After the drubbing the mayor and his special interest allies took in the special July 2 election, it is clear to observers his track record in office and his position on the important issues puts him in serious jeapody of being the first mayor in Lakewood’s 50 year history to not be re-elected.            He barely was elected…

             After a couple years of preparing the electorate, the establishment is finally ready to make the leap to a single trash hauler. November’s ballot will include an advisory question asking for support for Council to implement what is euphemistically called a “contracted” trash hauler selection process.             To get around the problem of calling it a “single” hauler system…

The half-million-dollar PR campaign the establishment wagged against the citizens’ slower-growth initiative (Question 200) may have included funds from the taxpayers. In addition to all the politicians opposing the citizens and the outside special interests funding the six anti-200 issue committees, several quasi-governmental groups leaped on the bandwagon. Among the special interest groups was the Jeffco Economic Development Corp. which is a private-public partnership between local governments and local businesses….

As part of the developers’ strategy to force Green Mountain Water & Sewer District to support their plan to create a sewer-provider business for the Rooney Valley developers they are harassing Green Mountain with lawsuits that force the district to spend money on attorneys’ fees. One of these lawsuits entailed Three Dinos suing Green Mountain to obtain information and attorneys’ fees under the Colorado Freedom of Information Act (CORA). The…

              Despite a flood of outside special interest money, the establishment suffered a huge defeat in the July 2 special election on the citizens’ proposed slow growth plan. By over a 5 point margin (53% to 47%) Lakewood voters clearly said they did not trust the political establishment to manage the direction growth is taking in the City.            …

In the category of making lemonade out of lemons Lakewood City Attorney is seeking to turn the political debacle involving the City’s “gift” to the Rooney Valley developers into a back-door green light to develop Dino Ridge, Bandimere and the remaining open areas of Rooney Valley. In 2007, Lakewood gave $3 million and Jeffco gave $6 million to a developer group (Green Tree metro district) to build the freeway interchange…

Knowledgeable voters are aware of the role special interest campaign contributions play in local elections.  Due to their close relationship with the monied special interests, candidates affiliated with the establishment are always able to garner far more money than their independent opponents. The 2018 de-TABOR election was a classic example.  The pro-government Our Lakewood campaign committee raised nearly $30,000 (including $20,000 from public employee groups) or about 12X times as much as the citizen…

In the category of you have to appreciate the irony comes this story about two youngsters running for City Council.  Ward 5 Councilor Dana Gutwein boasted on her Facebook page that her membership on the Council’s campaign finance subcommittee led to Lakewood’s new rules being “the best in the state”.  [Technically the new rules do nothing to stop the unlimited flood of special interest money to independent expenditure committees, similar to political action committees,…

The City continues to move closer to the long-awaited single-hauler trash disposal system.  The current focus is on devising a semantic scheme that avoids using the term “single-hauler”.  Some of the ideas to implement a “contract waste collection” system without using the phrase single-hauler include dividing the City into different zones.   In this way the City could contract with one hauler for each area thus ensuring a monopoly at the local/zone level…