Something is fundamentally wrong with a government spending more energy controlling the voices of its residents than addressing the injustices they speak about. Yet this has become an increasingly disturbing pattern in Aurora, where public participation appears welcome only when it doesn’t challenge the comfort or authority of those holding power.
I’ve been involved with Aurora’s municipal government for nearly 15 years, including serving on the Human Relations Commission and Citizens Budget Advisory Committee. I understand how this institution operates. My criticism isn’t rooted in political ignorance or an inability to follow governmental procedures. It comes from decades of civic engagement and a growing concern about the direction of the city’s leadership.
Following the May 2024 police killing of Kilyn Lewis, his family and community advocates repeatedly appeared before the City Council demanding accountability. Rather than confronting the substance of their grievances, city leadership repeatedly focused on regulating how those grievances could be expressed. Changes to public-comment procedures in 2024 and 2025 ultimately became the subject of a First Amendment lawsuit that Aurora settled in March 2026.
When grieving families become more troublesome to the government than the circumstances surrounding their loved ones’ deaths, something is seriously F***** up… I mean, wrong with that government’s priorities.
The controversy surrounding data centers exposed another troubling reality. Residents have repeatedly appeared before the council opposing these developments, raising legitimate concerns about water consumption, energy demands, environmental consequences, and neighborhood impacts. On Oct. 26, despite substantial public opposition, the council rejected another effort to advance a moratorium…. DAFUQ!
At what point does public participation become political theater? How many residents must testify against a proposal before elected officials demonstrate that their concerns carry meaningful weight?
Public hearings shouldn’t become opportunities for electeds to check a procedural box while pushing through decisions residents have repeatedly challenged.
My experience at that same Oct. 26 meeting revealed another dimension of Aurora’s troubling relationship with accountability. While addressing the council, I challenged City Manager Jason Batchelor regarding my accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This was the second time I believe Aurora subjected me to unnecessary public embarrassment and humiliation because of my accommodation needs.
I’ve intentionally chosen not to disclose the nature of my disability publicly. My medical information belongs to me. I refuse to surrender my medical privacy or expose myself to the discrimination, stigma, and uninformed judgments frequently directed toward people with disabilities simply to satisfy someone’s curiosity about why I require accommodations. The ADA does not require me to announce my diagnosis to the public before exercising my rights.
What disturbed me most was Batchelor’s expression after I challenged him. I witnessed what I perceived as unmistakable anger and hostility from a public official whose authority I had questioned.
The look in his eyes reminded me of historical photographs and footage of Jim Crow-era mobs confronting Black Americans who dared to challenge white authority. I thought about the expressions of hatred that preceded or accompanied violence against Black people who refused to remain within the boundaries imposed upon them.
I’m not accusing Batchelor of intending physical violence… he is the boss of the boss of police… I’m describing what I witnessed and the history it brought to mind. There was a time when a Black man publicly challenging a white authority figure could face imprisonment, a beating, or death. That history doesn’t disappear because we have entered another century.
My experience raises serious concerns about institutional power and how it is exercised against those who refuse to submit quietly.
My activism isn’t performative. I don’t attend council meetings simply to occupy space or manufacture controversy. I am a Black man, a gay man, a person with a disability, and someone who has spent decades understanding governmental institutions. I intentionally utilize those experiences to challenge policies and conduct that undermine the rights of others.
When public officials become intolerant of criticism, repeatedly restrict participation, or appear willing to use institutional authority against those challenging them, we should recognize the authoritarian tendencies such conduct can represent.
Fascism and totalitarianism aren’t labels to apply casually. The attitudes that enable authoritarian government can emerge within municipal institutions when officials begin treating dissent as a threat to their authority rather than an essential part of democracy.
The Civil Rights Movement taught us that governmental authority is not synonymous with moral legitimacy. Many practices we now recognize as discriminatory were once defended as lawful, orderly, and necessary.
Aurora’s leadership should consider that history before dismissing the concerns of residents who challenge its decisions.
Families demanding police accountability deserve substantive answers. Residents opposing data centers deserve genuine consideration. People with disabilities deserve accommodations without humiliation or intimidation.
After nearly 15 years of civic engagement, I have no intention of allowing governmental hostility to determine when or how I exercise my rights.
The people of Aurora did not elect a government to protect itself from criticism. They entrusted public officials with the responsibility to serve them.
Hashim Coates is Chairperson of the Colorado Black Democrats, a longtime civil rights advocate, political strategist, and Aurora city commission member with nearly 30 years of civic engagement experience.
Hashim Coates is a joke and not a very good one to the citizens of Aurora. His medical condition is only to get 33% more time to interrupt our Council meetings every other week and to get more TV time and will remain a “secret” known only to him and his other black radicals. It offends me that this is what the black community of Aurora wants in any type of leadership position and that the Sentinel Blog every so often gives him a bully pulpit.
I will give him this. He has invented a way to get City Council meetings longer and convoluted by speaking on everything he possibly can on every agenda item, helping to create more socialist chaos with the help from Mayor Pro-Tem Coombs and the other socialists on Council.
Almost as slick as his mysterious disabilities.
“At what point does public participation become political theater?” Answer: Whenever you and your merry band of miscreant grifters — Tay Anderson, MiDian Shofner, K-Dot, Mama Lewis, and Jeffrey What’s-his-name take the stage. That’s when. I want my ticket refund.