Five with Fry

21: Five Things You Should Expect From Your Local Representatives

• Dr. Jen Fry • Season 1 • Episode 21

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What Should Your City Council Member Be Doing for You?

Ever wonder what your city council member actually does—or should be doing? In this episode of Five with Fry, Dr. Jen Fry sits down with Councilwoman Shontel Lewis of Denver’s District 8 to break it all down. As the only Black woman and the first openly queer Black woman on Denver’s City Council, Lewis brings both lived experience and political insight to this eye-opening conversation.

Together, they explore five essential things every constituent should expect from their local representatives—from crafting policies and updating ordinances to responding to community needs and making sure your tax dollars are spent wisely. Shontel doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of local government. Instead, she lays out exactly how council members should be showing up and why accountability starts with us.

Whether you're already tuned in to city politics or just starting to pay attention, this episode will help you understand how local government touches everything from affordable housing to potholes. Shontel’s message is clear: “There are no hard-to-serve communities, just hard-to-access programs.”

You’ll walk away with a sharper understanding of what effective public service looks like and the motivation to ask more of the people elected to represent you.

Follow the podcast @JenFryTalks and connect with Dr. Jen Fry on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Friends, welcome to Five with Fry, where five is the magic number, whether it's five minutes, five questions or anything that fits in five. I dive into the big topics that matter, sometimes alone and other times with a friend. From navigating sports conflict to family dynamics, travel, tech, hard-hitting issues and even politics Nothing and I mean nothing's off the table. This is where curiosity meets conversation, and we always sit at an intersection. I'm your host, dr Jen Fry of Jen Fry Talks. Let's get into it, friends.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Welcome to the newest episode of Five with Fry. I am so excited to be here with my guest, the councilwoman Shontel M Lewis, and so I thought, in this day and age, it's really important that we learn what our council folk are doing for us and what our expectations should be of them. And so Shontel is a excellent friend of mine when I met a few years back on a very fascinating trip to Portugal, which we will not talk about because we still have PTSD from, but that is where our friendship was forever cemented. And so in this episode, these episodes, you're going to hear about what are five things that we, as constituents, should be expecting from our council folk. So, Shontel, introduce yourself, my friend.

Shontel Lewis:

All right, hello my name is Shontel M. Lewis. The M is for Marie, marie translates to bitter. I mean, it has a number of translations, but bitter is one of them, and I intentionally signed my name with the M so that I remember to not let this world make me bitter, and this political game as well. I grew up in Denver, colorado, still in Denver, colorado, that's where I'm a city councilor.

Shontel Lewis:

Prior to being on city council, I was on the board of our regional transportation district, which is one of three publicly elected boards in the country transportation elected boards in the country and I absolutely love public transit. I accidentally stumbled upon being in an elected life because I love public transportation and transportation in general is how I ended up on that board, and transportation in general is how I ended up on that board. And now I've transitioned to serve on Denver City Council, where I am the only Black woman on Denver City Council, the first openly queer Black woman on City Council, and it's my first term. So, yeah, there are 13 of us on a body and I'm happy to talk more about that as well.

Dr. Jen Fry:

You know it's.

Dr. Jen Fry:

I think one of the things that is beautiful about friendships is that you see people go through different versions of themselves, and I think about when you were out there canvassing to become a city council person and the conversations we would have.

Dr. Jen Fry:

So she is with district eight and they had to do a runoff and I remember talking to you the night where we were sitting there waiting for the voting and we were having the conversation of what's going to happen, is going to happen, and then you had to have the runoff, which I think went like another month later, which I mean was so anxious and anxiety ridden and then you came out on top of it and I'm just. You know, one of the things I enjoy about being able to interview my friends is just, I get to be talk about how proud I am of the work you do and I love it. One of the things I always enjoy is getting Shontel's weekly or bi-weekly emails and about district eight, about every. I don't think my city council people all get them like every blue moon and I even pay attention to them, but whenever I get Shontel's, I read through them all and I usually will send like comments, I'll respond and I know the people working for her like who are this crazy woman? I'll be like I miss your face.

Dr. Jen Fry:

I love you, they love it they always screenshot them and send them to me and say look at it but like I just I enjoy it because you put such thought and detail into it in a in a time where it's just hard to get that from political figures that you put thought into what you're talking about, how you explain it, the events going on, like you put such thought into it, and so I just appreciate you and all that you do with it. So it's it's a busy time for you and so I think it's important, like let's get to it. So, city council like I was telling you before, I don't even know what my city council. Like I was telling you before, I don't even know what my city council does. So this is also a kind of education session for me.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay, what are five things that constituents and I told Shontel I'm very specific about using citizens versus constituents, because we have to make it known that city council is for everyone. That's right, not just people who have US citizenship or green cards or a visa, but city council and political figures are for everyone. So there's a reason why I'm using the word constituents. So what are five things that constituents should be expecting of their city council?

Shontel Lewis:

Okay, Okay, number one constituents should expect their city council folks to be responsive to their needs. They should expect them to co-govern alongside of them. What does that mean of our city departments? You should be able to reach out to your elected official or to their office and say, hey, there's a pothole that I have been dealing with, or my trash is not being picked up, or I am trying to figure out how do I pay my property taxes, or do you have resources that I might be able to tap into because I can't afford my property taxes?

Shontel Lewis:

And your city council folks should have staff to help you be able to navigate those departments in order for you to be able to resolve any issues that you might have. In addition to that and I'm putting these all under the same category your city council in terms of like availability and connecting to your city council person, your city council person should have a way in which they are conveying information to you, but a way in which they are accessible to you. So city council members may have town halls or newsletters or a presence on social media where they might do videos to let you know about things that are important in communities. There should be a vessel, a communication channel of some sort that is two-way, in which you can dialogue with your city council member, your city council member can dialogue with you, so that you all are figuring out how do you co-create the solutions to the issues that are happening within the city?

Dr. Jen Fry:

I like that and I think so many times it can feel like in this right now in society, it's that we don't have a voice Right. We see different representatives, senators, that are like sprinting away from town halls. They're, like you know, wearing disguises so that they're not being talked to and they're not just receptive to information from their constituents, and so I get what you're saying that there should be some type of vessel that you all because it is about co-creating this life experience of where you live together they're not just there making rules. They should be able to help you navigate some of these frustrating points within living wherever you live. So that's a good first start. Okay, what's number two, then?

Shontel Lewis:

Number two city council members. So we're a city and a county and I'll tell you why I delineated that but city council members are the legislative body of any former government. So you have your mayor, your city council and then you have your courts, which is your judicial branch. So your city council members are your legislators. They should be looking at policies, writing policies, running ordinances, looking at old ordinances to see if those continue to make sense for the city and, if not, to be able to make some changes or tweaks to city codes. They should also be plugged in politically at the federal level and the state level, as well as regionally within your state, to see during the legislative session, what are the bills that the legislators are running during that legislative session that could impact positively or negatively on the members that are within our constituencies, right Like who are our constituents and how will those bills positively or negatively impact the lives of those that are living within our city?

Shontel Lewis:

We just recently, as city council folks, had a bill that it was a house bill 1208, which referred to tip credit, which was actually going to be very harmful to folks that live in our community, and so we fought like hell to make sure that that thing didn't pass in a way that it was going to harm our constituents.

Shontel Lewis:

So they should be paying attention to what's happening at the federal level and the state level and ensuring that they are connecting with those elected saying, hey, that's going to be harmful for our city, so don't do that. Because we are a city and a county, we are also a board of commissioners, so we're city council members, but we're also a board of commissioners. So we in Denver approve or look at rezoning requests within our city. So we pay attention to land use and how folks are proposing that they use their land, which gives us a pretty unique opportunity and that if we want to have some kind of proactive approach to not seeing folks be displaced or not seeing folks, not seeing communities be gentrified, that we can think about what are the policies we might be putting, what are the legislative pieces that we might put in place, a policy, and also what may we be approving or not approving in order to achieve those goals that we might outline.

Dr. Jen Fry:

That's an interesting one. When we're talking about especially the rezoning part, because it's always funny. I think that you probably giggle when people are like you know, when people say, like, why are you making this political? Why are you making this political? You're like, baby, everything is political, even down to. Can your the location, the block, have a multifamily house or a single family house, like those are political things.

Dr. Jen Fry:

There was a interesting code switch podcast episode which talked about two cities in new york. It was like garden city and I can't think of the second one, and it talked about how one of them and they were, I mean, right next to each other one of them it was that it was all multi-family, because that's what everything was zoned for, but then the other one was single family and it talks about then what does it mean of who can live there, who can afford to live there, the schools, everything. It's the domino effect, you know, and so everything is political. But especially when we talk about those type of different policies and ordinances okay, that's interesting. Yeah, number three, what you got for us uh, number three.

Shontel Lewis:

So again, city council provides the checks and balances for our government. So we have our mayor, and our mayor is the executive branch. City Council is the legislative body, and so the mayor might propose the budget, but City Council appro. There needs to be some tweaks, which are also known as amendments. City council can amend the budget and then pass the budget to be inclusive of the priorities that city council has to be more reflective of the constituents that they tend to have a better grasp of because we are attached to a geographical area and so we usually closer to our constituents than someone like the mayor. So we can approve the budget, not approve the budget.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Amend the budget as well, what would happen if you all said like we don't like this budget and the mayor was like too bad, like what would happen with that?

Shontel Lewis:

Like if, if, if we decided to veto, if you will, the budget, he'd have to go back and fix it. And and within our statute, within our charter, which our charter, you can think of the city charter in the same like, in the same way in which you would think about the constitution. So our city charter essentially guides and direct us on how we can and cannot, um, but what we can and cannot do, although I hate to say compared to the, the constitution in this moment, because girl, girl, it doesn't matter, I mean damn.

Shontel Lewis:

It doesn't really seem to matter, but my body. We do pay attention to our constitution, and when we don't like something within the constitution or within our city charter because it's not working for us, we change it to be able to improve the lives of the folks that are in our care. We don't just ignore the law Anywho. The law Anywho Within the charter. It gives you a specific outline in which the budget needs to be approved by, and so the budget would then go back to the mayor, and the mayor would have to make the tweaks in order for his budget to pass, and he wants his budget to pass, so it behooves him to work with city council to make that happen okay, okay, I like that one and, and that makes sense, um, okay, number four what you got from this with number four?

Shontel Lewis:

so it is imperative that your city council members are working and getting to know and building relationships with other city council members are working and getting to know and building relationships with other city council members throughout the state, but also throughout the country, right Learning from other city councils about what are some of the policies or ordinance or initiatives that they're working on to improve their cities, as well as working with the internal departments within the city to make sure you know what's going on, that it's incumbent upon us to be able to be making those connections and building that expertise or that mastery in terms of that relationship building, so that they know who to go to to get you what you need with efficiency and we're not sending you around the city and you're like, oh well, this person told me to talk to you and you're telling me to go talk to them and this that they should be plugged in enough that their staff can direct you to the right person.

Dr. Jen Fry:

No, that that is when I tell you that is the the biggest pain point I've had with some situations here in the city of Baltimore of months between calls and getting sent to different places, and I mean it's brutal and that I think that's the problem, where, as a constituent, you get so tired of being pulled in all these different directions that by the time they get to you they're probably just unloading Exactly Because they have went everywhere to try and figure this out and getting no solutions.

Shontel Lewis:

Absolutely Understandably so. And your city council person should be building those relationships because, again, because constituent services is a really important piece, which I talked about earlier, of navigating. So not only should you be making those connections in order to be able to provide the resources, the expertise, the connections that your constituents need, but you also should be tracking that data so that you can begin to figure out what are the themes that are happening within our communities. So then, as a legislative body, you begin to think about policies, right System structures that you can implement to be able to improve the lives of not just that one individual who called you, but to look at the data overall and say, actually 3,500 people called us about this very same issue. We should figure out how to make a structural change right, a systemic change to be able to address this for a lot of people versus just one on individual bases.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Yeah, no, that's 100%, because I know the runaround I was getting. And it got to be the point where the person I was talking to was like, well, you know, you should have sent a refund request to this email, ask for this, this and this. And I was like, man, that name sounds familiar. And so I looked through my sent folder and I was like, well, actually so. And so I sent the email to you on this date and, oh yes, so I did do exactly what you said. And now it's February and that was back in October. So what are we doing here? And it is one of those things of like.

Dr. Jen Fry:

I try and be very mindful of my anger and frustration, but it gets to be a point of like. And I think about the privilege I have of waiting for hours on the phone. Yeah, that other people don't have. They have a 10 minute, 15 minute block, or they have to take PTO and I can luckily sit there and wait for it, and that's a luxury. And that's why it also frustrates me, because I'm like, if I'm dealing with this, how many other people dealt with it? We're like I just I have to get back to work, so I'm just going to lose out on that money.

Shontel Lewis:

And how frustrating that is. That's exactly right. That's exactly right, and so many people are already struggling. Right, our job in government should be to make access to our programs that are going to help you live a more efficient, healthy, helpful life is imperative on us to think about. How do we make that accessible to you Absolutely Not that you need to run around, but that it's easy. Lots of people will say they're not hard to serve people, that they're not hard to serve communities, but hard to access programs, and I do believe that.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Oh, 100%. I mean, I know you from your experience is working with unhoused people. We can talk about that for eons and we can go on. You know, I think about a kind of a random tangent. I'll go on is are unhoused, one able-bodied standing up, one is in a wheelchair with no legs, and they're fighting, arguing back and forth, and you can tell it's big. And then the one in the wheelchair with no legs jumps out the wheelchair about to go fight this other guy. And I'm sitting here. I'm like holy shit.

Dr. Jen Fry:

And then the guy standing there said something which I think is always seared in my mind. And he guy standing there said something which I think is always seared in my mind and he was like you don't know me, he's like my mom just died. And I was sitting there. I'm like thinking to myself this guy, his mom, just who knows when he found out and when she passed away, the lack of money to go visit maybe, the shame, the guilt, that that feeling, and then to be playing out those big emotions in front of everyone that you know and we'll, you know, we always hear about people be like, oh my gosh, that crazy person is yelling and screaming. It's like first, as we know, being unhoused will make you crazy. Hell, yeah, yeah, I would scream all the time. You don't have, you have no shelter, you have no protection, abuse, your things are getting taken. Of course that's going to make you crazy. But also, what privilege do you have as someone in a house that can go through those big emotions without anyone seeing? Exactly?

Shontel Lewis:

You don't. It's such a privilege. It is such a privilege we don't recognize it.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Yeah, yeah, Okay. So my last one number five what you got for us?

Shontel Lewis:

Number five so city council members have to attend committee and city council meetings?

Shontel Lewis:

Right, have to attend committee and city council meetings?

Shontel Lewis:

Right, you got to show up to work folks.

Shontel Lewis:

So on Mondays we have city council meetings, which are every Monday.

Shontel Lewis:

We go through our agendas, so city council members should be reading the agendas before they get to the meetings and looking at the contracts and ensuring because they know who their constituents are that they are not approving contracts that are going to harm communities and that they are approving contracts that are going to help their communities. And so they should be looking through our consent agendas and making sure they're pulling things off of consent to either vote for or comment on, ask questions about, to ensure that we are taking care of people and not harming them. And we should also be attending our committee meetings as well, which are more specialized area, maybe in homelessness or in safety or in finance and governance or in business that you're making sure you're paying attention to the items that are coming through those committees to ensure that you may want to take something off the table or postpone something indefinitely before it comes to the full body to be voted on, because it might be harmful to just your district. So they should be showing up to work for those committee meetings or those council meetings.

Dr. Jen Fry:

And that makes sense. I think the problem that you probably see is in in areas or in districts where people are just have been long term that they don't even like look at stuff and they know they're going to get voted in and they ain't looking at nothing, so true it's so true.

Shontel Lewis:

I am often surprised of the number of folks who just don't read through any of the materials that were provided, any of the materials you know, and so it's just a rubber stamp like. And then we are surprised when the world that existed, you know, decades ago still exists in the same way, and even worse, it's because we're just doing the same things. You don't have elected officials that are tuned in, tapped in, paying attention and and saying we can change this, we can do something different.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Absolutely so. City council Shontel M Lewis, your top. Your five things are make sure that they're easy to access. They should be able to be accessed by all their constituents. Number two is they are legislators. They are writing policies, update ordinances, looking at how bills impact their constituents all that. The third thing is they are providing y'all are providing checks and balances for the mayor to make sure that if that budget isn't tight, bring it back to us again, sir or ma'am. We're not going to accept that budget, right? The fourth thing is they should be working to get to know other city council members within the state and the country, to know what's going on, how they're working things to help them just grow as professional development. And number five city council members take your butt to work. You gotta go to work. I need to go to work, go to meetings, read your agenda, pay attention to know what's going to hurt or help your constituents. That's right. Any last comments you have as a sitting city council person that's going to be reelected next term, I appreciate that.

Shontel Lewis:

And, yes, hold your electives accountable, because we often don't know what is happening within our cities. Our elected officials are sometimes not operating in our best interest and they're not operating from the agendas that we should be giving them. Make sure that your elected officials are co-governing with you, that they know the issues in your community and that they know that if they continue to rubber stamp something, that you are not going to allow them to do that and if they do, you're going to vote them out right You're going to find somebody else to do it. Because if we want to see a different world, especially under this, this administration at the federal level, we are going to need elected officials who are bold, who are brave, who are brilliant, who are not afraid to take care of business, to stand in their principles, to stand in their values and to make things happen differently. So that that's it. Hold them accountable.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Hold them accountable. So this is City Councilwoman Shontel M Lewis of District 8 in Denver and one of my good friends. You have dropped such great information. I, as we were talking, I signed up for City Council updates and I want to see when are these city council meetings? Because you know me, baby, I will be what. Don't? Let me find out y'all's schedule. I love this for you. Yeah, let me, because I I will show up at that meeting with no problem. It's actually nice. The the area I live in. We just got in our whatsapp group of type of area meeting which I have to put on my calendar. But yes, we need to start.

Dr. Jen Fry:

It's easy in this day and age to want to say I don't have any change, I can't do anything. What's the point of me going and talking to people? What's the point of me doing or saying anything? And that's so dangerous because then what's happening is that you end up being like a boiled frog right, it's old adage like they don't start boiling the frog and they don't drop the live frog in the boiling water. They put in the room temperature water and just keep turning up the heat. And we don't want to be frogs where we start to realize it's a bubbling cauldron and it's too late because there's nothing that we can do. And so it's really important If anything you take from this, take these five, but also get more involved in your city council. I know I am, because this is where I live and I love it, and I want to make sure that we are doing the right thing to all the constituents who live.

Dr. Jen Fry:

That's exactly right. I appreciate your time in this busy season and love you and miss your face a ton and thank you. I love you and I appreciate you and I'm proud of you. Thank you for being on five with fry. This is such a great episode. I appreciate you, love. Thank you. Well, friends, that's it for this episode of five with fry your dose of five insights, ideas and inspiration. If you love what you heard, don't forget to head over to where podcasts are played to subscribe, share and leave a review. Got a topic you want us to tackle? Drop us a message. We'd love to hear from you. You can come follow me on IG, twitter, the TikTok at Jen Fry Talks, or join me on LinkedIn. Look for me at Dr Jen Fry. Until next time, stay curious, stay bold and keep the conversation going. See you on the next Five with Fry.