AURORA | Virtual versus in-person city council meetings have been an ongoing issue in Aurora for more than a year, prompting a small number of city council members to create their own version of a public meeting through an almost watch-party setup in person.
The question of whether the city council should return to public meetings was brought back to the table during a special meeting held before a city council fall workshop Saturday. The discussion came amid an event two weeks ago where three council members, Alison Coombs, Ruben Medina, and Crystal Murillo, decided to start hosting in-person events to view the regular city council meeting at various public locations throughout the city.
“There’s always going to be an element of friction in our representative form of government,” Mayor Mike Coffman said. “And it’s going to be very offensive from time to time, but I believe we have an obligation, whenever possible, to be in person, and that’s what we ought to do.”
Coffman presented the question of returning to public meetings, urging city council members to resume in-person meetings.
This back and forth about the city council meetings going virtual and being in-person follows more than a year of protesting from loved ones and activists demanding officer discipline and police reform after the death of Kilyn Lewis. Lewis was an unarmed Black man who was shot in 2024 by an Aurora police officer during his arrest after being pursued as a suspect in a shooting in Denver about a month before his death.
As pointed out by members of city council, such as Françoise Bergan, Saturday, the interruptions and protests were inconsistent, unpredictable and would halt city business when a small group would also sign up for agenda items to speak about issues involving Lewis and police reform instead of the topics on the agenda. The group would start speaking on topic for agenda items and then veer off to talking about Lewis, police deaths, voting certain members of city council out, or even yelling at those city council members.
“I just think it’s a disservice to the public when we have such disruptions that it precludes other people from wanting to even be there,” Bergan said.
Recently, the group of activists announced that they would stop protesting at meetings and instead focus on the election, aiming to get councilmembers Danielle Jurinsky, Steve Sundberg and Amsalu Kassaw voted out of office this November, as they run for reelection. Midian Shofner, the lead activist in demanding police reform, said she has focused on the three councilmembers for their so-called “tough on crime” approach and their opposition to police reform actions.
Although the three city council members who created the new public meetings in their own hands are not working in collaboration with the rest of city council, there is little that could be criticized with their approach, especially since the whole point of the meeting is to make it more public, according to Jeff Roberts at the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.
Colorado Open Meetings laws are designed to ensure that public information is accessible and transparent, which is what the city council members have advertised as their intention for the in-person meetings.
Roberts said the central aspect he noticed that might benefit their approach to the new in-person versions of the meetings is if they could collaborate with the city and have the location posted on the city website, so more people can hear about it, making it more accessible to the public.
The meeting on Saturday, which began with an executive session to ask Pete Schulte, the city attorney, about the legal actions that could be taken if they return to in-person meetings, ended in a city council tie, meaning the meetings will remain virtual.
“Let’s do the meeting in person, but keep the public comment listening session via phone at six o’clock,” Schulte said during Saturday’s meeting. “That way they’re not gonna be able to hijack the agenda.”
Schulte said this in response to Sundberg’s opposition to returning to in-person meetings, after he mentioned that many protesters “break all of the rules” and exceed the two-minute limit.
Councilmembers Sundberg, Jurinsky, Kassaw, Angela Lawson and Stephanie Hancock all voted to keep the meetings virtual. Councilmember Curtis Gardner was not present for the meeting, which is why the vote was a tie after Coffman voted to resume in-person meetings. Gardner did not immediately respond to a request to indicate how he would have voted.
Coombs, Medina, and Murillo will host their in-person meeting at 4:30 p.m. Monday night at the Restoration Christian Fellowship Church, 15660 E. Sixth Ave.
Councilmembers Sundberg, Jurinsky, Kassaw, Angela Lawson, and Stephanie Hancock should be voted out of office for refusing to meet in person. Heck, Jurinski is too busy swearing at other council members, calling our police chief trash, or making up lies for Trump to use for his reelection to worry about city business. It’s always been about appearances with her. She wants to be super MAGA, so she can use that to vault out of Aurora since she thinks Aurora is a dump that’s rife with gangs! What a phony!
Oh Kane, your thoughts are as zany as very old political commercials. Danielle has been and needs all our help to continue to be one of the keys in making Aurora a better place to live. She brings to light the real problems that we need to pay attention, along with the other Council members you mentioned in your far left handed comments.
What should be noted, is Councilman Coombs, the socialist was the only holdout. Appears she still doesn’t trust the APD with another tool to fight crime. I think it’s because she still doesn’t like the police force, in Aurora or anywhere.
It is sad that radical activists are denying the rest of the citizens of Aurora the opportunity to speak with council. It also not a surprised they have such collegial meeting with the far left council members.