Longmont City Council members put up with grief – via letters to this page’s Open Forum, TC Line calls, and complaints and pleas taken directly to them via Coffee with Council and during the “public invited to be heard” segments of Tuesday night council meetings.

Not every complaint is deserved, and not every request can be met, but in their roles as community leaders, council members know that hearing from constituents comes with the territory. They do, after all, make the decisions that affect the lives and livelihoods of everyone who resides and does business in Longmont. And the city charter requires that “all regular and special meetings of the council shall be open to the public, and citizens and employees shall have a reasonable opportunity to be heard.”

The city, commendably, provides plenty of opportunities for residents to speak up, the most visible of those coming tonight at the council’s annual open forum, an entire meeting set aside to listen to the public, with slightly loosened rules for presentations to the council.

At the 2016 open forum, residents spoke about homelessness, affordable housing, the environment and pollinators, the construction-defects law, train noise, short-term rentals, street plowing, and alcohol and marijuana.

Read more at The Longmont Times-Call.