Without the government support, Corner Canyon Association chairwoman Summer Pugh said residents will be vulnerable to "sue-happy" developers that have threatened to sue when citizen groups opposed their projects. The groups also will not receive permit applications from the city, will not have the right to meet with developers about their plans and will not have the authority to ask the city to postpone a decision for 30 days.

Pugh said she feared obtaining city applications and documents will now require a laborious and costly records request process that will discourage the dissemination of information.

"It will be extremely difficult to find out what's going on in the city," Pugh said. "Are they trying to squash the public voice? We became a nuisance to them obviously."

Residents will still be able to participate in city decisions, Keck said, they will just have to get documents from the city library or online.

Keck added that the city still aims to inform citizens via homeowners' associations throughout the city. That localized approach, he said, may allow more residents to be involved in city decisions than before.

"The democratic process will still continue without the neighborhood associations," Keck said. "We're going to try to hype up the use of communication between the council and the community."

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com