Last week’s vote by the conservative members of Aurora’s City Council to dissolve the Human Relations Commission (HRC), a citizen-run board that addresses concerns around inequities, racism, gender, and ableism, prompted outcry from the Aurora National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
“The HRC has been a vital, cost-effective vehicle for addressing issues of racism, discrimination, and inequity — fields in which the stakes are far too high to be left without a dedicated, community-rooted advisory board,” the Aurora NAACP wrote in a statement. “For an annual budget of just $9,000 and minimal staff time, the HRC has supported critical programs such as Know Your Rights workshops, Holocaust Remembrance, Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations, Aurora Pride, drives for unhoused veterans, and outreach to our youth and immigrant communities.”
The Commission accounts for less than 0.0017% of Aurora’s annual budget.
The Aurora Chapter of the NAACP called on the Aurora City Council to reverse its decision to dissolve the Commission, fully appoint and support Commission members so they can continue their work “without political interference”, and “publicly affirm the city’s commitment to protecting the rights and dignity of all residents, especially in times of heightened division.”
The HRC supports a range of events and initiatives that encompass the Community Reading Event, Know Your Rights workshops, Holocaust Remembrance, MLK Day celebrations, Aurora Police Department’s Blue Backpack initiative, and fundraising drives for unhoused veterans.
Additionally, the group volunteers with Aurora Pride, Santa in the Park, the National Night Out, and events with Iron Sharp, a Christian community group that assists at-risk families and residents.
As reported by the Aurora Sentinel, Mayor Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman who appeared to disagree with the Council’s vote, asked at the Council meeting last week if the group could continue in an informal capacity under his leadership with funding from his mayoral expense account.
“Is it possible that I could continue them on an informal basis, where there would be no new appointments on it?” Coffman, himself a former member of the Commission, asked the Council. “It would just basically be an advisory to the mayor, and I would meet with them once a month, and any council members who wanted to join me on the Human Rights Commission and the Veterans Commission. I would fund it, if possible, and with unexpended travel funds.”
According to current members of the Commission, the state of Coffman’s offer is currently unknown.
Amy Wiles, who chairs the Commission and is a candidate for City Council in Aurora’s Ward II, expressed concern that being under the mayor would limit the types of events that the HRC could help put on.
“Some members of the City Council have said that they don’t know what we [the Commission] do, but they have benefited from our activity,” Wiles told the Colorado Times Recorder. “We give a brief to the Council with a yearly report of our activities, the only Council members who show up are Cyrstal [Murillo], Allison [Coombs], and Ruben [Medina]. Still, when put on events for Holocaust Remembrance or Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day, the City Council comes down to make sure they get their photos taken.”
Officially, the City Council was looking at ways to “save staff time, administration costs, and redundancy”, but it appears to be driven by some members of the City Council having faced criticism from some members of the Commission in the past.
Wiles argues that the HRC is being targeted for political reasons, as does Aaron Futrell, who is also running for City Council and was a former member of the Commission, who stepped down in 2023.
Jurinsky, Sundberg, and Kassaw are all running to be re-elected (or in the case of Kassaw, for a full term following his appointment to the Council) this November. Wiles and Futrell are both running against them in the Ward II and at-large seats, respectively.
Futrell stated that he had previously criticized some city council members in 2022 on his personal Facebook account.
“I commented that two City Council members seemed out of touch for calling the Aurora Mall, the Town Center of Aurora,” Futrell said.
The April 2022 post referenced current councilmembers Danielle Jurinsky and Steve Sundberg. In the post, Futrell criticized the city councilors for maligning Aurora as being crime-infested while drawing attention to the rehabilitated mall, which was the scene of a shooting that happened several years back.
Wiles told the Colorado Times Recorder that Jurinsky called her after Futrell’s post, demanding that he be removed from the Commission, or that she would “shut them down.” Wiles said that she told the councilwoman that she planned on respecting Futrell’s right to free speech, as she did with Jurinsky, who had drawn controversy earlier in the year for referring to the police commissioner as “trash.”
Additionally, Wiles said that the City Council has been refusing to hear appointments to the Commission for years now. Wiles said that she offered to step down as chair of the Commission if that meant the Commission would continue.
According to Wiles, the HRC requires only two hours of staff time per month. In comparison, she notes that the city’s Golf Courses Fund receives 71 times more funding than the HRC.
Six members of the Council voted to dissolve the Council: Jurinsky, Sundberg, Francoise Bergan, Amsalu Kassaw, Stephanie Hancock, and Curtis Gardner, all Republicans.
Jurinsky declined to comment.
In an interview, Kassaw insisted that the vote to dissolve the commission had nothing to do with political retribution. Kassaw claimed that the city council already did the work of the commission, although city councilors are not involved with the type of event planning the commission handles.
When asked why the council chose to eliminate the Human Relations Commission, as opposed to the duplicative funds allocated various golf initiatives, Kassaw didn’t have an answer.
Kassaw declined to comment on Wiles’ accusation that Councilor Jurinsky told her to kick members off the commission otherwise she would shut the civilian committee down.
Wiles said that there will have to be another vote to finalize the dissolution after the upcoming time for public comment on Aug 25.
The Human Relations Commission has been a part of Aurora since the 1990s, when it played a pivotal role in addressing the concerns of Black residents who accused the city’s police of harassment during a “crackdown on gang activity”. This involved incidents of racial profiling and civilian deaths involving the Aurora police.
It should be noted that the Aurora Police Department has had numerous high-profile cases of police killings of unarmed civilians, including some from this year.
Only one other committee, the Independent Review Board, was shuttered by the council; however, the board currently has no members, whereas the HRC has never had any issue with staffing.
Update: 08/23/2025 – Updated with input from Aurora City Councilor Amsalu Kassaw.
