Legal Support and Views of a Petitioner

The following is a letter submitted by Regina Hopkins, a resident advocate for zoning and Belmar Park. She is not listed on the referendum complaint, she is a volunteer supporter along with dozens of others and thousands of signers.

Mayor and City Council,

What the City of Lakewood is doing right now is not governance.
It is deliberate procedural obstruction designed to block citizens from having power over zoning decisions, no matter how hard we work.

We worked exhaustively on our own time, with our own money, blood, sweat, and tears, following all democratic procedural rules so these rezoning decisions could go to the VOTERS, not to you, so you can just strip it away from us again like you did with the Save Open Space Lakewood petition.

I personally got over 1,200 signatures for this latest petition and I did it so that this can go to a vote of the people and have them vote on it; not have you tell us, like children, what’s good for us. What you are doing now is deliberately engineered to make that impossible.

This is not accidental.
This is your typical playbook.
It’s not fair.
It’s not right.
It’s not democratic. It’s bad-faith governance.

And I know that because I lived through it with the Save Open Space Lakewood petition. I saw exactly how the majority vote on council killed that petition procedurally after residents did everything right. I worked my butt off for that petition as well for six months straight, gathering over 2,200 signatures, and I know how most of you on council didn’t want the citizens to have any power, not even a little bit.

In fact, while I and other petitioners were out there using our constitutional rights to fight for a change that our elected representatives were failing at, it got some of you so mad and worried about losing power that you had to go get your buddies at the State level to slip through a late-night senate bill which would directly go against the very protections we citizens were fighting for so that developers ALWAYS get the fee-in-lieu option, no matter what.

And this whole rezoning issue follows the same twisted charade, just repackaged. We ask for crumbs and it’s like you slice our hands off for asking for the smallest things possible. How horrible would it have been to NOT always allow a developer to buy out of parkland dedication?

Apparently, that’s too much for most of you to handle. How dare a developer have to give up ANYTHING. The people, the long-time residents, the mature trees that have no voice, and the “wild”life (if you can even call it that anymore) NEVER EVER get a say in Lakewood.

I see straight through what you are doing, and I am telling people across Lakewood. Residents are waking up to these tactics and organizing against the abuse of process we are seeing.

Here are the facts. Not opinions. Facts.

Timeline of the City’s Obstruction

December 3, 2025
The City requests availability for a protest hearing and provides potential dates of December 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 26, 29, and 30.

December 4, 2025
A co-petitioner notifies the City that his elderly mother requires surgery and that he will not know his availability until December 10. This was ignored.

December 8, 2025 at 4:22 PM
We receive a protest to Petition 3. The City’s timestamp shows it was received at 11:24 AM, yet the co-petitioners were not provided the document until hours later. The protest is 90 pages long.

December 9, 2025
A co-petitioner notifies the City that December 30 is the best available date for the hearing. This was ignored.

December 10, 2025 at 5:39 PM (Wednesday evening)
The City issues a Notice of Hearing for the first three referendums.
• Witness lists due end of day December 12
• All exhibits due end of day December 15

That gives petitioners and attorneys barely two business days to respond to a massive legal protest, and during the busiest week of the year (just before Christmas). You think we all don’t notice how intentionally impossible and unreasonable you are being?

December 11, 2025
The City is formally notified that this schedule is unreasonable and a request is made to move the hearing to December 30. No response from the City Clerk. Ignored.

December 12, 2025
Witness lists are submitted under protest. A formal request is made for the City’s line-by-line validation. No response from the City Clerk. Again.

This is not transparency.
This is not fairness.
This is not due process.

This is a deliberate scheduling and procedural strategy that undermines citizen participation.

You will do everything in your power to make sure these questions never reach the ballot, because the one thing you refuse to give up – under any circumstances – is power and control.

That is not democracy.
That is authoritarianism, dressed up as a municipal process.

And yes, it is indistinguishable from the tactics of the Trump administration—just under a different party label. Different rhetoric. Same contempt for voters.

You are not representing the people.
You are silencing them.

We see straight through this playbook.
We are not falling for it again.

Please move the hearing to December 30.
Stop obstructing the referendum process.
Let the people vote.

Anything less confirms exactly what this timeline already proves, you are not standing with the people, only the ones you want to.

Sincerely,

Regina Hopkins