Longmonters, in poll, oppose curbs on citizen input at Council meetings

Mayor impatient with blathering citizens tries to rein them in.

| Jan 29, 2010

Longmont Mayor Bryan Baum

Longmont Mayor Bryan Baum

It all started when some sharp interactions between Longmont’s mayor and a member of the public prompted a backlash, as progressives came forward to speak out.

Days later, at the yearly City Council retreat, the new mayor suggested a way to shorten city council meetings that would limit public speech. At that point, things got hot. Subsequent apologies notwithstanding, the mayor clearly had burned off any political capital he might have held, and both sides are now scrutinizing him. It’s got to be uncomfortable, too: his mayor pro-tem is none other than Tom “The Hammer” Delay’s once-office manager.

On the heels of these events the Times-Call Online ran this poll question :

The Longmont City Council offers two “public invited to heard” sessions during each regular meeting — one near the beginning of the meeting and one at the end. Mayor Bryan Baum would like to see the first public-invited segment to be limited to no more than 30 minutes. Speakers already are limited to three minutes each. Should the first public-invited session be limited, and if so, how much time should be allotted?

Times call poll as of Jan 29, 2010 at 1:00 AM MDT

Here are the results of the Times-Call poll as of Jan 29, 2010 at 1:00 AM MDT

Pretty clearly, the mayor was unwise even to suggest limiting the “Public Invited to Be Heard” segment of Council meetings.

These next two charts, from data collected from 9:30 am to 1:45 pm, show the ratios throughout the polling period:

(Click charts to enlarge)

In the end, 262 votes were cast, hardly surprising given the low (and suppressed) 28 percent turnout in the recent election (and that was a mail-in ballot, no less). Start-to-finish, the average ratio of people that chose no limits to “Public Invited to Be Heard” was a steady 56 percent. Note that at 1 am, the total of people choosing any limit (all three choices combined) in the poll was 113 while the number choosing no limits was 149.

The final ratio of the smallest limit (30 minutes) to no limit voters was 52 / 149, or almost three-to-one.

Yes, the mayor blew this one. Wonder what his handlers have to say now.

Doug Wray is a web developer, blogger and progressive activist from Longmont. He is a founding member of FreeRangeLongmont.com, a citizens forum group.

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5 Comments »

  • Brigette Rodriguez said:

    Here we are two years later and the partisan left in Longmont continues telling a lie often enough, blah blah blah about former mayor Bryan Baum regarding his statement about public invited to be heard. And this article cites only sources from one side of the issue. Baum (like others) was tired of listening to the exact same speeches with the exact same talking points about the exact same issue. It bogs down council meetings.

    By the way…Tim Hewitt, thanks for the shout out to VL and LA but neither are “ultra partisan” blogs. Just wanted to correct that fallacy. Additionally, Vote Longmont has never been a blog, but contained links to ALL local candidates regardless of party.

    # 18 January 2012 at 8:56 am
  • M. Douglas Wray (author) said:

    Poll finally closed – and it's quite clear the public says "NO!" http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2010/02/03/can-y…

    # 3 February 2010 at 6:09 am
  • M. Douglas Wray (author) said:

    And the poll goes on – nice to see the Times-Call leaving it open. Here's an update:
    http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2010/01/31/oppos…

    # 31 January 2010 at 11:19 pm
  • doog (author) said:

    Hell, if Bush supporters can try to pass of the meme that 'there were no terror attacks during his administration' I suppose nothing's inconceivable. I find it laugh-out-loud funny that progressives in Longmont are being called 'partisan' – read this: http://tinyurl.com/TheFringeHasNoMemory and you'll see exactly why.

    # 30 January 2010 at 6:10 pm
  • Tim Hewitt said:

    I see that the ultra-partisan "VoteLongmont" and Longmont Advocate are attempting to pass off the notion that Baum "only made a suggestion". Never mind the fact that he stated that "it is ridiculous to have to listen for an hour and a half" and closed by saying, "I'm the Mayor and it's up to me. I can set this up any way I want".

    Oh, but it was only a "suggestion" (snicker). Gotta love those partisan blogs!

    # 30 January 2010 at 6:15 am

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