20 people were scheduled and appeared for the first Lakewood Police Department Citizen Academy. The course is an immersive study into the background and assets of a modern police force. It is a series of 10 classes that will happen in September and October, most on Thursday nights, with two of the classes happening on […]
Lakewood Elections Thus Far
Election season is upon us. The yardsigns have been up for two months cluttering up our city, and candidates are deluged with mail about ‘great deals’ on buying those yardsigns. We are into primary season. 15 years ago the State Legislature, ahem, decreed that a ‘Top Two Primary’ would make things so much easier. The […]
“We Just Suspend Your Social Security Number…”
Be on the lookout for this newest scam. At 8 a.m. Tuesday morning I received this robotic voice message. “This call is from the Department of Social Security Administration. The reason you have received this phone call from our department is to inform you that we just suspend (sic) your social security number because we […]
More Leadership for Lakewood
One of the presumed ‘candidates’ for Lakewood has a webpage proudly displaying both a yard sign AND a request for donations, even before filing. Not only am I NOT fundraising. I will not rely on yard signs to clutter up our city. I will rely on contact with community members. Next week I will file […]
choose Chas, choose change
Charles Ames has announced his candidacy for Lakewood City Council for ONE term. Who is Charles Ames? Commandant of the local Marine Corps League before I earned my 5-year pin 2-term Chair of the City of Lakewood’s Public Safety Advisory Committee Single dad and was a member of Harrison Prep’s PTO for 6 years and […]
It’s Not Too Late To Vaccinate
PLEASE vaccinate your kids. Untreated children can suffer brain infection or pneumonia or put newborns at risk. There are measles cases south and north of us. Ten states have now reported measles outbreaks since the *beginning* of the year. A refusal to vaccinate is hoping for ‘herd immunity’; not much use when all are refusing…
An Open Letter to Lakewood Police Chief Mike Zaro
Not even two weeks into 2019 and Lakewood has another mental health death on its hands. Distressing, but we know it is not the first. At my very first meeting at the Public Safety Advisory Committee, I asked about non-lethal options. We discussed that all LPD officers are trained in proportional force progression and non-lethal […]
One Term… Your Turn
In the City of Lakewood, our mayor lives in a gated community. Over half of our council members live within a mile of each other in an affluent suburb. One senior council member makes about half of the meetings. Recently, Lakewood laid off 20 City personnel, then next year the council accepted the largest raise […]
New Year, New You
Many will say that their favorite holiday is Christmas. Visions of family, memories of cherished values, moments of life and light captured in time and tenderness. Some will say their favorite holiday is Independence Day (every country has a Fourth of July, after all). I have realized that the dawn of a New Year holds […]