The so-called open forum being sponsored by the Longmont City Council at its meeting on Tuesday is anything but that. It is nothing more than a charade wherein the public is invited to present pre-written questions prior to the meeting. Those questions will then be pre-selected for answering only by the city staff, but not by City Council members.
Accordingly, there will be no free and open dialogue with our representatives on the council. The public is effectively being prevented from interacting with council members, who are the public servants of the citizens. To shield themselves from question-and-answer, free-flowing dialogue with their constituency bespeaks a cowardly unwillingness to engage in transparent conversation with those who elected them.
Marian and Tom Stumpf
Longmont