Planning Board hears staff on land acknowledgement; board to consider how and when to use it as rules of procedure are updated

Assistant City Manager Pam Davis gave the Planning Board a background briefing on the City of Boulder's land‑acknowledgment language and the city's tribal‑consultation work during the Jan. 7 meeting.

Davis, the executive sponsor for the city's tribal‑nation relationship work, told the board that the city's land acknowledgment is "a living document" developed through multiple rounds of revisions with tribal representatives beginning in 2021. She said the statement is intended as a tool to prompt education, reflection and action rather than a rote preamble. As she read an abridged form for the board she said: "The city of Boulder acknowledges the city is on the ancestral homelands and unseated territory of indigenous peoples who have traversed, lived in, and stewarded lands in the Boulder Valley since time immemorial."

Davis described the city's broader efforts: annual tribal consultations since 2019, an updated Memorandum of Understanding adopted by City Council in February 2024, ethnographic research with tribal partners and place renamings tied to consultation (for example, the renaming of Settlers Park to People’s Crossing). She said the acknowledgement was not a codified policy and can be adapted by boards and groups to ensure meaningful use.

Board members broadly welcomed the presentation but debated how the planning board should treat the acknowledgement in its rules of procedure. Several members — including Mark and ML — urged the board to keep the land‑acknowledgment option available for meetings where it is relevant and to avoid routinizing the practice in a way that would become performative. The board discussed two implementation approaches: 1) staff identify agenda items where the acknowledgement would be appropriate and circulate language in advance, or 2) allow individual board members to request a short reading when they believe a specific agenda item warrants it, with a second and brief board affirmation.

Members also urged that any use be tied to action and not be solely symbolic. Davis and staff emphasized tribal‑consultation relationships take years to build and that tribal partners encouraged using the land acknowledgement as an invitation to action rather than a token statement. The board asked staff to return with concise guidance and suggested language for planning‑board use rather than a mandatory, one‑size‑fits‑all script.

The board did not adopt a formal change to its rules at the Jan. 7 meeting. City attorney staff and Davis will collaborate with planning staff to draft recommended language for the rules of procedure and to include training resources so board members and future appointees understand context, pronunciation guidance and instances where a land acknowledgement may be meaningful.