Boulder City Council Drops Hearing on Nablus Sister City Application

On Monday morning, the Council Agenda Committee (CAC) met, and at the request of the Boulder Nablus Sister City Project (BNSCP), took the following action:

1. The BNSCP Application for sister city approval will NOT be heard Tuesday evening, April 19. It is OFF the agenda, and there is NOT a date certain or time frame for when it will be taken up again.

2. As a non-linked, separate item on Tuesday evening’s Agenda, Council will consider whether to approve a directive to the City Manager to allocate resources to a facilitated process involving BNSCP and other interested parties, to see what, if any, differences may be resolved. Per council’s rules and procedures, this type of Agenda item falls under the category called “Matters from Council”, and is not the type of item that is open to public comment during the Agenda. As usual, people can sign up to speak to this or any item during Open Comment time at the beginning of the meeting.

To those of you who sent emails to Council, thank you for taking an interest in this matter. Your contacts to City Council helped make it clear that the application of Boulder Nablus Sister City Project for official recognition, remains a very controversial item.

The working group that has involved ourselves in this to date  – as well as the CAC, City Manager and City Attorney’s office – are aware that even if Council approves the directive, there will be many questions regarding the form and substance of the facilitated process. High among those is the question of who will participate in the facilitated process. Council is aware that our working group is not a representative. We believe that the City Manager’s convener should be desirous of bringing enough viewpoints to the process to give it credibility. If you are someone who may wish to participate in the process, then consider notifying the City Manager of your interest.

Again, thanks for caring.