongst council members.
Why Vote Yes on 2D?
Why Yes on 2D?
Hear directly from current Boulder City Councilor and former President of the BVSD Board of Education, Tina Marquis, on why this measure matters:
“Boulder is one of the only cities in Colorado that can’t meet in executive session for the limited reasons regulated by state law. Those reasons include receiving legal advice, personnel matters, and security.
Currently, the city council discusses these confidential issues by meeting in 5 separate meetings with 1-2 council members, our lawyer and other staff. Not only is this an inefficient way to discuss these topics, but council members only hear the perspective of one to zero other council members on generally important and complicated issues. This is the real drawback. In general, each council member brings unique insight and experience to the table, except in the case of important, generally confidential matters.
Allowing executive sessions doesn’t create more opportunities for ‘secret’ discussions; it simply allows for council to hear from each other rather than to develop decisions in a vacuum. Please support better decision making with a yes vote on 2D.”
Endorsements
Daily Camera
“YES: For journalists like us, anything done beyond the public eye raises some skepticism. But the fact of the matter is, some things must be private: discussions about property deals, conferring with an attorney for legal advice, making security arrangements, attending to personnel matters, and a few other specifics…As it stands, the Boulder City Council does not have the ability to go into an executive session — and any discussion between more than two councilmembers is forbidden outside of an official meeting. This means that these conversations that are required to be confidential have to happen in a much more haphazard way, in a series of one-on-one conversations.
In addition to creating more transparency, executive sessions will also make the job of our councilmembers more efficient. Vote “yes” on City of Boulder Ballot Question 2D.”
David Ensign Voter Guide
“YES: This question addresses inefficiencies in how city elected officials, and staff must interact when not in public meetings. Our current rules are very strict in limiting group discussions on City Council business, but there are some issues that for legal reasons must be dealt with outside of the public meetings. Allowing for these issues to be addressed in executive session will increase not only efficiency, but also transparency since these discussions will be more intentional and conformant with guidelines for good governance.”
Eric Budd Voter Guide
“YES: Question 2D meets an appropriate balance of good governance principles and transparency.”
Colorado Senate President Steve Fenberg
“I’m voting YES”
What Does The Law Say?
The Law regarding Executive Sessions can be found here, on the Colorado Department of Local Affairs site.
The law is tailored very narrowly to allow for executive sessions only under specific circumstances, such as:
Transfers of property interests,
Conference with an attorney for legal advice
Matters required to be kept confidential by federal or state law
Personnel matters
Importantly - the meeting must be recorded and the record must be kept for at least 90 days following the executive session. If legally challenged, a judge may privately review the executive session record to see whether the body's discussion strayed substantially off topic or whether the body took prohibited formal actions in its executive session.
Learn More About 2D:
Across Colorado, executive sessions are the most common practice - in fact, every other city and every school board across the State meet in executive sessions to discuss privilege matters rather than attempting to employ the unwieldy one-on-one meeting system. The City of Boulder is the only municipality that is not able to meet as a full council in order to discuss important and confidential issues, and this measure will change that and bring much-needed transparency and efficiency to the process.
Currently there is no transparency for both constituents and city councilors themselves. The city manager, city attorney, and one or two council members meet in a closed session and have no opportunity to hear from their fellow councilors, nor to discuss important issues in the in-depth manner we elected them to follow.
Executive sessions are covered by attorney-client privilege and can include topics like staff reviews, lawsuit settlements, real estate transactions, and any issue before council requiring confidential information from the office of the city attorney. These matters should NOT be decided in siloed meetings with individual councilors, we must allow and require our city councilors to make their decisions after clear consultation and communication with one another.
By allowing council and senior city staff to meet in executive sessions, we can save significant staff and council time, while also enabling the full council to fully discuss issues, vet arguments, consider outcomes and to provide feedback to staff. Council executive sessions will be governed and limited by state law to include topics governed by attorney-client privilege, like real estate transactions, personnel matters, and pending litigation.
Boulder Progressives believes that both the goals of transparency and good governance are served by this important measure, and we want a city government that functions as effectively and as competently as possible.