After nearly a year of contentious public comment periods at Boulder City Council meetings — dominated by protesters demanding the council endorse a Gaza ceasefire resolution and increasingly marked by personal attacks, including antisemitic remarks directed at Councilmember Tara Winer, who is Jewish — the mayor and several councilmembers took a stand during their Dec. 5 meeting. Earlier this year, the council voted 7 to 2 to abstain from initiating a process to create a Gaza ceasefire resolution.
“This city council body has no role in international affairs,” Mayor Aaron Brockett said last night. “A ceasefire resolution has nothing to do with the business of the city. … This is not something that I’m changing my mind on,” he added, noting he is “disturbed by some of the personal attacks that we’ve seen against other community members and individual city councilmembers.”
Brockett specifically referenced a comment from a previous meeting where someone compared the city council to Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief engineers of the Holocaust. The mayor said he had previously stayed silent during public comment periods, hoping the issue would fade.
“In this council, we’ve made a decision not to engage on international issues and certainly not to do a ceasefire resolution,” Councilmember Matt Benjamin said. “We’re here to solve the issues of the city. The antisemitism that is continuing to rise has got to stop.” He announced plans to introduce a resolution on antisemitism to the city council agenda committee.
Winer has been targeted by anti-Semitic remarks, including being called a “Jewish supremacist” during one meeting and receiving emails containing antisemitic slurs. People attending the Dec. 5 council meeting accused councilmembers of being “baby killers” and said they were “complicit in genocide.” In response to disruptions, Brockett called for two recesses.
The Boulder City Council voted on Feb. 15 against considering a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, following weeks of heated public debate. Councilmembers Taishya Adams and Lauren Folkerts supported opening the resolution process, but the majority — Brockett, then-Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Speer and Councilmembers Matt Benjamin, Tina Marquis, Ryan Schuchard, Mark Wallach and Winer — generally opposed it, citing a city code provision limiting action on foreign issues and emphasizing the need to focus on pressing local challenges such as homelessness, traffic safety and climate change resilience. The decision highlighted deep divisions within the council and community, which have persisted for months, with council chambers often erupting in cheers, boos and disruptions during public comment periods.
In the spring, the council approved new rules to address disruptions at meetings over the conflict, including limits on poster sizes and podium access.
Thank you to the City council members for sitting and listening respectfully, carefully to all the public comments. Thank you also for remembering that the role of the council. is to attend to issues of the city of Boulder and its citizenry. My request, was for a governmental resolution to stop anti semitic comments in the Boulder community. The Jewish target in Boulder, will only affect the personal safety of the Jewish citizens as well as how businesses (possibly Movie festivals) will view Boulder’s stance on anti semitism. Words and actions of Anti semitism only divides the city, causes anxiety and gives prospevtive businesses, festivals, concerts, industry to pause before they commit to functions in a town which allows Anti semitic acts, voices, to go unnoticed. Please make it crystal clear that Anti Semitism is simply NOT flourishing in Boulder. An official resolution will at least, give the Jewish citizens a feeling of safety, and protection from the city fathers. thank you for your generous consideration…it is very appreciated!!!! Barb Steinmetz (Holocaust speaker, survivor, human rights advocate)
While I’m a registered Independent, I typically vote left. This kerfuffle with the city council is ridiculous. No decent human being can be in support of Hamas, nor can we turn a blind eye to some of the immoral conduct of the IDF in Gaza. Both things can be true simultaneously. That said, it’s not the BCC’s job to litigate international affairs or make symbolic gestures that get in the way of common sense, meat and potato issues city issues. This is the type of non-sense that got us the election result we got in November.