Earlier this month, the Boulder City Council set about changing the Council Rules of Procedure. These bureaucratic regulations essentially stipulate how council meetings will take place — who gets to speak, for how long and what sort of protesting is allowed.

For some, these sorts of rules might come off as pedantic or antithetical to a democracy based on the right to free expression. But they are integral to how our community members are allowed to engage with our elected leaders and how to keep these engagements civil and productive.

But the new rules, while individually reasonable and unlikely to sharply change the shape of council meetings, are worth carefully examining — if only because they seem to be a reaction to one protracted campaign against the council.

Under the new rules, signs brought into the council chambers can be no larger than 11 by 17 inches, and people can hold them no higher than face level. Only one person can be at the speaker’s podium at one time during open comment unless the person needs a companion for interpretation or disability reasons. Meeting participants will also not be allowed to stand in aisles, and items — including signs — cannot be attached to or propped against any surface in the council chambers without the city manager’s permission.

Another new rule will make it harder for open-comment speakers to speak at consecutive council meetings. Only 20 people are allowed to speak during open comment at a given meeting, and if more than 20 people sign up, under the new rule, people who spoke at the previous meeting could be prevented from speaking again so new speakers get a turn.

Council will now also have the option to take in-person meetings onto a virtual forum if rules of decorum are not being followed.

It is important to understand that these changes appear to be a direct response to the intense political divisions born of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s retaliatory invasion. Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200; hundreds more were taken hostage. Israel’s retaliation has left more than 37,000 civilians dead, with most being women and children.

In the U.S., the conflict took over our news cycle. It dominated social media. Statements were made and retracted and criticized. University leaders lost their jobs. Protesters shut down campuses.

And in Boulder, pro-Palestinian protesters started showing up at City Council meetings demanding the council draft a cease-fire resolution.

During the past several months, some of the interactions between people speaking about Israel-Hamas have grown heated. Numerous council meetings have been interrupted by yelling, name-calling and chanting. The council’s typical response has been to take a five-minute recess and leave the room. There were five recesses called at an especially turbulent meeting in February.

Ultimately, the council voted against considering drafting a cease-fire resolution (in part because there is a city code against acting on foreign policy), but that did little to quell the confrontations — or the dissatisfaction that both sides seem to have been feeling about the situation.

It makes sense, then, that those who have been speaking at recent meetings in favor of a cease-fire feel like the rule changes are targeting them. Instead of engaging with their ideas, they believe the council is seeking to shut them down.

For instance, the suggestion to limit the size of signs came after meetings where community members held large Israeli and Palestinian flags, waved poster-sized signs in the air and blocked the center aisle near the front of the chambers.

And for frequent speakers, there is the feeling that the rule preventing those who spoke at a previous meeting from speaking again is a way to silence dissent.

“It seems like they are trying to impose immediate constraints to make active participation harder,” one pro-cease-fire speaker told the Camera. “They’re trying to limit the voice of the community.”

It is absolutely imperative that our City Council meetings remain functional, civil and productive. And crafting rules to ensure that the needs of our citizens can be met by their leaders is imperative.

But it is also vital that everyone in our community is afforded a voice — especially if that is a voice of dissent. This is why it is unsettling that the rules seem to so clearly respond to one contingent in our community.

These changes are mostly measured and reasonable, but what precedent do they set for the future, when another protracted conflict arises and we once again fiercely disagree? Will that council also decide to update the Rules of Procedure to quell dissent?

Hypotheticals do not always make for compelling arguments. But when it comes to how citizens are allowed to engage with our elected officials, it is imperative that any tightening of the rules is viewed with healthy skepticism. What are these rules designed to do? How will they affect discourse? How could they be abused?

One rule that we are doubtful of is the change making it possible for council members to turn an in-person meeting into a virtual one.

If the council can take a meeting to a virtual setting, where community voices don’t realistically carry the same weight as they do at an in-person meeting, simply because the rules of decorum are broken, who gets to decide when the rules of decorum are broken? And how willing will they be to do so?

This fear is not based on precedent. But it is vital that we don’t afford those in power the leeway to abuse that power. Of all the new rules, this is one we should keep an especially close eye on.

In part because the council has the ability to update these rules without public input. In other words, there is little we can do now except hope that these changes will help ensure council meetings are functional, civil and productive — and remain engaged and informed so we can let our leaders know if they overstep.

As for the council, we also want to urge them to be open to reexamining these rules after a few months and to be open to changing them if they are unduly silencing anyone in our community.

Decorum is important. Free speech and political accountability are imperative.

Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board