Author : Lakewood News from Karen

Guest post by Lenore Herskovitz On February 19, 2022 the  City held an “ in person only” Annual Planning Retreat. The attendees consisted mostly of Council members, the Mayor, the city manager and 4 members of the public. The only record of this meeting was a written summary provided by the facilitator Heather Bergman. This year’s retreat is scheduled for January 28 so it seems like an opportune time to look back at the status of the priorities that were set last year. The priorites fell into several categories including: These topics were assigned 4 designations to determine the focal efforts of the City in moving forward: potential new initiatives, staff circle backs, current efforts and study sessions. During one of the retreat exercises, the councilors prioritized 6 potential new initiatives: When the city manager was asked if she thought the 6 goals were achievable, she cut the list in half citing staff shortages and budgetary constraints. So where do we stand as of January, 2023? On the plus side, a Safe Lots  ordinance change took effect, but according to Councilor Vincent, only one church in Lakewood ( located in Ward 2) is participating in the program. Distressed properties finally made the Council agenda as a study  session on December 19, ten months after the retreat. On February 6, 2023 there is a study session scheduled with a presentation on the Strategic Housing Plan. It is uncertain what this entails. The use of the term “strategic” is interesting because staff had altered the name of the Strategic Growth Initiative (SGI) to the Residential Growth Limitation Ordinance, which has a more negative connotation. Now the word “strategic” is being used to describe staff’s housing plan. Last spring the majority of City Council members voted to disband the Development Dialogues the day before the group planned to address inclusionary zoning claiming it was redundant because the Housing Policy Commission would be dealing with this issue. This commission spent 2022 focused on short term rental (STR) policies. On January 23, 2023 there will be a first reading of the STR ordinance. More than 8 months have lapsed without dealing with inclusionary zoning. What progress could have been made if the Development Dialogues had been permitted to do their work on this? Regarding public safety concerns, Councilor Janssen held a well-attended community meeting independent of City Hall to discuss this very important topic. Speakers included an Aurora City Council member and a state legislator. The majority of council members have been reluctant to address public safety concerns in spite of the rise in crime and repeated attempts by constituents and Councilors Janssen and Springsteen to discuss these issues at Council meetings. On January 9, at the most recent Council meeting, Councilor Janssen submitted a request for legislative modification to create a Public Safety Committee. This will be discussed further at the upcoming retreat. At the last annual planning meeting a mid year follow-up was discussed but never happened. Presently, the evaluation of progress on priorities occurs annually. Once a year accountability is not sufficient. Perhaps after priorities are established on January 28, updates can be presented to the public at City Council meetings on a quarterly basis to let the community know exactly how issues raised are being addressed. Hopefully then we will be able to look back at 2023 as a year of goal fulfillment.

Council Member Rich Olver graciously sat down with us on December 22, to talk about the recent meeting where he was muted during discussions regarding incentives for the Lakewood City Manager. I have cut the video into a couple parts for viewability. Both contain information and news for Lakewood, Colorado Part 1: How the job is going and other tidbits about how the City Council and the City of Lakewood Colorado works Part 2: The December meetings about the City Manager incentives where Councilors were muted Notable remarks from Rich: “They said that, in the May meeting,  the Mayor and Mayor pro tem should do the renegotiation. Only those two would do the negotiations for the contract, for the contract modifications. It was only a small piece of the contract and some oversight. They took away a lot of oversight. …it’s the number one job we have [to oversee the City Manager and contract]” Rich Olver “Charlie started the comments and he paused and the Mayor muted him and recognized someone else to talk. …the floor should have come back to me, so I started speaking so he muted me and went to the next person.it went back to Charlie and then the Mayor muted him two minutes into his talk and passed the floor to me. The Mayor interrupted me several times and he muted me several times [The mayor] has done this many times to Councilor Springsteen, and no one has really spoken up when he has done that to her.” Rich Olver So if the people change the people on Council so that the minority, of which I’m a part of, became the majority, then we could change the contract back to something a little more reasonable. Other updates (See the end of Part 2 for this discussion):

Authored by Jeffrey A. Roberts via Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition Three Lakewood City Council members are raising free-speech concerns after Mayor Adam Paul muted two of their microphones while they spoke during a Monday meeting on Zoom convened to consider changes to the city manager’s contract. “You did not mute the other councilors who were singing her (the city manager’s) praises,” council member Rich Olver said to Paul during the 43-minute meeting. “You just want to mute the councilors who are not singing her praises.” Continue reading at ColoradoFOIC.org

Produced by Brother Jeff via Jeff Fard Brother Jeff interviews Lakewood City Council Member Anita Springsteen: “Muting Council Members, First Amendment Rights, Contract Approvals, Death Threat and the City of Lakewood Update. 30 Minutes with Anita Springsteen.” https://www.facebook.com/jeff.fard/videos/607644554464150 (interview starts after intro music video)

Guest post from Lenore Herskovitz On December 5, the Council was scheduled to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing personnel matters pertaining to re-incentivizing City Manager,  Kathy Hodgson’s employment agreement. Unfortunately, before the meeting was to begin no written materials about the topic were provided by Mayor Adam Paul or Mayor Pro tem Sharon Vincent. As a result, Councilors Able, Springsteen, Olver and Janssen voted against going into executive session. The discussion regarding Ms. Hodgson’s contract was rescheduled for a public meeting on December 19. The Mayor did not seem pleased about this change in plans but did not acknowledge any personal responsibility in causing the delay. The Mayor referenced the canceled executive session several times on the 19th, placing full blame on the four Councilors. As the special meeting progressed, the Mayor repeatedly interrupted or muted Councilors Able, Springsteen and Olver. Councilors Mayott-Guerrero and Shahrezaei praised the City Manager without mentioning any of her specific accomplishments. They both stated that they supported the contract. When Councilor Olver offered an opposing view, he was interrupted by the Mayor who continued to talk over him for the remainder of his comment. The Mayor stated that personnel matters were meant to be held in private to avoid personal liability issues resulting from making negative comments in public. It was perfectly acceptable for the two councilors to make positive comments about Ms. Hodgson to explain their support of the contract, but the councilor who opposed it had his explanation suppressed. Mayor Paul often justifies his muting of oppositional positions by claiming he is trying to maintain decorum. In reality, he appears to be silencing the councilors who challenge his views. It should be noted that a man named Eric Brandt (presently incarcerated for attempted retaliation against a judge) would participate in the public comment portion of council meetings by spewing profanities for his 3 minutes. The Mayor never interrupted him, presumably fearing a potential lawsuit for violating First Amendment rights to freedom of expression. Shouldn’t our city councilors be afforded the same rights? The Mayor’s definition of decorum appears synonymous with compliance: not making waves, not questioning staff, and being a team player. When challenged, Mayor Paul responds defensively by chastising, humiliating, demeaning or simply placing the individual on mute. As the meeting on the 19th was drawing to a close, the Mayor called for a vote on the contract issues while Councilors Janssen and Olver had their hands raised to speak. The Mayor ignored them and proceeded with the vote which was 7 to 4 in favor of the contract. Ignoring raised hands and muting speakers is a lack of decorum more serious than opposing views spoken in moderate tones. It is time for free speech to reign so our councilors can do their jobs without fear of retribution and effectively represent their constituents’ interests