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:

• affordable housing
• homelessness
• sustainability/resilience/climate change
• public safety
• economic stability
• parks and development (in part, distressed and abandoned properties)

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:

1. addressing homelessness emergency response;
2. developing innovative solutions to workforce home ownership;
3. taking a proactive approach to distressed properties;
4. addressing the Safe Lots ordinance change;
5. addressing rental housing options; and
6. developing additional dog parks.

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:

• I prefer to be called Rich
• My first paying job, when I was 14 and I was from dairy country so I got a job on a dairy farm. One of the things I had to do was curry the cows. If you aren’t familiar that’s like cleaning them. Basically they poop and lay down in it and it’s all over their backsides. Someone has to clean that off. So anyway that was not the best job in the world to start with. But I’d have to go with, this one’s worse.
• I wanted to come in and talk to parks department and talk to them about future dog parks. And I did do that when I was a candidate. And that was allowed. But when I tried to do that as a Councilor, well the first time I just got blown off, and the next time I met with the City Manager I said “I think you are just blowing me off here” and the response was, “well we don’t want councilors coming in and talking to staff at staff meetings when they are discussing real issues”.
• I believe it’s the city department heads that are actually setting policy.
• What really happened [at the annual retreat] was that they went with big umbrella ideas [sustainability]. Then [city staff] can say they did the check box and say they are doing [Lakewood City] council’s priorities right now. It didn’t matter what we had said, they were already going to be able to check that box. And so we really didn’t have much influence over what was going to happen this year. We had some, a little bit. But the reality is that the priorities are set by the department heads and whoever sets the projects that people are going to work on. 
• I totally came into this thinking that I would be joining a team. And boy I was wrong about that. Although staff itself might be a team. Council itself is not part of a team.

• One of the reasons that they kept it to two people, was to keep it secret.
• Because they talk about, “It’s a personnel thing. We can’t have people saying bad things about the City Manager, because that’s defamation and she can sue us.”
• So they decided instead of  keeping things out in public, to hide everything and that meant to hide everything you only have two people and on the other hand this is the most important thing we do we need more people, we need at least six, but then you can’t have six because then you’d have to publish and let in anyone that wants to go. It’s a bit of a system that’s broken.
• The org chart starts with citizens, then Council, then the City Manager and then it branches out to everybody. Well that’s what the org chart shows but the reality is that citizens are over here and the City Manager is [off to the side] with branching off from her.
• We were supposed to go into this executive session for an hour, see the document and come up with any ideas to change it. Talk about a last minute thing. We needed to see it ahead of time to say this is a good idea.

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):

• City of Lakewood is a bedroom community that should involve more Councilors and better planning so in places like Rooney Valley so we don’t have a home desert with no commercial services.
• Denver Federal Center sale has not closed. The buyers asked for two extensions and is not looking to close at the end of January.

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

On December 19, there was a special meeting for the sole purpose of discussing a resolution to amend the City Manager’s Employment Agreement.

At issue is re-incentivizing the contract, which was first discussed in executive session in May 2022.

Kathy Hodgson has been the city manager for 13 years. City survey data from before her start and now is an easy way to see how we the people view the city and thus our city manager.

From the executive summary, the city survey reports that “Lakewood residents enjoy a good quality of life” and “concerns about safety have increased over time.”

Looking closer, we see those statements are true; 84% of survey respondents rated Lakewood good to very good in “overall quality of life”. In that respect, the City Manager could be said to be doing a good to very good job.

Unremarked upon was the fact that the statistic down from 90% in 2008. In fact, most categories dealing with quality of life in Lakewood are down. In fact, only one goes up, and that’s not for the city, it’s quality of neighborhoods. So from most standpoints, quality of life in Lakewood is going down.

There is data on the quality of city services going back to 2013. At that time, 65% of respondents rated the services as good or pretty good. In 2022, that was down to 50%. That is a 15% drop in overall satisfaction.

From this brief data capture, we can see that the city survey shows declining satisfaction with Lakewood, and thus with the city manager. We also see that the survey emphasizes the “good” rating more than the declining amount of those ratings.

Pointing out favorable statistics is part of the nature of statistics. In this case, it may be part of a policy trend to focus on what the manager wants, rather than what residents are asking for. For example, crime and safety were the #1 issue of concern for survey respondents but city council spends much more time on the #3 issue – affordable housing.

Lakewood residents cannot see the material reasons City Council is considering a new incentive plan for the City Manager. A bonus was already awarded this year in August.

Guest post from Lenore Herskovitz

In the August 2022 edition of Looking @ Lakewood Mayor Adam Paul commented on public input stating:” We offer many opportunities for you to engage and make your voice heard. Your participation, feedback, and ideas are critical”. While the opportunities may exist for volunteering or submitting information either in person or through Lakewoodspeaks, etc. the results of these efforts are usually ignored.

In June 2017, as the citizens’ initiative regarding strategic growth was becoming a reality, our city manager began an all out campaign to try to prevent it from moving forward. Emails obtained through CORA indicate that she directed staff to craft talking points against the initiative. She also worked with the Mayor on adhering to scripted messaging. Keep in mind, this initiative began because the people were concerned about the direction the City was taking regarding growth. For two years, lawsuits prevented the issue from going to the ballot box. Over $300,000 was raised to fight the citizen’s initiative, but the voters spoke at the polls in July 2019 passing the SGI. Our city officials who proclaim they value public input, have spent the past few years doing everything in their power to circumvent that voter approved initiative.

If public participation is so highly valued, why disband effective interactive programs such as the development dialogues. These meetings successfully addressed and offered solutions to various problems including housing, parking, etc. They provided a setting that allowed community members to interact with city staff and councilors. Questions were raised and responded to in the moment. I suspect that most of the councilors who voted to end these productive meetings had never attended one. Now the Housing Policy Commission will take on these challenges. This group has spent the past few years working on a short-term rental policy with no definitive results to date.

Neither transparency nor public attendance was a priority when scheduling the Annual Planning Retreat last February. It was the only meeting since the beginning of the pandemic that was designated as an “in-person only” event. All other meetings both before and after this offered “virtual” or “hybrid” options. This very important meeting that set City Council priorities for the rest of the year didn’t even offer an “audio” recorded component. I was one of four members of the public who attended. When one observer went to get a cup of coffee from the refreshment table, the Deputy City Manager informed her she couldn’t have any because it was for participants only. Not exactly a welcoming message.

When our city officials encourage citizen input, it makes a lovely sound bite but nothing more. If you have ever addressed City Council either in person or by phone you recognize it as a frustrating experience. There is rarely any feedback for your efforts and you often wonder if anyone is paying attention. Prior to council meetings, all our representatives are supposed to read comments on Lakewoodspeaks but it is unusual for that to occur.

The council is supposed to be a non-partisan body, but too often that is not the reality. Those council members who are independent thinkers are encouraged to be “team players” and not make waves. The Mayor consistently speaks of “decorum” yet he often fails to follow these guidelines regarding his own behavior. Changes need to be made. For the people’s voices to be heard, we need to demand that our elected representatives be strong and stand up for their constituents’ priorities rather than allow the staff led by the city manager to direct policy. It can be done. Just this past week, the City Council voted unanimously to deny a “blight” designation defying the staff recommendation. This does provide a glimmer of hope moving forward.