Lakewood voters reject upzoning 62-38% as grassroots campaign crushes $269,000 opposition

LAKEWOOD — Lakewood voters rejected four upzoning ordinances by margins averaging 62% to 38% across all four ballot questions in the city’s April 7 special election, dealing a decisive blow to a densification campaign that outspent the grassroots opposition more than six to one.

The result was not close. Across all four ballot questions, between 22,085 and 22,196 voters chose repeal while between 13,285 and 13,414 voted to keep the ordinances, according to the city’s official results. The pro-density campaign conceded around 8:30 p.m. on election night, according to the Colorado Sun.

The outcome is the latest chapter in a story The Kim Monson Show and the Kim Monson Newsroom have followed since the city council first approved the sweeping zoning rewrite last fall.

David versus Goliath, and David won

Karen Gordey, the entrepreneur and owner of Radiant Painting and Lighting who led the repeal effort through the Lakewood Citizens Alliance, framed the victory in stark terms on The Kim Monson Show.

“They raised almost $300,000. We raised just over $42,000,” Gordey said on The Kim Monson Show. “So this is a lesson in you don’t have to have all the money to be able to win.”

Campaign finance reports tell a more precise story. Make Lakewood Livable raised $269,351 through March 28, while the three grassroots repeal committees raised $46,442 combined, a ratio of nearly 6 to 1. As the Kim Monson Newsroom previously reported, the single largest contribution to the pro-zoning campaign came from Action Now Initiative, a Houston-based 501(c)(4) founded by billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron executive whose net worth Forbes estimated at $2.9 billion in 2025. Arnold’s organization gave $75,000 to Keep Lakewood Moving Forward. Other major contributors included Boulder-based Conscience Bay at $50,000, Gary Community Ventures at $25,000 and Cardel Homes at $10,000.

The repeal side had 84 volunteers, no paid consultants and no institutional donors.

“It was Republicans, Democrats, everything in between, and all ages as well,” Gordey said on The Kim Monson Show. “And we could not have done it without our volunteers.”

More voters repealed the zoning than elected the mayor

The opposition had already begun framing the result as a low-turnout anomaly. At least three city councilors posted to social media within hours of the results, calling it a low-turnout election.

Gordey rejected that narrative. Official results show 35,574 total ballots cast. Gordey said on The Kim Monson Show that turnout was about 32% of the active electorate, compared to 36% for the 2019 Strategic Growth Initiative special election.

“On all four questions, we had over 22,000 people voting to repeal this,” Gordey said. “And this is important because our mayor was elected in an off-year election where only just under 45,000 people voted. But when she was elected, she only received 47.13% of the votes, which equates to 21,136 voters. More people voted to repeal this ordinance than voted for our current mayor.”

The Denver Gazette reported a lower turnout figure of approximately 25% of registered voters. Official certified results are expected by April 17.

A fight months in the making

The vote was the culmination of a grassroots campaign that began when the Lakewood City Council approved four zoning ordinances in a series of votes across September and October 2025. The nearly 400-page rewrite eliminated single-family zoning designations, allowed duplexes, triplexes and townhomes across the city, eliminated parking minimums near transit and capped new home sizes at 5,000 square feet.

Opponents collected more than 10,000 signatures, with more than 6,000 unique registered voters signing, to force all four ordinances to a referendum. The council voted to place the measures on an April 7 special election, as the Kim Monson Newsroom reported at the time.

From the moment the election was set, the two sides were mismatched on resources. Make Lakewood Livable, the pro-zoning issue committee managed by former councilmember Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, had endorsements from U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, former U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Jefferson County Commissioner Andy Kerr, AARP of Colorado and the ACLU. The city council itself passed Resolution R-2026-14 urging voters to keep the zoning changes by a 9-2 vote, with only Councilmembers Jacob LaBure and Paula Nystrom dissenting.

The Lakewood Citizens Alliance had yard signs and shoe leather.

As the election approached, the Kim Monson Newsroom documented the canvassing effort through the final weekend, reporting that volunteers worked through Easter to reach voters before the April 7 deadline.

The endorsements that backfired

The sheer volume of institutional support for the zoning changes may have worked against the pro-density campaign rather than for it.

“Every active and retired politician that was important to Lakewood was endorsing their campaign,” Gordey said. “And voters saw through that.”

Gordey described mailers arriving from what seemed like a different organization every day. “You get a flyer in the mail and it’s like, oh, well, which company is sponsoring this one?” she said. “People saw through it and said, we are tired of what feels like Lakewood being sold out.”

The third Front Range city in five months to reject density

Lakewood’s repeal marks the third time in five months that Front Range voters have rejected council-approved density measures, a pattern the Kim Monson Newsroom identified in February when Lakewood’s election was first announced.

In November 2025, Littleton voters approved a charter amendment making it harder to build anything but single-family homes in large portions of the city. In February 2026, Greeley voters voted 11,342 to 9,506 to repeal the zoning that would have enabled the $1.1 billion Cascadia development. Now Lakewood has delivered the most lopsided result of the three.

All three followed the same script: city council approves density zoning, citizens collect enough signatures to force a vote, and the grassroots opposition wins.

What comes next

The city council cannot bring the zoning back for six months. Gordey said the community is considering two paths forward.

“One is a charter amendment like Littleton did,” Gordey said. “But as you know, there’s been so many bills at the state level. How does that now have to be crafted?”

The second possibility is recalls. “In order to do recalls, yes, we’re organized enough to get the signatures done,” Gordey said. “We know that. But do we have good candidates to replace those in office right now? That’s the key.”

Mary Janssen, a Colorado Union of Taxpayers board member who served as an election watcher during the vote, said the team plans to take a brief rest before deciding on next steps.

“I think we’re going to take a little break, but then we’re going to just kind of keep going,” Janssen said on The Kim Monson Show.

Brad Beck, co-founder of Liberty Toastmasters, warned on The Kim Monson Show that surrounding communities should take notice. “They should take a break, they well deserve victory, but don’t go to sleep in that area and start talking to your neighbors in the communities around Lakewood,” Beck said. “Because if it happens in Lakewood, it’s gonna happen all around you.”

Later in the broadcast, Beck, who has appeared on the show multiple times, said the pattern is familiar from his years in Boulder County. “They’ll find a weak spot, a city, a municipality, where they’ll try to insert it,” he said. “I’ve seen it over and over and over.”

The state mandate remains

Even with the repeal, state laws including the Transit-Oriented Communities Act (HB24-1313) and a law banning local parking mandates for multifamily housing (HB24-1304) remain in effect. Six home-rule cities have sued the state over those mandates, arguing they violate local government authority under the Colorado Constitution. That lawsuit has not been resolved.

Mayor Wendi Strom told the Denver Gazette, “It’s too early to know what course we may chart from here, but setbacks are an opportunity to revisit, refine and re-direct.”

Councilmember Isabel Cruz struck a more conciliatory tone. “I hope both sides of the issues, and the 75% of voters who didn’t weigh in, will join in to move together as neighbors with this behind us,” Cruz told the Denver Gazette.

A sustained fight covered at every stage

The Kim Monson Show and the Kim Monson Newsroom have followed Lakewood’s zoning battle from the beginning. The show has dedicated segments to the fight across multiple episodes, with Gordey and other Lakewood residents appearing regularly to update listeners. The Newsroom published four articles tracking the fight from the special election announcement to the Front Range pattern to the $75,000 in Houston dark money to the final canvassing push.