City Council Chambers
“This is a place where people are making decisions about how we live together.”
A city council chamber is a sacred place. The architecture is distinct—the wooden dais, with a raised crescent shape to both facilitate conversation and differentiate the elected council from community members, and the podium for citizens to take the stand to make public comment. What makes it sacred, is the work neighbors do to shape the future of their neighborhoods. A city council meeting is where an elected group of neighbors come together with the responsibility to care for both people and place.
City council meetings represent what Chelsea Nuunenkamp, Englewood City Council member, calls "the purest form of democracy.” She offers a foundational perspective from Neil Postman’s work on the importance of the information-to-action ratio. “Most individuals take in a lot of information at the level of government where they can take the least amount of tangible action.” Chelsea continues with both conviction and compassion in her voice, “I think it's really important because I think one thing that leads to despair is taking in a lot of concerning information without the ability to do anything about it. But the more we can align our information and our action locally, the more I think we can wake up to the opportunities that exist in our own communities.”
Local city council meetings offer accessibility and shared responsibility. "It's so much easier to come talk to me than it is to Michael Bennett or John Hickenlooper," Chelsea explains. "I am at City Hall just down the street every Monday night. Or you can catch me in the park or at the grocery store." This local proximity transforms governance from an abstract concept into a neighborhood conversation. The tangible elements that shape daily life flow from decisions made on the local level. “If you want to be able to buy a house and go on walks in your neighborhood and access a library and have safe parks and local grocery stores, that is all determined by your local government.”
This embodied approach to civic service requires what Chelsea describes as "caring about people as individuals and the common good of the collective." Each week, the challenge is acknowledging both the immediate needs of individual constituents and the long-term flourishing of the community. “I am there to listen to the individuals who come and give public comment, and I am also thinking of the people who are not. The people who are not there because they're working two jobs, or they are homebound, or for any number of reasons that they can't come on a Monday night. They have to be part of my decision-making just as much as the people who are able to come and share their perspective on a policy issue.”
These encounters expose us to the unique power of local democracy to move us beyond our own comfortable circles. “I think there are a lot of places in life where we get to self-select who we surround ourselves with. And we can, even within our neighborhoods, build the range of opinions and lived experiences.” Chelsea reminds us a city council chamber requires us to engage with perspectives we might otherwise avoid. “You have to listen to the experience, the opinions, and thoughts of others…it’s really good for us to be in places that not everyone agrees with us, and I think that if you can keep your heart soft in those moments, it can build empathy.”
Chelsea offers a wealth of insight about the importance of local government. “Our daily lived experience is determined at the local level. Especially for those who are the most oppressed and poor among us. If we utilize and leverage these earthly power institutions well, we can use them to build our compassion for one another and care for one another. We can create more just communities. If we use them poorly, then we reinforce unjust institutions and oppression structures.” A city council chamber must be a place where both conviction and compassion are upheld.
Gatherings in city council chambers offer an invitation to see beyond ourselves and embrace the responsibility to care for our neighbors. Here we witness our neighbors doing the difficult work of loving and leading our neighborhoods. It is in this place neighbors lead and listen, debate and make decisions. A city council chamber is a sacred place.
Thank you to Chelsea Nuunenkamp for her wisdom about the importance and intersection of faith and civic life and her insightful conversation and contribution to this article.
