Eye of Sauron now turns to Economic Development

by Somebody Should Do Something

Having lost the special election on the 7^th of April, by an almost 2 to 1 margin (despite having enormous financial backing from the real estate interests – more on that elsewhere), Lakewood’s Eye of Sauron now turns to economic development. Not that Lakewood has been doing anything of the sort.

In case you missed the memo, “In Colorado, an annual salary for a single adult needs to be at least $105,955, using the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. For a family of four, $273,728 is needed annually to live comfortably in Colorado.” Of course, if you look at the economic statistics for Lakewood – not even close an average resident is.

JeffCo, overall seems to barely eek out over that $100,000 mark (which is about $50,000 in 2000 dollars, by the way):

While, one county over:

Leading up to the election, I had a lovely chat with Jeslin Shahrezaei, who always seems to have a retort to anything one might bring up. Apparently, it is selfish of me to keep demanding a train line from Golden to DTC along 470. Since that would only serve me and not the thousands of younger people who could then move to JeffCo (which currently has a demographic time bomb with a lit fuse), while being able to go to better paying opportunities outside of JeffCo. Or that it was my choice to move to the West side of town, while having a job in DTC.

Even though we had originally moved to Lakewood over a decade ago to be closer to my job at the time (and because it was one of the more affordable options for a young family). God forbid one’s situation changes over time. Or that one keeps demanding infrastructure improvements that could benefits tens of thousands of people economically. Of course, Jeslin did bring up the old trope of Terumo BCT, the Federal Center and Saint Anthony’s. To which I replied with an inquiry as to whether those offered a plentiful number of jobs with the salary ranges above. Another cherry to consider is that there is nothing that prevents the federal government from pulling the old worn out plug on the Federal Center.

Not that Lakewood is not in economic free-fall as is. Good thing that the Gang spent the last few years leaning in to economic development (no, they did not – they were too busy with the zoning changes the majority of the city never asked for and other juicy bits to enrich out-of-town real estate interests). But, something is afoot – all of a sudden there are “economic development” things on the agenda. So, curiosity killing this cat, the cat looked: https://lakewoodspeaks.org/items/4856

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