What I Do as a City Commissioner
Hola Wonder Stars,
I hope your day has been full of the kind of sunshine that touches your soul and makes your toes wiggle :)
I’m starting to get questions about what it means to be a city commissioner, so here you go!
Appointment
What the Application Said
“The process begins with submitting your application. Applicants meeting the minimum requirements will be scheduled for an interview with members of the Boulder City Council, who make the appointments to all the city’s boards and commissions. After City Council votes to appoint a candidate to the Arts Commission, that person typically is sworn in and begins serving at the next Arts Commission meeting.”
What it looks like In Practice
Applying-
I spent about two weeks reviewing the application questions and drafting my answers to questions like “What qualifications, skill sets and relevant experiences do you have for this position that would contribute to you being an effective board member and community representative?”
Interviewing-
I viewed a few commission meeting recordings and packets over the last 7 years with the goal of filling in my institutional knowledge gaps.
Then I scheduled time to chat with a few members of the City’s Arts and Culture department staff. I came in with the desire to get to know them as people (since I’d be learning and working with them for five years) and get to know the lay of the land (since they’d been deep in the community longer than I could imagine).
Finally I combined my historical and interview-based research notes to develop talking points for my interview. Although I didn’t know what would be asked, I did want to be prepared for as many topics as possible.
Each 4-person interview group answered questions during a live recording of the monthly City Council meeting. There were a total of 17 applicants (the most applications for any commission in 2021).
Selection-
Step 1. A Member of City Council decides whether or not to nominate you for a "seat" on the commission you've applied for.
* I was nominated by the illustrious Mayor Pro Tem, Junie Joseph.
Step 2. The City Mayor then asks if there are any other nominations for that seat. This is the competition part of the process. If another City Council member thinks the seat you've been nominated for should go to someone else, they can nominate someone else for that seat. If the other City Council members think it's alright for you to have that seat, they won't nominate anyone else for that seat.
* No City Council members nominated other applicants for the first seat.
Step 3. The member of City Council who has nominated you will explain why they think you're a good fit. (For a play-by-play, check out Boulder Beat's Twitter recap).
* Junie nominated me because of my "life experience as a young person with a disability... community goals (driving amazing experiences, lifting ourselves and others, and leading with respect)" and other facets conveyed during my interview.
Step 4. The Mayor confirms there are no objections to your appointment.
* I was appointed unanimously!
Step 5. City Council holds a public hearing to finalize and ratify appointments based on public testimony.
To see what this looks like, check out https://bouldercolorado.gov/city-council/watch-council-meetings, scroll down to the March 16, 2021 meeting, and start at the 3 hour, 20 minute mark.
Responsibility #1- Advising City Council
What the Application Said
Commissioners are responsible for advising City Council and staff on matters of arts and culture.
What it looks like In Practice
City Council members can be a tad hard to set time with, even if you’re a commissioner. I imagine this will get easier as we get to know each other better through service work, but I do wonder how much harder it would be if I weren’t a commissioner.
Luckily, many of Boulder's City Council members are aficionados at using the digital world for scaled communication. For example, Bob Yates has a helpful newsletter called the Boulder Bulletin.
Responsibility #2- Ambassadorship
What the Application Said
Commissioners are responsible for serving as an ambassador of the Office of Arts and Culture to the community.
What it looks like In Practice
In my first three months, this has been a little flipped. The Office of Arts and Culture are more often reaching out to us about grant business than community sentiment. This is most likely related to recent budget/staff cuts impacting the scope and scale of their job coverage. I look forward to connecting with them about neighborhood and micro-locale based solutions throughout my term.
Responsibility #3- Judging Grant Proposals
What the Application Said
Commissioners are responsible for approving the distribution of grant funding.
What it looks like In Practice
This one is a doozy. The red tape really is striped around this topic (rightfully so since we’re talking about tax dollars).
It’s an honor to vote on which residents not only receive funding, but also who retains their funding and is eligible for applying.
From my perspective as a black woman with a disability, I’m an advocate for keeping the doors to funding as wide as possible. As a former CEO and startup mentor, I’m all for operational efficiency and the elimination of systemic redundancies. You can see how those two might run into or run beside one another based on the circumstances of a situation.
I’m immensely grateful that more tenured commissioners have a bit of an open door policy when it comes to asking for advice about how to think about the wondrous challenges ahead of me.
Responsibility #4- Advising the City Manager
What the Application Said
Commissioners are responsible for advising the City Manager on public art decisions.
What it looks like In Practice
Although I’ve never had the pleasure of making the City Manager’s acquaintance, I’m a fan of her work in other cities across our great nation.
Based on what I’ve seen so far, if a public art decision should reach her peripheral vision, the Office of Arts & Culture staff will be the first to be called upon to advise the situation. Next would be the chair of the Art Commission. Finally, if a matter is sufficiently complex, the situation would be brought up in one of our monthly commissioner meetings. Note: this is a presumption based on what I’ve seen in my first few months.
Responsibility #5- Diplomacy
What the Application Said
Commissioners are responsible for serving on public art selection panels, Arts Commission subcommittees, several nonprofit boards, as liaisons to nonprofits, and occasional cross-departmental committees.
What it looks like In Practice
As a first-time commissioner, my primary focus is listening more than I speak. With this in mind, I’ve been careful to not jump into formal diplomatic relations with some of our city’s biggest (read: most influential) arts organizations.
I look forward to diving into these oceans of artistic advocacy and climbing the trellises of these - at times - prosperous palaces while also keeping my eye out for the people on the fringes.
I’ve enjoyed attending Art Walks, gallery hopping, and cold-emailing local tattoo shops, improv troupes, and magazine editors about upcoming grant cycles.
_________________________________
FAQs
What compensation do commissioners receive?
The privilege of serving my fellow artisans!
We also receive a shiny new EcoPass that promotes eco-friendly transit across eight counties in the Denver, Colorado metro area.
How long do commission positions last?
Art commissioners can serve a five, four, or three year or term depending on vacancies.
What's next for me?
I look forward to learning how to be a better art activist and public official while Building a Better Boulder Together!
_________________________________
Over the next 5 years, I imagine this list of responsibilities will become more and less ambiguous over time. If you’d like to get a more in-depth understanding of how I do what I do, check out my book ‘Wonder Stars of the Universe’ at bit.ly/WonderStarsBook next month!
Wishing you a ray of sunshine in all of your tomorrows,
Eboni
P.S. If you’re interested in applying for the Boulder Arts Commission, check out the helpful FAQ document here: https://boulderarts.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2021-New-BAC-Applicant-FAQ-FINAL.pdf
P.P.S. I’m considering posting a pdf copy of my application question and answers. Leave a comment if you think that would be helpful.
