If you live, work or run a business in Aurora, you can attest that compared to most municipalities here, and across the country, the city is well run, and for the most part, life and business here are good.

That’s not by accident.

For decades, the metro area often sneered at Denver’s “step-sister” city for its sprawl, its big-city issues and its working-person neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Aurora persistently assembled reliable and safe water, solid streets, great schools, astounding parks and amenities, once-enviable police and fire departments, a welcoming atmosphere to people of all backgrounds, beginnings and races, and a solid government to keep it all going.

Almost all of this happened because for decades, elected Aurora leaders have laid out goals and policy themes, and then asked the experts they hire to find a way to make things happen.

This council-manager system of government has served Aurora well for far longer than anyone here has been around. The wisdom of electing “just folks” to choose a direction, and for experts to find a way, is the reason Buckley Air Force Base is here, and that it is an active Air Force Base and not a defunct Air National Guard post. It’s the reason the University of Colorado School of Medicine, University Hospital, Children’s Hospital, VA Medical Center and some of the most critical research projects in the world are on the Aurora Anschutz Campus.

Because former Aurora lawmakers, varying groups of moms, dads, small-business owners, teachers, secretaries and almost solely people like that got elected and then directed city staffers, the city ensured that Denver did not dictate Aurora’s growth plans. It did that by developing dependable, independent water sources.

A vision for Aurora being able to leverage the creation of Denver International Airport in this city’s back yard led to city staffers finding a way to land the behemoth Gaylord Hotel and Conference Center project and one of the largest and most vast commercial warehouse campuses in the nation.

All of this was made possible by Aurora’s part-time city council/manager form of government. At the same time, the city has a long history of being one of the most sound financial municipalities in the state.

All of this is at risk right now.

It’s at risk because there’s a small, vocal but persistent group of city lawmakers who are working to abandon Aurora’s sound form of government.

Councilmembers Dustin Zvonek, Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman have consistently moved to dictate not just policy but also procedure to city staffers on a growing number of instances. They’ve either shunned or outright ignored sound advice from the experts they pay to advise them. It has created unstable and clearly wasteful projects that do not represent the values of most Aurora residents. At times, councilmembers Francoise Bergan and Steve Sundberg have either joined in the dais mismanagement or enabled it.

These city lawmakers, and the rest of city council, were absolutely on target in realizing Aurora must do something about the crisis of homelessness. But these three city councilpersons were dead wrong in leading the charge that changed policy, against expert advice, of simply evicting homeless campers, sending them on to just another unauthorized public Aurora campsite.

Now, in an effort to fix the damage already done, Coffman has proposed a new homelessness project, creating a single campus where all homeless people can be sent to or received – as long as they get a job.

Working diligently to help people become self-sufficient through education, job training, job referral, mental and physical health care, addiction treatment, counseling and life skills is a direction representing values and pragmatism of just about everyone in the city.

Undermining this critical, life-saving work – by forcing people who are realistically incapable of being able to “get a job” – exemplifies this bent form of leadership in Aurora.

Even those who have no sympathy for homeless people benefit by programs that succeed in ending homeless for the most vulnerable among us. It saves net tax dollars and makes the entire community safer for everyone.

During the past few weeks, Aurora lawmakers have gathered to set immediate and future directions of the city by setting budget priorities.

A recent, virtually unwatched, budget workshop, was the scene of these city lawmakers and others scrambling to make unreviewed cuts and changes to a draft budget, eventually undermining their own self-serving exploits.

Just last week, a move to “save money” by cutting into the city’s public defender budget, diminish programs focusing on equity and police reform, all without research, counsel and review by city staff, made clear that Aurora’s trusted and successful government is endangered.

For months, city residents, taxpayers and staff have been subjected to seat-of-the-pants schemes shoved through city council, making for bad policy, confusion and wasted resources.

By no means is every plan, proposal or program set in motion by city staff above reproach. The give and take among policy makers and policy enablers is what’s led to the success of Aurora.

But for months, these city lawmakers have hinted, swiped, insulted and ignored the sound and evidence-based work of the people who actually make things happen for every business and resident in Aurora.

As the 2023 budget is finalized, every city lawmaker should reflect on ways to ensure they work to represent the values of all Aurora residents, who by their very nature take precedence over all other concerns – not businesses, and not party politics. Being part-time laypersons, as the city was designed, the goal of city council members should be to ensure city staff provide mechanisms to enact city’s goals, substantiated by consistent, fact-based data and research.

Anything else undermines the generations of success that have elevated the city to this point.

Read the original article here