Just a quick intro. I am Tom and live in Aurora, Colorado. I have been keeping bees for 12 seasons in top bar hives. I have found top bar hives to be very friendly to beekeeping in urban/suburban settings. One of the advantages I have seen is that people don't immediately recognize a TBH as a beehive. Since they don't recognize it, it doesn't bother them the way conventional hives might.
In 2003 I was instrumental in getting a very favorable beekeeping ordinance passed in Aurora. A copy of the ordinance with it's declaration can be found here: (Link pending insertion by moderator?)
The primary factor in getting this ordinance passed by our City Council was public support. The public support came through using the newspaper, internet and word of mouth to get people to write letters to the Mayor. (The letters to the editor of the Aurora Sentinel were also helpful.) Aurora came very close to having beekeeping totally banned within the city but it was by direction of Mayor Paul Tauer that the ordinance was drafted and passed.
The 2003 passage of the Aurora beekeeping ordinance is about the only truly politically active time in my life. In addition to beekeeping I am a chiropractor, acupuncturist, with an eclectic diversified natural health direction in my practice, a husband and father, and an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).