Lakewood is Laughing At Us

The May 7th Planning Commission meeting was a travesty of a public hearing. Lakewood cared enough to give residents an outlet for their grievances. No one cared enough to enact a single change. And sometimes they outright laughed at us.

Watch the video below from the end of public comment, starting at min 2:58:25. One resident got up and publicly read an article from the Lakewood Informer. Watch the city staffer seated in the background unsuccessfully hiding her laughter during this reading. All of which was proved to be true. All of which city staff ignored and the entire Planning Commission dismissed — just like so many other valid resident points.

The meeting started with Lakewood Chief of Sustainability and Community Developer Travis Parker explaining that he didn’t think this meeting wouldn’t change anything. He said that there were “pretty significant misunderstandings” of what staff could do. He said that “attacks on staff for being, you know, incompetent or malfeasant or acting in bad faith, demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the good and hard work that’s done by people that are experts.”

No one doubts city staff work hard. They all deserve thanks. But we also can’t assume they are always right and the residents are wrong about everything. We can’t assume that there is no other way to evaluate base assumptions. But that’s exactly what the Planning Commission decided to do.

Ironically, one of the main points of the Belmar Park battle was about cutting down all the trees that could have formed an expanded buffer. Mr Parker himself has been educating residents on new zoning codes from Lakewood that will not increase the setbacks to what they were pre-2012, but will now require RESIDENTS to get a permit to cut down their trees.

So the meeting was a pretty show that started and ended with all the well-researched points the residents brought forward being dismissed. Sadly, the best thing to be said is that being dismissed was more respectful than being laughed at.

Required Grading Permit – Evidence not reported by city staff

The permit pictured above is from Lakewood’s eTRAKit system, showing the grading permit that was applied for and received within one day of the complaint, just as reported by Steve at savebelmarpark.com

The permit below is for demolition, which was applied for a month earlier. No malicious intent was implied and the problem was quickly corrected. Thanks to residents who apparently know less than city staff.

Grading permit requirements below

Actual permit that must be displayed before construction: