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Grauer: Roll those sleeves up, boys

Aspen will have to add new bureaucrats to pre-digest information from city boards and committees for two new council members, if Maurice Emmer’s advice is taken seriously. (Aspen Daily News, April 19, “It’s not the councilmen — it’s city government”).

He claims that Bill Guth’s and Sam Rose’s reluctance to join city boards and committees is actually the fault of the city, because city government has grown too large. The letter advocates replacing council member participation with city bureaucrats’ “digestible recommendations.”

The remedy of Mr. Emmer to shrink the council members’ participation would shrink democracy. By shrinking council member and citizen interaction. It would lead to more top-down decision making.



Unlike immature chicks, the new council members do not need bureaucrats to spoon feed them bite-sized recommendations.

They need to do the work that every other council member has done; work with the citizen volunteers on boards and committees.




Bernard Grauer

Basalt