Boulder council approves $16,000 for hate hotline

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 17, 2006 at midnight

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BOULDER - The City Council has approved allocating $16,000 to help establish a hate hotline that would document incidents of bias and give residents a chance to vent their frustrations.

The vote late Tuesday makes Boulder the first city in the nation to authorize city funding for a broad- based hate hotline.

Council members said they don't want the hotline to be used to help file criminal charges, and council member Suzy Ageton said she was uncomfortable even with documenting the incidents, saying there is no way to authenticate the credibility of the reports.

"I worry about mission creep," she said.

Mayor Mark Ruzzin appeared to be the swing vote. He said he could support giving $16,000 for the hotline's first six months but then wants the program to be self-sustaining. "I won't support additional funding from the city," he said.

Ruzzin also wants to restrict how the information collected can be used.

Judd Golden, chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union's Boulder chapter, opposed the hotline, saying it puts the city in the position of chilling free speech - speech that, however obnoxious, is not against the law.

"Please keep Boulder's tradition of defending the Bill of Rights intact," he said.

But several other residents said a hotline would have value in giving a voice to minorities who feel they don't have a voice now, and in showing that Boulder isn't the bias-free city that some people think it is.

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