Immigration hasn't caused a tidal wave of contacts to the Lafayette City Councilors, according to comments in the Camera today. The other topics mentioned by City Administrator Gary Klaphake as being more controversial to residents - at least as measured by Council contacts - include the proposed pit bull ban, water programs and marijuana fines.
Councilor Frank Phillips voted against the Immigration resolution with a rationale that such national issues are outside the purview and influence of City Council. It appears many Lafayette residents agree, as their silence on the resolution reveals an apathy at least, and perhaps more so an ambivalence towards the current status.
It is worth noting the issues that bring out the most public comment. While Boulder is known for making policy directives (i.e. their Climate Action Plan based on Kyoto goals) and resolutions on global issues, I don't perceive Lafayette's populace as desiring such principled, symbolic stances by their Council. Part of the oft-quoted "small-town feel" that is proudly mentioned here would by design include a focus on local issues with tangible impacts on residents. The immigration issue is either too global to consider - or too painfully local, too painful to even bring up to leaders. Beware the "I" word...
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7 comments:
Dan,
The Camera article is filled with errors and misleading information. It would take a page to just correct it all, Here are just a couple simple ones:
1. The city administrator is NOT copied on e-mails to the city council or NOT informed on phone calls made to coumcil member homes. Residents usually send e-mails to the citycouncil@cityoflafayette.com so all council members get the same e-mail at the same time. My tally is around 20 against the council action, two for. 3 against in LN town talk this week alone. Some were sent directly to me and I forwarded them on for distribution to the council. In general, the antis were the most irrate received since the W*M discussions.
2. Vicious dogs: The e-mail volume was caused primarily by two things. The initial workshop vicious dog draft was sent out on a nationwide specific breed e-mail list for St. Bernards. I'm on a Siberian Husky list. We got e-mails from all over the country. Also the first draft had a list of dogs that would be candidates for special action, not just pit bulls. Siberians were on that list. So that got people concerned. Local response was relatively muted given all that.
3. Water - the drought exposed the mismanagement of the city's water supply. Obviously folks were irate since the city had been signing off on adequate supplies for the growth spurt in the late '90s. And contrary to the spin you might hear. Lafayette was in the worst position of any Boulder County city to deal with it.
Is it surprising that two council members who voted for the resolution would down play the community anger at their actions?
If you want to post a couple of the responses sent directly to me, let me know.
While we did receive the most volume of mail for the vicious dog issue, I don't remember more than 3 being from Lafayette citizens. Very similar the Marijuana ordinance change. I would say the Lowe's and the Walmart move generated the most response from Lafayette residents in recent memory.
Walmart signals your town is poor and real estate is crashing. Better to have THREE Super Walmarts and a Sam's club in Longmont. We're poor Mexicans only being paid in cash here.
Kerry and Frank - your description of the sources of comments blows my theory of local issue prioritization out of the water. The asterik to the source of comments wasn't mentioned by Gary and that context is worth recognizing. I'm sure if the ultimate Council decision was unpopular, he would have mentioned the misplaced influence of outside agitators.
I'm interested to know the anti rationale in the comments received. "Town Talk" comments are garbage; I can't believe the paper allows unattributed comments on any topic - its one last way to remain relevant compared to blogs!
Well, Dan. The first question is the accuracy of the story based on the reporter's "interviews". Often the original story is edited to fit the space and from first hand experience, they rarely get the quotes right. Twenty minute interviews get boiled down to one sentence fragment. When I want them to get the quote right, I e-mailed them the quote and they still chop it up.
Given all that, any topic that strikes a cord and is front page DC invites comments from non-residents. For example, the pot thing gained publicity when the temp judge resigned. He was a charter member of NORML (check their web page) and the word went out to them as well. How he was selected as a temp judge is beyond me. I was never told we even had one (surprise!!!). Even Channel 9 wanted in on that one. (I did a TV interview with them on the drought - never aired.)
I explained the vicious dog thing.
As for Town Talk, you allow the same thing on this blog. I recognized a couple from the e-mails and phone calls. One caller said s(he) was well known in town and was only going to use Town Talk. The rationales were similar to what you hear today during the national immigration debate. I was surprised at how upset people were. I also got several comments critical of this around town. You also have to remember the original resolution was for a freeze on ICE raids. The public never knew from the press about the replacement version.
A major criticism was how a city council could weigh in on this issue and waste time and money doing so rather than focusing on local issues of importance. A number of folks thought it reflected badly on their city, as if we don't have enough PR challenges these days. (See front page DC today.)
Thanks for the reality check Kerry and Frank.
I guess what most people don't realize is council gets very little (relatively speaking)input from the public from email and and the public comment section of council meetings. Large issues aside (like Lowe's and Walmart) we tend to see the same faces and commentators. So using the iceberg analogy, is what is below the water huge or just what you see on the surface? I try and get more input through soliciting folks I run into at public events, volunteer committee meetings, and the various things I attend around town. I have found that the Lafayette News is more factual than the DC, but I guess if you have a daily deadline facts are not as important as pumping out the articles.
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