Emory Sold Amidst School Board Misinformation

Jeffco Schools unanimously voted to sell Emory with barely a stall in the consent agenda on November 13, 2025. Statements made at that time and also at the November 5 study session indicate that Jeffco School Board and staff were heavily influenced by one-sided propaganda. No other ideas were considered and the propaganda was passed along without fully informing the public.

Financial concerns were dismissed. None of the many misunderstandings that the Board and public had about the deal were corrected. Since 2022 the deal was engineered, and only favorable facts were presented. The result was predetermined: the Action Center is a multi-million-dollar beneficiary of public dollars.

Just before the School Board vote, Lakewood City Council released a self-congratulatory press statement for basically acting as a real estate representative for the Action Center. This would be a good thing if Lakewood City Council was elected to the Action Center Board rather than Lakewood as a whole. But they are not.

Action Center Benefits A Red Herring

Proponents of the sale justify every action because the Action Center serves a public need.

The good works of the nonprofit are irrelevant.  Joy’s Kitchen is a similar nonprofit in Lakewood that is now closing due to lack of support. How did Lakewood choose to support one nonprofit over another, to the tune of millions of public dollars?

Accusing residents of being uncompassionate or not supporting whatever “public good” is the flavor of the day is a common ploy in politics to put residents on the defensive.  Members of the public all felt obliged to defend their belief in the Action Center, at which point city and school officials felt justified in their actions and discussion ended.

The amount of public good the Action Center provided is only relevant if there was a competitive process.

However, as Lenore Herskovitz emphasized during public comment, Jeffco was not selling to the Action Center. They were selling to Lakewood in a direct, non-competitive process reserved for municipalities.

Using this process for the Action Center undercut the competitive bidding process so that Jeffco could sell the school at a loss, all while Board Members deny that they could have gained any more money from the deal.

Transparent But Opaque

School Board Members, as well as Lakewood City Council, maintained that the sale was a transparent process. That statement was followed by contradictory, ambiguous discussion that was not transparent. For example,

• Residents don’t need to know how much unrealized gain the district lost because numbers are approximate.
• Residents don’t need to know how the Action Center served a school function because general community benefit was a personal value of the board.
• Residents don’t need to know what Lakewood will really do with fields – which are not under a restrictive covenant which means housing is a possibility.

Losing Money

The biggest consequence for all Jefferson County residents is that this sale lost potential profits – a fact the school district acknowledged in the sale covenants, as well as previous Lakewood discussions.

School officials say the district did not lose money by presenting misleading alternative information.

Board Member Danielle Varda pointed out that funds from the Emory sale will affect the capital fund, not the operating fund. However, that was only part of the story. Member Michelle Applegate supplied a bigger picture, explaining how the operating fund supplies the capital fund. So the money from the sale will help both funds.

That’s basic. More money = more money.

Applegate also had only half the story. She approved the sale thinking that profits were limited based on the need to rezone. Lakewood already took care of zoning, especially for this deal.

Parents and students attended the November 13 meeting pleading to save programs from budget cuts. One representative from the Golden Softball Association said she heard from school administration that $2 million worth of cuts to the athletic department are being contemplated.

If the Emory building was sold at the assessed value of $10 million, rather than a discounted $4 million, that extra $6 million may have saved 3 years of athletic operations.

Note: The Golden Softball Association has since released a statement that their program will not be cut.

School Board Redefines Their Public

School Board officials justified the sale at a loss in order to serve the community.

What “community” is the Jefferson County Schools supposed to serve?

Board Members are willing to lose money to benefit a redefined set of the public. Not to benefit the school children. To benefit Action Center customers, people experiencing hardship.

These two sets of people may overlap, but they are not the same. In business circles this is known as mission creep.

Jeffco Schools serve the public good through students’ education. The Board could not justify operating Emory at a loss in order to benefit educating neighborhood families. Therefore, they closed the school to raise funds for the district, or so they claimed at the time.

There are many ways to lose money but if serving the public good was the main goal, rather than raising money, Emory would still be operating today.

Not a Public Entity

This sale was an obvious shell-game. Every party knew the end-beneficiary was the Action Center, which is a private entity, not a public one.

Board Member Danielle Varda said “the transfer of property amongst public dollars to me makes a lot of sense, more so than selling it to developers, to private sector. So, I felt like that was a responsible way for us to think about our public dollars.”

There was no transfer of public dollars. There was transfer through a public entity, Lakewood, to bypass an open bidding process and benefit a single private entity.

Schools Acknowledges Under Market Value Sale

Public statements and school documents show two different talking points. One is that Jeffco didn’t really lose money but the other is that any money lost was for the public good. Which is it?

• Discussion at the November 5 School Board meeting emphasized that Emory was sold for the best possible price
• Sale documents show that the school district requires the owner to make up the difference in “fair market value” if plans changed in the future, indicating this sale wasn’t for fair market value
• Jeffco Schools Chief Operating Officer Jeff Gatlin said that “community benefit has value that needs to be considered.”

The “key takeaways” from the  November 5 meeting was that Jeffco got the best deal for Emory possible because of problems with everything from zoning to appraisals.

Losing or giving up money was never directly mentioned. However, the necessity to recoup “fair market value” was a stipulation written into the property covenant. This shows that the school knows they are selling it at a loss, in exchange for the public benefit.

Board Member Erin Kenworthy says maintaining community benefit was a value from the beginning. She did not say that maximizing revenue was also a value from the beginning.

Ignoring the need to maximize revenue when that was the reason for school closure is rewriting the narrative. Also known as misinformation.

Housing on Emory

Public comment by Karen Gordey showed that there was a discrepancy between the deed restriction passed by the City of Lakewood and that passed by Jeffco Schools. The restriction per the school board documents say there will be no housing. The city says only that there will be no sheltering. That difference has been noted in previous reporting.

The Jeffco paperwork also says the vacant fields will be used for sports fields, although Lakewood has made no such commitment. Former Lakewood City Councilor and attorney Anita Springsteen asked Travis Parker what Lakewood was planning for that land. Springsteen reports that Parker said Lakewood was keeping its options open.

Not Transparent

The Jeffco School Board bragged about the transparency of this deal but in fact, the school board did not hold any other public meetings for Emory. Jeffco relied on Lakewood and Lakewood relied on the Action Center. Meanwhile, the Action Center did not have to discuss public accountability measures and could focus on good works and future goals.

• Jeffco ignored the Jeffco Schools constituency.
• Jeffco COO Gatlin said he discussed the sale with the school disposition committee. However, there were no public meetings of the disposition committee on this issue. 

No PUBLIC meeting = private meetings = not transparent

During one public Action Center meeting, Anita Springsteen asked who they worked with to complete the deal.

• Action Center employees refused to name names. One repeated response was, “why does it matter?”
• When Springsteen asked Lakewood staff who they worked with during a related court trial, staff couldn’t remember.
• Later, on November 5, 2025, Lakewood City Manager Kathy Hodgson presented the history of this deal, dating back to the start of Superintendent Tracy Dorland tenure at Jeffco, in 2022.

Deal Lost Public Money to Benefit Private Entity

Jeffco schools still have not disclosed many details or answered many questions about the deal. There was no need. There was a second shell game involving public questions going through a private entity, which had no obligation to answer.

No one seemed to have any doubt that this decision was predetermined– Action Center Director Pam Brier thanked the School Board for their vote before it was taken.