Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado
Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado
Council Beholden to Housing Special Interests
*Oct 12, 2025 Corrections available here
Lakewood City Council may be beholden to housing special interests for their place on council. Overall campaign contributions to sitting Lakewood City Council are about 38% from local residents, and 62% from non-resident or special interest donations. This raises the question of whether these special interest obligations are influencing local Lakewood zoning decisions. The National Association of Realtors is the biggest named contributor with the Metro Housing Coalition being the second largest.
Note these numbers do not reflect current campaigns.
Councilors Sophia Mayott-Guerrero and Jeslin Shahrezaei did not receive any local resident donations.
ZERO
Mayott-Guerrero’s candidate campaign totaled less than $400 in donations, all from outside Lakewood.
Shahrezaei benefited from over $32,000 from the National Association of REALTORS Fund and the Metro Housing Coalition combined. The campaign filing report for the National Association of REALTORS Fund does NOT show ANY contributions to Friends of Jeslin, or Friends of Rebekah, a former Council Member who also received the same amounts. Therefore, there is no way to find the source of funds given to the Friends of Jeslin, even though donations and expenditures are supposed to be documented. Almost all of REALTORS Fund committee filings shows ZERO donations or expenditures.
The reports for the Metro Housing Coalition are available and show a variety of contributors. However, there is a $14,200 discrepancy between the amount the Coalition reported and the amount the Lakewood committees reported.
Councilors Ken Cruz and Bill Furman benefited from $9,800 donations supporting both their elections at the same time. That funding came from Brighter Futures Lakewood. Brighter Futures Lakewood received money from the state committee, Brighter Futures Colorado. According to the campaign finance reports, Brighter Futures Colorado received money from the same housing interests that supported Mayott-Guerrero and Shahrezaei: the National Association of REALTORS Fund and the Metro Housing Coalition.
Brighter Futures Colorado also received a donation from Kairoi. Kairoi is the developer of Belmar Park-adjacent property that residents vigorously opposed. So Ken Cruz and Bill Furman benefited through this developer contribution.
Although not as high of percentage, Mayor Strom also benefited from dark money contributions. Her mayoral campaign was supported by $10,000 from One Main Street Lakewood, who got money from One Main Street Colorado. According to the Colorado Secretary of State, One Main Street Colorado made no such contributions to the Lakewood chapter during that time frame. There are no contribution details in the months previously either.
Just like the filing above for the realtor fund, there’s a lot of zeros filed but money is indeed changing hands.
Majority Outside Interest Funding
Six out of eleven Council Members received over 50% of their donations from outside of Lakewood or from special interest campaigns: Jeslin Shahrezaei, Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Isabel Cruz, Ken Cruz, Roger Low, Bill Furman. Isabel Cruz and Roger Low did not have a special interest independent expenditure committee supporting them. Their numbers reflect donations from outside Lakewood only.
It is easy to understand why Lakewood residents feel like the majority of Council are out of touch with what residents really want. Receiving so much money from non-Lakewood residents or from dark money, special interest groups that focus on housing shows who these Council Members are really interested in serving. From the donations given that appears to be people from out of town.
Majority Inside Lakewood Funding
Three Members received over 50% of their donations from Lakewood residents, with Paula Nystrom receiving 100% from residents.
*Information for Wendi Strom corrected here
*Two Councilors did not have registered campaign committees: David Rein and Jacob LaBure. These campaigns would be self-funded. *
Correction 12 Oct, 2025, The above statement is FALSE – I have been corrected. New campaign finance records are coming soon!