The Aurora City Council recently held a meeting about decorum. It became, unintentionally, an argument for the necessity of decorum rules.
The purpose was simple: decide how council members and the public should conduct themselves so city business can proceed in an orderly way. People should speak. Council members should listen. No one should shout down speakers. No one should hijack the meeting. No one should confuse public comment with theater.
But in Aurora, even the obvious now requires a working group.
For nearly two years, council meetings have been disrupted by activists who claim to speak for “the community” — making it harder for the actual community to participate. Residents who want to talk about roads, safety, homelessness, taxes, water, or neighborhood concerns have been forced to compete with grievance rituals that show little interest in persuasion and order…