Lakewood Informer

Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado

Lakewood Informer

Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado

Public speaker at City Council meeting

Dark money donations allowed in Lakewood

New campaign finance rules for Lakewood define non-profits and corporations as people. The change allows large donations without individual disclosures. This is commonly referred to as dark money. The rule change follows 2010 changes at the federal level known as the  Citizens United v FEC decision.

Mayor Pro Tem Jeslin Shahrezaei and Councilor Bill Furman were beneficiaries of this change during the 2025 election. Each received $400 from the Metro Housing Coalition through the Metro Housing Coalition Political Action Committee.

Lakewood’s latest campaign finance rules were approved in December, 2024. City Council Member Jeslin Shahrezaei was the committee chair in charge of overseeing campaign finance updates. She was already a declared candidate for office at that time.

Cathy Kentner filed a campaign finance complaint against then-candidate Jeslin Shahrezaei for receiving contributions from Metro Housing Coalition. The City Clerk determined that her complaint was valid.

The Complaint provides information from the Colorado Secretary of State showing that Metro Housing Coalition (full name: Metro Housing Coalition-a Committee for Constructive Government), is a Nonprofit Corporation. Further, the Complaint correctly notes that the Code’s definition of “corporation” under section 2.54.020 includes non-profit corporations. Finally, the Complaint points out that the Committee reported a $400.00 contribution made by Metro Housing Coalition on September 2, 2025. Thus, the Complaint alleges sufficient facts to support a factual and legal basis for the finding of violations of law as alleged, and the City Clerk hereby deems the Complaint valid, as it pertains to the alleged violation of Code Section 2.54.030(D)(2)(c).
From Lakewood City Clerk complaint determination

Shell game

Lakewood allowed Shahrezaei to cure the complaint, as required by law.

The cure showed that the corporate money came from a Lakewood political committee of the same name. Receiving corporate donations is as easy as setting up a political committee to act as a pass-through.  This extra step is a deterrent for inexperienced candidates, but it is not hard to do.

$400 is the maximum allowed donation for a political committee. No individual names must be disclosed, only the corporation name.

Kentner points out that this is a change in the rules in her public comment, January 26, 2026. “…it has only recently become clear that the new campaign finance rules also allow dark money to flow into City Council campaigns. Prior to last year’s revisions, corporate special interests and dark-money groups were prohibited from contributing to candidate committees. However, the changes adopted by this Council now allow political committees to accept anonymous corporate and dark-money contributions and then funnel those funds to candidates.”

Other donations from political action committees include:

  • REALTOR Candidate Political Action Committee made the maximum contribution to Bill Furman, Jeslin Shahrezaei and Ken Cruz.
  • Rebekah for Colorado PAC also made the maximum contribution to Jeslin Shahrezaei

The dollar amounts of these transactions were not especially impactful. But what they represented was a new way to bring in big money from unnamed individuals.

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