Ward 5 has always had the reputation of being a sleepy backwater that was a bastion of the establishment. The current incumbent, Karen Harrison, has been rumored to be the successor to Adam Paul as the next mayor. In keeping with the establishment tradition of giving the second highest council position, that of mayor pro tem, to the establishment councilor who is most in favor with the mayor, Ms. Harrison…
Last fall, City Council voted to spend over $60,000 for a Boulder marketing research firm to conduct a “housing study” in order to justify the Administration’s continuing push for more residential housing development. The process was faulted from the beginning as the “study” was nothing more than a marketing survey on how to attract housing buyers to our market. This was the same fault that corrupted the Rooney Valley “master plan”. …
What’s going on with the establishment in the Ward 4 race? This is the year they finally get rid of that pain in their side – David Wiechman. It’s also a chance to restore their dominance on Council. Currently they have a bare majority of 6 to 5. If they pick up the Wiechman Ward 4 seat and nothing else changes their majority would be…
At the Feb. 27 City Council meeting, there was a very telling exchange between the mayor and one of the independent councilors that confirmed Adam Paul’s thinking on issues of development and population density. During the public comment period, some citizens complained about the current city administration’s emphasis on more development and more people. One of the negative consequences of this overdevelopment they mentioned was more traffic congestion. Adam Paul’s proposed solution…
At the February Ward 4 town hall there was an interesting exchange between the presumed candidates to fill the open Ward 4 seat being vacated by the term-limited David Wiechman. During the spirited discussion about the upcoming City Council vote to annex 300+ acres in the southern half of Rooney Valley from Morrison, the presumed establishment candidate Jon Ludwigson responded to all the disadvantages of a Rooney Valley annexation with…
Everyone is aware of the overdevelopment going on at Green Gables at the southeast corner of Jewell and Wadsworth. Located outside the city limits in unincorporated Jefferson County, a developer is building some 600 homes, apartments and a shopping center. Just to the east of the Green Gables site, within the city limits, is the former Ward Lake Tree Farm. …
Ward 1 Council member Ramey Johnson will be running for re-election in 2017 because her first partial term (2011-2013) was less than two years. This is significant because the Lakewood City Charter establishes a limit of two (four-year) terms. In the case of a partial term, the charter says if the term served is “at least half” of a regular four-year term then it will…
We often wonder how developers are so politically successful when most voters are strongly opposed to overdevelopment. The common theory is developers give lots of campaign contributions to candidates for elected office such as City Council. While the money angle is certainly valid and money can buy political campaigns slick enough to get voters to cast their votes for the developer-backed candidates, there…
One of our favorite sources of interesting stories is the Lakewood Watchdog (www.lakewoodwatchdog.net). In a recent post on Adam Paul’s campaign contributions, they did an analysis of the campaign finance reports filed in October of 2016. They discovered developers give a boatload of money to their candidates after the election, when citizens aren’t paying attention. Since the donations aren’t reported until almost a year after the campaign, no one is…
Deciding what issues to address is a very important political power. City Hall observers have always wondered who decides what gets on the Council’s agenda. In general terms issues wanted by the mayor and the establishment get on the agenda and those matters they prefer to ignore are left out. The only real exception to this in recent years has been Ward 4 Councilmember David Wiechman’s attempts to make motions under…