Councilmember Alison Coombs and her child are pictured during the swearing-in ceremony and Aurora City Council meeting Dec. 4, 2023 at Aurora City Hall. Children will no longer be allowed on the City Council dais following a dispute over whether Coombs should have included her son in the ceremony. (SENTINEL SCREEN GRAB) 
Councilmember Alison Coombs and her child are pictured during the swearing-in ceremony and Aurora City Council meeting Dec. 4, 2023 at Aurora City Hall. Children will no longer be allowed on the City Council dais following a dispute over whether Coombs should have included her son in the ceremony. (SENTINEL SCREEN GRAB)
AURORA | Aurora’s City Council voted this week to boot everyone but select city leaders from the council dais during meetings after one member upset her colleagues by bringing her toddler to the council’s most recent swearing-in ceremony.
While Councilmember Alison Coombs described the Dec. 4 ceremony as a special moment that she wanted to share with her child, other council members said they were offended by Coombs’ baby knocking things over on the dais and, at times, crying.
“The night that I was sworn in, to have a screaming child on the dais is hard on the child — let’s think about the child — not to mention disruptive and distracting to those who witnessed the event,” Councilmember Stephanie Hancock said Monday. “It minimized the dignity, and the honor, and the professionalism of this body.”
Sponsoring the changes to the council’s rules of order and procedure was Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, who said she “lost all trust” in Coombs after the council member refused to participate in the meeting remotely rather than in-person with her 2-year-old child.
Coombs later wrote in an email that Jurinsky never asked her to attend remotely and that she never turned down a request from Jurinsky to do so. Coombs also said Monday she agreed to a request sent after the swearing-in ceremony on behalf of other council members to not bring her child to meetings in the future.
Jurinsky and Councilmember Francoise Bergan pointed out that parents who are unable to arrange for child care can still attend meetings remotely, but Coombs described the rule change as hostile to mothers, especially those nursing infants.
“It just makes it harder for other moms who maybe don’t have the options that I have,” Coombs said. “I don’t see it as necessary. I’ve agreed to not do the thing that bothered my colleagues that brought this about.”
Council members who spoke in favor of the rule changes — including Bergan, Hancock and Jurinsky — are all mothers themselves. No one but the mayor, council members, city manager and city attorney can sit on the dais during meetings under the new rules.
Coombs wrote in her email that she believes Jurinsky’s request was more about “being a bully and finding excuses to harass people who disagree with her” than objecting to children on the dais.
She also brought up how the changes would allow council members to voluntarily trade seats on the dais, which she characterized as pettiness on the part of Jurinsky.
Councilmember Crystal Murillo voted in favor of the rule changes, the majority of which had to do with revamping the council’s policies on workplace harassment, but said Monday that she was “disappointed” that the policy on switching seats was included and that “people can’t behave on the dais and just be professionals.”
The changes passed Jan. 22 with Coombs casting the only “no” vote.
While including one’s children in parental activities is a noble goal, it’s incumbent on the adults to know where the lines are drawn. However, Council Member Coombs is unable to comprehend the concept of inappropriateness in business. Constantly disrupting others in the professional sphere is unproductive, rude, inconsiderate, and unacceptable. (It’s why Bring Your Child to Work is a day, not a year.) She was warned in writing a couple of years ago that wearing her baby to every civic event, including council meetings, was frowned upon. She tweeted about that but didn’t get the message. Now she does.
It’s worth noting that Aurora Council Members are paid a paltry part-time salary for what amounts to be a full-time job. Unless wealthy, you’re likely working two full-time jobs while also trying to be a good parent and spouse.
I firmly believe the position warrants a full-time salary– to increase competition and attract more experienced candidates first and foremost. But in light of the sacrifices our underpaid CMs with young children make, this measure just seems PETTY. To think that we’ve elected officials who believe this measure is the highest and best use of city resources and council time is DEEPLY TROUBLING.
Aurora’s retail economy remains chronically in the toilet and is a root cause of the city’s disfunction. How is that not a far more worthy topic in which to invest staff resources? Decorum and a CM’s ego don’t mean squat when the city’s primary tax base scores a solid “F” among Colorado cities.
So Jeff, are you seriously suggesting that:
1) because a person isn’t paid what you think they should be;
2) and because you think Aurora’s city is dysfunctional;
is a reason for a person to be allowed to repeatedly create a disruptive work environment?
Samuel, We elect CMs to govern and solve problems for the governed– not to waste precious time and resources on petty infighting over “disruptive work environments.” The environment comes with the job. If a CM can’t take the pressure of an occasional crying baby, perhaps elected office was a very poor choice.
What issues are left on the back burner while our part-time City Council wastes time on this? In my mind, the pitiful state of the retail tax base tops the list. Without any strategy whatsoever, Council is leaving $35 to 40 million per year in additional sales tax revenue on the table. Consider this while you also consider the $35 million in debt Council recently sold to fix the crumbling roads. What does this tell us about the health of the financial engine that fuels city services?
Please forgive me if I don’t show proper deference to any CM who might be offended by my blunt assessment of their poor prioritization of city issues– or the manner in which both sides of Council have been in lock-step agreement to flat out ignore the failed retail, dining and entertainment sectors in this city.
Sorry Jeff, I don’t want to pay more taxes. Although you might, and may I suggest you donate that amount to make up for it?
I’m willing to bet staff and council members wasted less time on this rule than the number of productive meeting hours disrupted by Coombs’s petulant child.
To describe what happened as squabbling is a gross mischaracterization of what actually happened and the situation. Why the author of this article clearly decided to focus on the straw that broke the camels back, versus the truth of the matter, i.e, there have been lots of straws, is one of the behaviors media exhibits that continues to diminish trust in the work the media does and our governing institutions in general.
“one member upset her colleagues” What a understatement… Come-on. Her coworkers did find Coombs behavior suspect of lacking general respect to all of them. What about the taxpayers watching this one-woman circus side-show.
Are we to believe, CM Coombs is more interested in child rearing at meetings or paying attention to lawmaking? It’s hard to tell as she still thinks breast feeding at the dais is pretty well the sanctioned practice –so get over it.
What an accurate snapshot of a kid crawling all over the place at an official meeting, amazing class.
A picture is worth thousand words.
Personally, I’m pleased that this distraction was presented to our community. I began noticing these distractions during the Zoom meetings. Juan Marcano with his cat and Coombs with her child. Distracting to we TV viewers. I always thought this was just a way the socialists could draw attention to themselves instead of the business at hand. I agree this is petty but if elected officials can’t define personal professionalism someone has to bring it up to “draw the line”.
Coombs trying to defend her actions in last Monday’s meeting was ludicrous at best. Then the socialist, child legislator agreed with her reasoning during their closing statements. What a duo the North Aurora citizens have elected for our City. I find it embarrassing as a citizen of Aurora.
Then again, I’m just a conservative old man who believes self regulation, determination and common sense should be prevalent in government. We don’t need a law or regulation for everything.
Ah, conservatives! They love the child and the mother while she’s pregnant, but it’s a different story after the birth. Most organizations have childcare available during functions and meetings, why not the Council?
ONLY conservatives would object to this. YOU HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT GENIE!!
If I was on the city council I would bring my elder parent who has dementia to the meetings. Like Coombs baby, he would have no idea of what is going on and is also in diapers. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?
Now that Juan Marcano is gone, Alison Coombs now becomes the target of some Council members, especially being an At-Large member.
She probably wanted her child to be a part of Mom’s life.
Not like it’s a long plane trip.
I’m torn. I have little doubt that Alison Coombs is right about Danielle Jurinsky’s motivation in objecting to the presence of Coomb’s toddler at the swearing-in ceremony, but why give Jurinsky the opportunity? The ceremony should be brief enough that even nursing mothers should be able to be apart from their infants. There’s no mention of it in the article, but I presume that the ceremony is a public one and that screaming infants or toddlers may still be in attendance in the audience, which raises the question of why Council bothered to restrict them from the dais. Council members should not be wasting time on such trivialities and I’m faulting the rest of Council for doing so, not Coombs.
If Coombs child doesn’t belong on the Dias a certain CM baby doesn’t belong in bars, decorum on council is a crap show yet they spend 65 percent of the time talking about how to respect each other. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I wonder whether it might be child abuse to expose an infant or a toddler to some of our Council Members. The environment in those meetings can get pretty toxic. I notice the Mayor’s dog flees the room whenever Juan Marcano spoke, Juan Marcano’s cat fled whenever the Mayor or Council Member Bergan spoke, and everyone seems to have an involuntary eye-roling problem, some form of seizure I presume, whenever Council Member Jurinsky seeks to vindicate herself from her latest self-created faux pas.