New information shows that Lakewood has been planning on purchasing Emory Elementary, in partnership with the Action Center, since at least September 2023 as part of a homeless strategy.

In December of 2023, Lakewood City Manager Cathy Hodgson stated that Lakewood would be working with the Jeffco Action Center to move the Center into a closed public school so that Lakewood would have another building for their solution to homelessness. There was a strong, negative public reaction to this news, which only increased when Lakewood started talking about welcoming migrants. In reaction to the public backlash, the city cried “misinformation”, and both Hodgson and Mayor Strom stated that Lakewood has no direct control over the schools.

However, Hodgson did not explicitly deny that Lakewood has been working with the Action Center and Jeffco schools to move homeless services into a closed neighborhood school and increase housing for homeless.  Instead, the manager or council called it “misinformation” in the news headlines, a statement solely aimed at migrant support (this claim was later also negated by discussions that homeless is homeless and Lakewood would support everyone possible.)

Recently a local effort called Concerned Citizens in Lakewood, [email protected], submitted a CORA Request (Colorado Open Records Access request) which revealed planning meetings with the City of Lakewood, JeffCo Public Schools, and the JeffCo Action Center related to Emory Elementary School and a real estate transaction.

These planning meetings have been going on since at least September 2023.

According to emails, Lakewood’s City Manager Hodgson hosted an organizational meeting between Lakewood, the Action Center Executive Director Pam Brier and Jeff Gaitlin, Jefferson County School’s Chief Operating Officer. The email pictured below reveals that Lakewood and Jeffco Schools have held behind-the-scenes planning meetings for this school, while officials from both governments denied or stayed silent regarding any knowledge of future plans. The email appears to indicate that the purpose of this meeting was to define next steps on the partnership to buy Emory Elementary.

Not only do the emails show the partnership being formed months ago, they show the plans were detailed enough to involve future meetings with real estate agents and school board attorneys. Notable in this email was that commercial real estate agents may not be needed. This was not the public process with ample notice the school board advertised.

Gaitlin, from Jeffco Schools, said in February that Lakewood was in the early stages of using the municipal option. The municipal option seems to have come into being just for Lakewood, since it was unveiled just after Hodgson announced the plans for the school.

Using the municipal option, no community involvement is necessary, and the city could get the property at a discount. There is no municipal option for a non-profit and there is no information on how the Action Center could afford to buy the property directly, although recent evidence shows there is ample money in grants from the state to provide housing.

Officials from all organizations have had months to tell the public that these plans were being formed and to explain the public good they expected to achieve. Instead, they chose silence and a “misinformation” campaign.

There has been no public disclosure of what the city and or the Action Center plans to do with the building, should the deal go through.

There has been no public disclosure of any possible agreements Lakewood has with the Action Center in order to use the municipal option for the benefit of the non-profit.

City Councilor Rich Olver explained in one Council meeting that he was told that Lakewood just wanted the use of the ballparks, they were not interested in the school building. He stated that by talking to city staff he believed Lakewood had no intention of buying Emory Elementary building.

This statement, unfortunately, does not seem to be accurate or else Lakewood would not have to be involved with a meeting between Jeffco Schools and the Action Center, let alone hosting such a meeting. So even sitting City Council Members are not getting the whole story from the City Manager.

Paying close attention to wording, all parties could be honestly portraying the information they want to portray:

1. Lakewood has no interest in the Emory Elementary building – but the Action Center does
2. Lakewood has no direct control over the school – unless they buy it
3. There is a public input period in the school disposal process – unless the municipal option is taken
4. Plans are not definite – but they are far enough along that at this point, trying to stop it is difficult since minds have been made up for months
5. Lakewood will not be housing people in the school – no, at that point it would be the Action Center, if they so choose. At the minimum they would continue with homeless services.

The Action Center has not replied to several requests for comment. Lakewood and Jeffco schools have gone out of their way to not talk about their plans when the opportunity arose.

When will residents know what is going on with their taxpayer-funded infrastructure?

As of April 11, the School Board voted to dispose of two more Lakewood elementary schools: Glennon Heights Elementary & Vivian Elementary.  To receive JeffCo Public Schools updates on these and other school properties sign up on Jeffco’s Property Disposition Work: Community Distribution List & Jeffco Public Schools: Property Disposition Community Voice Form