Busy weekend ahead for Boulder community members interested in local governance and urban planning, as the City of Boulder is opening its doors for the public to observe the inaugural Community Assembly, the city’s latest move to enhance civic engagement and ensure decisions reflect a wide array of community voices. The event, slotted for September 20 from 9:30 a.m. to noon, will give locals a window into the proceedings of this experiment in democracy, where 48 city and county residents converge to shape the future of their neighborhoods.
In essence, this assembly is an exercise in crafting a more accessible and sustainable city, brainstorming possibilities for 15-minute neighborhoods, the kind where a short walk, roll, or bike ride gets you to all your daily must-haves and the public is explicitly invited to look behind the curtain to see the wheels turning, whether it’s the discussions at play, the input from the Center for People with Disabilities or just the general vibe of what community-driven policy looks like when it’s actually, well, driven by the community. According to the City of Boulder, Community Engagement Manager Brenda Ritenour expressed the city’s intention to offer “an in-person peek into the type of information that is being shared and the nature of the deliberative discussions.”…