LAKEWOOD INFORMER

Updated 1/30/23 with comments and call to action below January 23, 2023 Lakewood City Council meeting showed strong concern from residents around the Maple Grove reservoir. Consolidated Mutual is moving a fence around the reservoir, resulting in elimination of a wildlife corridor. The new fence itself is not compatible with wildlife. The damage has already been seen. These changes were not communicated to residents, or sometimes communicated falsely. Residents were present to ask Lakewood to coordinate with Consolidated Mutual in an effort to do better for the wildlife and fulfill more of the promises made to residents, who are also shareholders in Consolidated Mutual. For more information, see ConsolidatedNeighbors.org Comment from those involved LakewoodInformer reached out for comment from Consolidated Mutual with no response. Consolidated Neighbors responded with additional information on the lack of transparency from Consolidated Mutual. For example, the Consolidated Mutual webpage has been extensively updated in the last two weeks to show their care for wildlife, but the old-growth trees have already been cut down without prior communication. Regarding the fence, Consolidated Mutual promised to use the existing fence type but switch to a wildlife-unfriendly fence with no prior communication. Slides below from the City Council presentation, available online at https://consolidatedneighbors.org/presentation/ But what they actually used was different…. Call to Action Consolidated Mutual is made up of shareholders. Consolidated Neighbors asks for your voices at the annual shareholder meeting, or contact Consolidated Mutual anytime. The City of Lakewood offered mediation services. Consolidated Mutual declined. A follow-up neighborhood...

Guest post by Joan from Lakewood My best friend Michelle came from Florida to spend Christmas with my family. It was the best present and made my Holiday. We were driving north on Union and at 4th I was pointing out the 59 acres of Federal land recently under contract and discussing a pending FOIA when she said, “It sounds like Cabrini Green.” “What?” I said. Michelle had grown up near Chicago and was always making Chicago references. “Cabrini Green,  a Housing project from the late 50’s and 60’s.  It was going to be utopia, gardens, open spaces and a roof over all but by the 70’s it was hell on earth. The gardens and open space were paved over. It started as two story row houses (Cabrini) and then there were extension of 17 story skyscrapers.”  The gangs came in and took over the buildings. And people using public housing became afraid to leave their apartments. Cabrini Green became a political hot potato and there was no repair of the damaged buildings. By the late 70’s the project was so unmanageable that the city started to dismantle the buildings. By 1995 the area had being urban renewed and the high rises were gone. It was a failed experiment and a hugh embarrassment to the people of Chicago. I pondered if we are under the best of intentions, with the vision of utopia and equity repeating history. With 15 acres under an EPA restriction because of unknown content of a...

The 2022 City Manager Employment Agreement includes a new clause in Section 9: Benefits: “The Employee shall receive 20-days of Executive Leave Time which may be used in any manner desired with the intent of advancing leadership succession & organization development planning for the City by the Employee.” What does this mean? One interpretation is that City Manager leadership succession planning is currently underway. The only member of Council to directly comment on the new clause was Council Member Shahrezaei, who seemed to think the leave was for personal growth in leadership, rather than succession planning. When asked about it in an interview, she responded that the clause could mean both things. She’s right. Find Out While the new clause may not mean that a City-Manager-in-Training is in place, for a move of this magnitude, it may be important for City Council to find out, and decide how they would like to deal with succession management, rather than have the decision made for them. In fact, if there is a succession plan in place, approving this employment agreement may be tacit agreement to the plan. Two Council Members brought up the fact that it may be time to start looking for a new City Manager, based on length of service rather than any performance reason. Two other Council Members pushed back that they were not looking for a new manager and that no one asked them to look for a new manager. During this time, cautions about disparaging remarks were...

OVERVIEW On December 19, 2022, Lakewood City Council passed a new City Manager employment agreement after receiving incomplete information and having limited Council discussion. Some City Council Members seemed to equate a new agreement with the City Manager performance evaluation while others spoke of contract provisions. The result is an agreement for the City of Lakewood’s highest-paid position that increases the City Manager’s benefits, reduces the City Manager’s accountability, and includes misunderstood provisions. The agreement amendment process started with misunderstandings. From the beginning, the public (and Council) was told that discussions were being held because incentives in the City Manager Employment Agreement expired. In fact, no expiration dates can be found in the previously existing 2014 agreement.  (see note 1 below) There is also some confusion regarding the extent of the amendments. Although the Mayor and some Council Members stated that only specific amendments were being changed relative to incentives, important City Manager performance objective evaluation measures were removed (see note 2). Even the head of the negotiating team believed, and stated, that these evaluation objectives remained, although they were actually removed.   In addition, at least two Council Members still believed they remained after votes had been cast. Other items were added without discussion, including a new provision for retirement payout for the City Manager, on top of existing retirement benefits. (see note 3) In the end, the entire 2014 agreement was terminated and superseded, although only specific clauses were rewritten in the final 2022 employment agreement. (see note 4)...

Guest post by Lenore Herskovitz A Planning Commission Study Session was scheduled for January 18, 2023 but because of a failure to post in a timely manner, this meeting was canceled. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated occurrence. According to Resolution 2023-3 which designates the places for posting public meetings pursuant to C.R.S. 24-6-402, there is a requirement of “full and timely” notice to meetings. The places for such postings are the lobby/atrium of Lakewood Civic Center and the city’s official website (Lakewood.org). There was no publication of the Planning Commission meeting on the city site until late morning of January 18. The exact manner and means of posting is to be implemented by the City Manager or a designee. Someone clearly dropped the ball. The agenda for the Study Session included  a discussion of Planning Commission priorities and the topic of attached housing. When Commissioner Kentner spoke with the Clerk of the Planning Commission about rescheduling the meeting, she was told that the clerk had been directed to offer the dates of February 8 or February 22. There was no explanation as to why earlier dates were not provided. The Planning Commission last met on November 30, 2022. More delays and postponements are described in my previous article “A Look Back”. ~Corrections and Updates ~Corrected 1/22/23 from “The Planning Commission last met on November 2, 2022.” to “The Planning Commission last met on November 30, 2022.” Follow-up from L. Herskovitz: Previous to the canceled study session on January 18,...

Lakewood’s City Manager Employment Agreement is publicly available. A comparison below shows some of the employment agreement changes throughout the current City Manager’s tenure, along with some considerations that may be taken into account when evaluating a public servant contract. A quick glance at the chart below shows that the City Manager’s base salary has risen by $93,000 in 13 years, an almost 50% raise or 3.7% per year. Paid time off, health benefits and retirement have also risen. Retirement benefits started with the same benefits as regular employees plus one year of severance, and have risen to all of that plus a defined benefit from the City Manager’s Retirement Pension Plan plus maybe more. (The money purchase pension benefits may be continued through 2014 agreement, unclear.) *Stated during Dec 19 City Council meeting **The extra retirement benefit is ambiguous. Read the highlighted section below and see what you think. There seems to be a new benefit in the event of retirement (which the City Manager now qualifies for). Comments from council during the meeting indicated that the item of most interest was length of tenure of employee and population of city. Analysis of duties included, such as city-wide waste and/or water, was not included. Other items of interest shown in the chart below include that the City Manager makes at least 4x the base salary of the average Lakewood resident and city employee. At the same time, the community survey shows resident satisfaction with city services is decreasing. Sources:...