Lakewood Informer

Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado

Lakewood Informer

Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado

Entrenched Bureaucracy

Council to Make Resident Petitions More Difficult

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Elections, Entrenched Bureaucracy, TransparencyTagged , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Council to Make Resident Petitions More Difficult

City Council is changing petition law, making it harder for residents to take direct democratic action. These changes come after successful citizen petition measures against unpopular City Council laws, such as zoning. The proposal involves many substantive changes, despite city officials saying several times that this was not the case. The overall effect is to make it harder for residents to raise their voice.

City Attorney Alison McKenny Brown says these changes are codifying “current standard practice”. This is somewhat deceptive because “current” practice is different from past practices. Current staff, including the attorney, made new interpretations of law. Therefore, staff have arguably changed the law, leading to the necessity for codifying current standard practice.

Read More

Lakewood Shifts Blame to RecoveryWorks

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Entrenched Bureaucracy, Homeless, TransparencyTagged , , , , , ,

Lakewood blamed RecoveryWorks for previous problems at the city homeless shelter. Shifting the blame made it easier to get a  Special Use Permit for the shelter on June 3, 2026. Instead of taking responsibility for the problems they created, city staff said crime and people overflow were caused by RecoveryWorks. RecoveryWorks was managing the property as Lakewood’s handpicked, sole-sourced contractor.

The special use permit was approved, which allows Lakewood to continue shelter use with a new operator. Most of the online comments were in favor of granting the permit. However, Lakewood had three misinformation narratives throughout the permit hearing that show they are not acting in good faith:

Shifting the blame
Dismissing crime rates
Claiming no permit was needed

Read More

City Staff Pull Wildfire Code Recommendation Following Resident Feedback

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Crime, Entrenched Bureaucracy, TransparencyTagged , , , , , , , , ,

Lakewood proposed, then later retracted, the adoption of a new wildfire resiliency code. Lakewood said the new code was needed to satisfy Colorado Senate Bill 23-166 but the staff memo suggested adopting much more extreme measures than required. The broad impact and high cost led to opposition from the community, which is detailed below. City staff are now developing a new recommendation that will be brought forward when ready, to replace the proposal that was pulled.

Read More

Inability to Rebuild Single-Family Home Shows Lakewood Prioritizes Density Over All

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Development, Entrenched Bureaucracy, TransparencyTagged , , , , , , ,

When a Lakewood resident bought a burned-out single-family house to rehabilitate it, he had no idea Lakewood would say no. The house had been vacant and neglected, allowing homeless to move in and cause a fire. The result is an unusable, dangerous eyesore. But those considerations were not as important to Lakewood as changing the property to high-density.

Read More

Additional Federal Supremacy on 5G

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Entrenched BureaucracyTagged , , , , ,

Lakewood residents mounted fierce opposition against the spread of 5G towers in Lakewood in July 2020. City Council at the time debated possibilities for hours. 5G remained an issue in the 2021 city election because of the high level of resident dissatisfaction. Residents cited concerns over health effects but Lakewood city officials said the law prohibits cell phone towers to be blocked on that basis. Now, residents who were involved in 2020 may be interested in new federal regulations that seek to expand prohibition powers.

It turns out those residents may be right to be concerned about health risks. According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal health officials quietly removed longstanding U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) webpages asserting that cellphone radiation poses no health risk.

Read More

Lakewood Withheld Financial Information While Spending on Controversial Projects

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Budget, Entrenched Bureaucracy, TransparencyTagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

On September 8, 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against Lakewood in an important court case against Metro PCS. As a result, Lakewood now owes around $42 million in tax refunds to Metro PCS and other cell phone carriers.  That was big news, but what happened after the court decision is just as important.

Lakewood withheld the financial ramifications of the Metro PCS court decision during crucial budget planning. Although Lakewood didn’t know the total amount involved, the staff was aware that they would have to refund millions of dollars to the cell phone companies. Yet there was no public presentation of possible impacts during the crucial September and October budgeting months.  Instead, Lakewood spent millions on controversial projects as soon as they could. Millions that could have gone toward the mandated refund. 

Read More

Aguilar: City reckons with ruling, faces $42M fiscal hole

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Budget, Entrenched Bureaucracy, TransparencyTagged , , , , ,

Repost from John Aguilar, Denver Post
Lakewood is about face a costly reckoning with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights — to the tune of more than $42 million.

That’s the amount the state’s fifth-largest city has calculated it owes to dozens of cell phone carriers and telecommunications companies it wrongfully taxed for years. The bill is now coming due after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last year that the city had violated TABOR, a state constitutional amendment, by levying a business and occupation tax without first obtaining voter approval.

Read More

Referendum Petitions Continue Despite Hurdles

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Development, Elections, Entrenched Bureaucracy, TransparencyTagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are several updates to the zoning referendum, including sufficiency, new legal challenges and the city staff writing new campaign finance law.

Zoning petition #3 has passed the count for initial sufficiency. Petition #3 was to repeal Ordinance O-2025-29, replacing Article 3 of the zoning code concerning a lot of single-family zoning provisions. Petition #3 will join 1 and 2 in waiting for final approval before going to City Council.

Zoning Petition #4 has been submitted to Lakewood. That completes the signature gathering process to repeal all parts of the newly passed zoning code.

There are rumors that all petition signatures have been challenged and will require a new hearing and costly legal defense. Details pending.

Campaign Finance Challenge

Read More

Jeffco Schools Wants a Mill Levy Increase

By Lakewood News from KarenPosted on Posted in Budget, Entrenched Bureaucracy, JeffcoTagged , , , , , ,

Recent meetings from the Jeffco School Board Partnership for Fiscal Sustainability discussed raising the mill levy and how to market that decision to residents. This demonstrates yet another government body shaping propaganda to support a future ballot measure. Jeffco Schools, like Lakewood and Jefferson County, hired a consultant to help with a mill levy question. At this point, a community survey has asked about revenue generation. Budget presentations show data about raising the levy. Budget reductions are discussed as a part of the solution.

The point of these meetings was to “prepare and involve the community to support future revenue generation,” as seen in the slide below. This is using district resources to get resident support in what will likely be a ballot question on the mill levy. School communications are also a tool to discuss any upcoming cuts or revenue changes.

Read More
Scroll to top