Lakewood Informer

Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado

Lakewood Informer

Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado

LAKEWOOD INFORMER

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Brighter Futures Lakewood IEC

Brighter Futures Lakewood IEC

March 24, 2025/

Brighter Futures Lakewood is an Independent Expenditure Committee (IEC) registered in Lakewood to advocate for Ken Cruz and Bill Furman for Lakewood City Council. According to committee reports, the IEC registered March 11, just two weeks before the election. See their website at https://brightcoloradofutures.com/ Brighter Futures filed two special reports for expenditures over $500. Both expenditures were for Google ads, totaling $8,000. Smaller contributions and expenditures would be reported on the regular report, which was due Friday, for spending 2/22-3/15. That report has an incorrect link that has been reported to the city and should be corrected 3/24 for transparency. The incorrect link was noted on nextdoor.com by Natalie Menten, who points out “IECs are used to reduce transparency and create layers in campaign finance. Also, used to exceed the limited campaign $$ donation rules dictating how much a candidate can take directly. With 48-hours left before the ballot boxes close, there could be some larger spending coming up.” Additionally, Ken Cruz has raised about $10,000 so far and Bill Furman has raised about $6,000. The candidate with the next highest contribution value is Pete Roybal at about $1,200. Candidates Patrick Flaherty, Desiree Gonzales, Nicholas Munden and Diane Rhodes, have smaller contributions, if any. If Lakewood elections go to the highest spenders, Cruz and Furman will be the next City Councilors. The media company Brighter Futures used is Kabza, which claims to be for “designing Democratic victories”. This company was used by Democrats throughout the state, including local US Rep....

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Update: Manager’s Salary Even Higher

Update: Manager’s Salary Even Higher

March 23, 2025/

Lakewood resident Bob Adams brings receipts! Lakewood Informer news stated that City Manager Cathy Hodgson made a base salary of $280,000, as stated during the December 19, 2022 City Council meeting. Mr. Adams made an open records request to find out that the City Manager’s 2024 annual base salary was $335,949. This does not include benefits. The adjustment could be year-over-year increases, which would be a 20% increase over two years. It could also be that the original $280,000 stated during council meetings was incorrect, if so, my apologies. Many City Councilors justify this high salary based on Manager Hodgson’s 15 years of experience. There is, understandably, no public discussion on personnel matters. However, the review used to be tied to a metric like resident satisfaction. With declining satisfaction, the resident survey came out with less frequency and is no longer a performance metric. From Bob Adams, 2023, open records request from Lakewood:

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Ramey Johnson on Kim Monson Show

Ramey Johnson on Kim Monson Show

March 21, 2025/

Lakewood’s own Ramey Johnson was on the Kim Monson Show, KLZ 560 AM, Wednesday, March 19, to discuss several statewide bills that could cost taxpayers money. As members of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers (CUT), Monson and Johnson discuss House Bills 25-1211 and 25-1297. Regarding HB25-1211, Monson said, “I think this House Bill 25-1211, tap fees imposed by special districts, this is big government and politicians, to me, it looks like getting in bed together.” Johnson replies, “Yes, it is, Kim. But more than that, this one is a gift to the developers. It’s a developer’s dream come true” HB25-1211 is Rep. Rebekah Stewart’s bill that tries to force special districts to lower fees to accomplish her surplus housing strategy, as reported by Lakewood Informer news HB25-1297 is for a Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise. Monson said, “Whenever you see the word enterprise, that means they’re trying to take money out from the calculations for the TABOR refunds, your money coming back to you.” The bill talks about new fees. Johnson responds, “There’s no such thing as fees. That means a tax.” She explains that the bill authorizes an increase in health insurance affordability fee. Listen to the whole interview, starting around the 18-minute mark.

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Kentner on Mandy Connell for Belmar

Kentner on Mandy Connell for Belmar

March 21, 2025/

From Mandy Connell’s blog WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN GOVERNMENT WON’T LISTEN? That is the situation that many Lakewood residents find themselves in when it comes to the conflict over green space vs. development. This time it’s Belmar Park, where developers want to build right up the boundaries and pay dispensation money instead of actually honoring green space that is required. I’ve got Cathy Kentner with Save Belmar Park on at 1 to chat about it. Find out more about their cause by clicking here. Lakewood’s Cathy Kentner did a great job of explaining how this goes beyond growth arguments and into honoring plans to maintain community standards. Thank you Cathy and Mandy for highlighting this issue! Listen to the interview here

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New zoning rules propose to take Lakewood back to “bedroom” community concept

New zoning rules propose to take Lakewood back to “bedroom” community concept

March 20, 2025/

Repost from Dave Weichman On top of everything else going on these days, the Lakewood establishment is planning to change the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning codes to allow for more population density and cheaper housing. As usual there is way too much devil in the details to wrap one’s head around. However, there is one area that gives me a deja vu. Back when I was on City Council (in 2012) there was a major change in zoning. One of the innovations was the concept of “mixed-use” zones. We on Council bought into the idea there could be buildings with multiple uses. The example we were sold on was a vision where the first floor of the building could have commercial uses like restaurants or shops. The second floor could be offices for businesses. The third and fourth floors could be apartments or condos for residential use. Therefore there could be three different types of uses within the same building. This would reduce the need for traveling to different zones for a range of uses – i.e. one could work, shop, play and live all within a single building. So city zoning was changed to create “mixed-use” zones that would allow for several different types of uses within the same structure. However, when it came time to actually build this type of zoning ALL these buildings were 100% housing. Commercial uses and offices remained located in other parts of the metro area. The City argued mixed-use did not mean...

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Screenshot of the Dec 19, 2022 City Council meeting video

City Manager’s Annual Review

March 20, 2025/

By Lenore Herskovitz On Monday, March 24 the City Council will hold the first of 2 Special Meetings regarding the Annual Review of the City Manager, Kathy Hodgson. Residents are not privy to the standards or metrics that are used to evaluate the job performance of our most powerful and most highly compensated city officials. At one time, the City of Lakewood Community Survey was issued every 2 to 3 years which included approval ratings for the city’s performance. In 2010, when Kathy Hodgson took office this approval rating was 67%. By 2022, this had dropped to 38%. Since then, this survey has not circulated. Until 2022 these survey results were included in the evaluation process (See Lakewood Informer news report from 2022). On Dec. 19, 2022, the City Council met to amend the City Manager’s 2014 Employment Agreement and establish the 2022 Employment Agreement. This was supposed to be discussed on Dec. 5 in an Executive session but 4 Councillors (Able, Springsteen, Olver, and Janssen) opposed the session because they felt they had not been provided enough information in advance of the meeting. At the Dec. 19 meeting there was confusion about whether the representatives were voting solely on the amendments or on the new contract because the packet that was presented only included a staff memo and the resolution containing the proposed amendments. There was no redlined version showing what had been removed from the 2014 contract or any copy of what the new contract would be in...

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