The long and costly legal skirmish between activist Midian Shofner and the Aurora City Council is finally over.
A court settlement, announced this week, requires the city to provide at least one hour of “public invited to be heard” before each council meeting for the next three years, with up to three minutes per speaker.
On its face, this appears to change little.
The newly elected Democratic majority of the city council restored the full public comment period in December after taking control of the council.
But the agreement matters profoundly.
The settlement solidifies something that should never have been in doubt. Government meetings must be public, and a critical component of transparency and accountability is the ability of citizens to directly address their elected representatives.
There is no state law requiring public comment at local government meetings. The Colorado Open Meetings Law does not mandate it. Yet the expectation is clear and deeply rooted in democratic tradition. Public address and redress are structural, not ornamental, features of local government.
This settlement underscores that.
The settlement also clarifies what was too often obscured in months of political brinkmanship. That there is a First Amendment dimension here.
Shofner, who filed the First Amendment lawsuit against Aurora, argued that limiting and then eliminating public comment in early 2025 violated her constitutional rights.
The city has now stipulated, in effect, that it cannot pick and choose when the public may speak based on discomfort or inconvenience.
Free speech in this context is, in many ways, about equal time.
When elected officials sit elevated at the dais, they’re armed with the bully pulpit and microphones. The public’s opportunity to counter, criticize, laud or demand answers, even briefly, mirrors the spirit of the First Amendment. It levels the playing field, if only for three minutes at a time.
That principle is worth affirming.
What is not worth celebrating is the $78,000 in legal fees Aurora taxpayers must now pay to Shofner’s attorneys to right this wrong.
This was money that did not need to be spent. Cooler and more mature heads among the previous council majority could have resolved this dispute without a lawsuit.
Instead, a protracted game of procedural cat-and-mouse escalated tensions and hardened positions. The council restricted comment to half an hour. It reduced speaking time. It eliminated the session altogether. Each move provoked further disruptions.
Taxpayers are now footing the bill for what was a good example of failed leadership.
The disruptions themselves, however, cannot be ignored. For more than a year, activists protesting the fatal police shooting of Kilyn Lewis, who was shot by Aurora Police SWAT officer Michael Dieck, regularly interrupted meetings with a wide range of stunts and contrivances.
The controversy over Lewis’ death and the decisions by then-District Attorney John Kellner and Police Chief Todd Chamberlain not to pursue charges or discipline fueled raw and understandable anger.
But the months of disruptions manufactured by some activists were a detriment not only to their cause, but to the public process itself.
City government cannot function when meetings devolve into shouting matches and theatrical standoffs.
The settlement wisely includes a commitment to develop a community-created code of conduct. That effort must be undertaken in good faith and with meaningful public input. Without decorum, voices are lost in the din.
Aurora’s leaders, current and future, should treat this settlement not as a nuisance resolved but as a constitutional reminder. Public comment is not a courtesy extended at the pleasure of the majority. It is an expectation embedded in the very idea of self-government.
Seems like our Aurora City Council has surrendered to the terrorists here. What was “democratic tradition of public comment” has been made obsolete by the quality of character and methods used by the woke far-left terrorists who regularly attend and control these sessions. Compromise and capitulation will not work with these types.