HB23-1255 Lakewood’s Response to the State’s Attempt to Overturn Our Strategic Growth Initiative

By Lenore Herskovitz

Update July 16, 2023:

In the last paragraph of my article on HB 23-1255 I commented that Lakewood was M.I.A. in media coverage. A newly discovered article from CBS reporter Alan Gionet that was first published on April 11, 2023 does include a statement from Mayor Adam Paul. It is interesting to note that the Mayor comments that”…the City Council Legislative Committee voted to oppose this bill….” In actuality, this committee didn’t vote on this bill until April 24, 2023. Apologies for not finding this article sooner. On July 17, 2023 there will be a Lakewood City Council Executive Session to discuss the legal issues arising from the passage of HB 23-1255 that may overturn the voters’ passage of the Strategic Growth Initiative in July, 2019.

On June 7, 2023 Governor Polis signed HB23-1255 into law. This bill, when it takes effect in August, 2023, may repeal Lakewood’s Strategic Growth Initiative (SGI). Boulder, Golden and the rarely mentioned Pitkin County are also affected by this legislation. Moving forward, Colorado cities and counties will be prohibited from imposing population and residential growth limits. A precedent will be set permitting our state government to override the vote of the people. Colorado Municipal League (CML), a non-profit, non- partisan organization that represents the interests of 97% of the cities and towns in the state said it best in their April 7, 2023 newsletter:

“SB23-213 and HB23-1255 reflect a desire to disempower municipal voters from exercising their initiative and referendum rights. The bills would replace local voters’ choices with the policy preferences of the General Assembly.” (See pg 6 of the CML newsletter).

It should be noted that SB23-213 was defeated. However, it is very frustrating to watch the demise of the Strategic Growth Initiative which originated as a grassroots effort and survived lengthy and costly legal battles before even making it to the ballot box where it was victorious. This was never a growth cap ordinance. It was only portrayed as such by the those who wanted to defeat it and even renamed it as the Residential Growth Limitation Ordinance. In actuality, the SGI presented a strategic housing allocation plan to better meet the needs of the community while exempting “blighted” and affordable units from any restrictions.

HB23-1255 was first introduced in the House on March 24, 2023. Lakewood’s Legislative Committee addressed the bill on April 24, 2023 after it had passed the third reading in the House (no link on city website to this meeting but the video was received through an open records request). This committee consists of one councilor from each ward (Jeslin Shahrezaei, Sharon Vincent, Rebekah Stewart, Rich Olver, and Mary Janssen) with Councilor Stewart as chair and Ben Goldstein, the Deputy City Manager as staff liaison/advisor. Although this bill holds great significance for our community, the committee spent less than 10 minutes discussing it before voting unanimously to take a “strong” oppose position (Councilor Shahrezaei was absent). The video of this meeting may be the only available evidence of the city’s stance on this bill. But what exactly does a “strong” oppose vs. just an “oppose” mean? Towards the end of the April 10, 2023 legislative meaning, Mr. Goldstein explained that without a “strong” position the staff would not actively work the bill. They would not write it up and no one would be sent to the state house to testify. (see Apr 10 video clip of the discussion of different positions)

So now the legislative committee gave staff the direction for a strong oppose position.

In contrast, the CML’s position was “oppose unless amended”. Lakewood often takes the same position as CML, relying on CML to lobby for Lakewood at the same time it lobbies for its own position. So what did the individual committee members think would happen next, now that the committee took a strong position and also one that is different from CML? Their responses to this question varied. Councilor Vincent felt: “When it is a strong oppose or support there is someone assigned to speak on behalf of the city on the position that we took.” Vincent is the most experienced Councilor on the committee. 

Councilor Olver stated: “This year it seems if we strongly oppose or support then we send someone, otherwise we don’t”.  Councilor Janssen wrote: “Since I have been on the legislative committee I was told and understood that if this committee has a strong support or a strong oppose, Lakewood staff (not sure who that is) would go or write a paper to lobby the state legislators. CML could have the same stance but I did not think that they lobby for each municipality. This is my understanding.”

These 3 council members have similar expectations moving forward.

The website titled FastDemocracy.com tracks bills and provides a list of the lobbyists working specific legislation. For HB23-1255 well over 200 organizations, cities and counties are represented with no mention of Lakewood. Councilor Stewart is the Lakewood delegate to the CML Policy Committee. She explains:

“I believe that the reason our city is missing from the lobby list is that we do not retain a registered lobbyist and so no one would be registered as a representative of the city on bills we had taken a position on. We use staff and typically the mayor or the chair of the legislative committee depending on the bill to testify if and when there are opportunities, and we all draft position papers and send them to our state delegations as well as working strategically with CML. I know we did pretty much all those things on bills that we took strong positions on this session, but I will gather further clarification to ensure everything I am telling you is accurate”.

A later communication added “we don’t always have time to write up a white paper because things move so fast.”

In a follow-up email she stated: “The collaboration with CML is key because they have the full-time lobbyists and our membership as a city essentially is how we pay for lobbying vs. retaining our own lobbyist.”

Councilor Shahrezaei reinforces the importance of CML: “Action taken by staff is to communicate with CML, the lobbyists we pay at the City of Lakewood. Staff will collaborate and support as needed with CML staff to communicate with our elected representatives and also support with white paper production.” A follow-up question: Does Lakewood employ CML to be our lobbyist? Response: “Not employ. Contracts as other municipalities do.”

Additional question: Are you saying we contract with CML to be our lobbyist for our specific positions? Clarifying answer from Shahrezaei:

“I am saying we don’t employ CML. As members we expect them to support our positions on issues. I misrepresented that with the use of “contract”. That is part of the membership package. When we moved to strong oppose it is my understanding we would update them and then work with CML staff to understand best strategies to reinforce that position…”

After a lengthy phone conversation with Mr. Goldstein, he sent the following email: “Thank you for our conversation this afternoon. As we discussed, after the City Council Legislative Committee took a strong oppose position on HB23-1255, staff began actively working the bill. The city utilizes targeted strategy to advocate a strong oppose position working closely with the Colorado Municipal League (CML) to identify amendments that Lakewood needs to ensure the bill wasn’t passed. Though the ultimate goal was to have the bill fail in its entirety, staff worked with CML on an amendment that would, at a minimum, have removed Lakewood from the bill.
That said, a similar legislative strategy was utilized with SB23-213 with great success. Understand the inner workings of the legislature and the politics behind individual bill can be challenging but once direction is given by the Legislative Committee, staff works diligently on each and every bill by utilizing a specific strategy tailored to that bill.”

A copy of this amendment was requested but the city responded it was not available. In any case, any amendment would have aided CMLs “oppose unless amended” position, not Lakewood’s “strong oppose” position.

When reviewing the statements from all the committee members, it is interesting to note the divide between those councilors who placed the emphasis on staff to take action and those who placed greater reliance on the role of CML.

Pitkin County would also be directly affected by HB23-1255 but unlike Lakewood they were able to successfully testify and have their similar ordinance exempted. An “Aspen” amendment was added to the final bill that “would still allow a governmental entity to regulate growth so long as that regulation enforces affordability requirements. Inclusionary zoning or impact fees are potential real-life examples of this amendment.” (Aspen Times article dated May 8, 2023).

Although we are the fifth largest city in the state and the third largest in the metro area, we did not hire our own lobbyist as did much smaller communities such as Trinidad, Fountain, Firestone and Monument (all CML members like us). Because HB23-1255 directly targeted our voter approved ordinance our voice needed to be stronger and louder. There is no documentation of any testimony by Lakewood staff whether written or verbal. Golden submitted a written statement and several Lakewood residents called into the hearings on the bill. (See House and Senate testimony). In newspaper articles and media coverage Lakewood is again M.I.A. Perhaps our city did more than collaborate with CML on a failed amendment, but the proof is lacking. Any evidence of staff advocacy would have been welcomed. If Lakewood was relying on back-room dealings rather than public statements, their efforts will remain unknown. Shouldn’t we have used every tactic available to fight this bill? Would a more eclectic strategy have succeeded? We’ll never know. The bill passed the Senate on May 4, 2023.

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