LAKEWOOD INFORMER

Letter from Celia Greenman regarding The All-America City Award – National Civic League I am writing because I have heard that Lakewood is being considered for the All American City award.  According to your website, some of the areas of focus for this year’s theme are: Removing barriers to participation in civic lifeImproving public meetings through innovative practicesUndertaking reforms that give people a meaningful say in public decision-makingCreating a stronger sense of belonging and communityPromoting deliberative forms of public decision-makingAdvancing equity and inclusion In the above six categories I would say the City has failed.  Since the election of the new mayor in November, public comment has been pushed to the end of the agenda, whereas it had been historically in the beginning after the opening ceremony.  Mayor Strom has said this is to allow Council to complete their business, whereas a former City councilman once responded, “The people’s voice is the City’s business”.  The change in schedule means that people who work, have families, and/or who rely on public transportation can be excluded from in-person comment.  Remote Call-ins have been restricted because of recent hate speech.  Comments submitted on a web forum are often unread by City Council (a notation at the end of a comment signifies the number of council people who have read the comment.  At the April 22 Council meeting, a motion to adjourn was passed, leaving three councilors without an opportunity to give a report that might have provided diversity of thought.  Therefore, I conclude...

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Lakewood City Council agreed to lower residential speed limits on April 1, 2024, however what to lower them to is still in question. Council is reacting to a rash of complaints about speeding, however, Lakewood Police cited a lack of safety incidents. Lakewood Traffic Engineering cited studies that showed that lowering the speed limit 5 mph will turn into a 1 mph decrease, and sometimes there’s a overall speed increase, because drivers think that the new speed limit is unreasonable so they ignore it. Council relies on a report from the Lakewood Advisory Commission (LAC) to show the good intentions of speed reduction. Other programs that were discussed include automatic ticketing cameras and red-light cameras. All of these proposals will likely operate at a loss, as shown by recent experience in Aurora and other cities. The speed reduction concept started years ago, with an assignment to the LAC to study the issue, which was presented June 12, 2023. The LAC report showed several ways of slowing people down, but did not show the other side by fully reporting effectiveness or unintended consequences. They also assumed a low-level residential speeding problem was a safety problem. At that time, Lakewood Councilor Rich Olver sounded the alarm the issue was coming and was told he was a conspiracy theorist. The Lakewood Police Department and Public Works Department had a slightly different view from the LAC, as presented on April 1. Their experience in the city showed that speeding was more of a complaint...

For years, the City of Lakewood has been asking water districts to lower their fees on new development. Water districts have understandably said no to this request. The water board sets tap fees, not the city.  Well, Lakewood had enough of asking. New state legislation was introduced by Representative Chris deGruy Kennedy, forcing water districts to be “reasonable”.  His jurisdiction covers Lakewood. His wife is now running for his house seat. He worked with at least one member of the Lakewood Planning Commission and City Council to write this bill on behalf of special interests that will restrict authority of water boards throughout the state to set responsible fees. http://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1463 Kennedy has bipartisan support. There is little time left for water districts to oppose the bill. The Special District Association (SDA) helped write this bill, without letting its members know. They remain silent on a position but Kennedy has repeatedly stated he has their support. In fact, one member of the SDA was referenced in the bill itself, in the form of a Colorado Supreme Court decision in which his district won. He was not notified or consulted. He had to explain to the SDA that the legislative interpretation cited in the bill was wrong. Both Representative deGruy Kennedy and the bill authors cite a supposed difference in fees between different districts as justification for this bill. We can show a variation from $2,000 to $47,000. These fees are tied to infrastructure costs in each district. Asking one district to...