City Council meetings are open to the public. Learn about speaking and participating in meetings.
The City Council holds public meetings to gather feedback from community members.
Study sessions give City Council the chance to work on a particular issue or set of issues. While council may give direction to city staff during a study session, no votes are cast during these meetings.
Both City Council meetings and study sessions are open to the public, but only City Council meetings have open comment and/or public hearings. "Special" City Council Meetings do not allow for open comment.
The public can also watch the meetings online or view them on Boulder 8 TV on Comcast in high definition on channel 880 or standard definition on channel 8.
The public can provide testimony before City Council both virtually and in-person. You will be asked to indicate on the Open Comment & Public Hearing forms if you will be speaking virtually or in-person. In-person speakers will speak first, and virtual speakers will follow. Within each of those categories, Open Comment speakers will be listed in the order in which they are randomly selected, and Public Hearing speakers are listed in the order in which they signed up. All speakers will have the option to change their location preference if needed by contacting the City Clerk’s Office at cityclerksoffice@bouldercolorado.gov.
All speakers are asked to state their name and connection to Boulder, such as, neighborhood in which they reside, Boulder-based employment, school or business ownership.
Each person is permitted one sign or flag up to 11”x17” in size, held no higher than the person’s face.
Be Advised: Due to staff managing in-person and virtual speakers, advance sign-up is required for public participation. In-person sign-up on the night of the meeting will not be available.
The sign-up form will open at 8 a.m. on the Friday prior to the meeting and will close at 2 p.m. on the Wednesday before the meeting.
Once your form has been submitted, you will receive a system generated confirmation e-mail verifying your form has been received. If you do not receive this confirmation e-mail within 15 minutes of submitting your form, please contact the City Clerk's Office before the form closes to ensure you will have time to resubmit your form.
Open Comment is an opportunity for 20 individuals to speak for up to two (2) minutes on any topic that is not scheduled for a public hearing (specific topics council will be voting on) that evening. Open comment is scheduled at all regular council meetings, but not special meetings or study sessions.
Council also frequently holds public hearings, often before they vote on a new policy or make a decision on a proposed ordinance or change to city code. The public may speak to public hearing items when such hearings are scheduled.
