The Lakewood land swap with the Action Center has been pushed back again following the trial between a local attorney and the city.

The Lakewood City Council was supposed to meet Wednesday evening for a special session regarding the three-ordinance process involving the city purchasing the current Action Center, leasing it and then selling part of the Emory Elementary School to the Action Center.

Initially, the three votes were supposed to occur Monday, but an injunction ordered by Jefferson County Judge Meegan Miloud pushed it back until after the trial on Tuesday afternoon.

Ultimately, the trial didn’t end with a verdict, being pushed back for more testimony on Monday, once again delaying the voting process until another special session Monday evening.

The elaborate plan goes as follows: the city will buy the Action Center — a nonprofit which provides services, free food and clothing to those in need — current location at 8745 and 8755 W. 14 Ave. for $4 million.

The city will then sell 10 acres of the Emory Elementary School property at 1275 S. Teller St. to the Action Center for $1 million. This includes the school itself.

The city will keep the rest of the property’s seven acres to itself. It will also lease the Action Center’s current building back to the nonprofit until it can finish renovating the school.

The elaborate process has been halted by the ongoing lawsuit, though, with Anita Springsteen — an attorney and former Lakewood councilmember — filing a complaint last November claiming that the council discussions and executive sessions behind the sales violated Colorado’s Open Meetings Law.

Springsteen argued that the council held an executive session regarding “negotiations” on Sept. 19, 2024, while only giving a “general description of the matter it intended to discuss in the Executive Session which merely
mirrored the authorizing statutory language,” according to the complaint.

The legal battle was about the public notifications involving executive sessions, not about the specific land transactions.

The trial was held Tuesday between 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., including multiple witnesses from both the plaintiff and defendant, according to court records.

Judge Miloud asked both sides to provide written closings by Friday and called for a follow-up hearing Monday.

“We want to assure the community that we have taken every step to make our work clear and publicly available, and we have worked to inform the community about this process in numerous ways,” a spokesperson from the city said in a statement last week.

But time is of the essence for the Action Center.

The organization is hoping to receive the New Market Tax Credit loan to finance the renovation of the building, according to CEO Pam Brier. Those credits expire at the end of the year, meaning the organization would need to go to closing with the city before next year.

The credits would also give the organization $3 million in forgiven loans for renovation.

“Those are really important dollars to us, so we are hoping to get to the finish line by the end of the year,” Brier told the council Monday.

Along with the injunction, Jeffco Public Schools still needs to approve the sale of the elementary school property to the city, which is scheduled for approval in November.

Some residents have questioned the school district selling a property to the city for less than its valued.

During Monday’s meeting, Planning Director Travis Parker assured the public that the assessments of the properties are legitimate and the sale of the school for cheap is normal.

“The vast majority, if not all, have been at a significant discount,” Parker said of sales from the school district to the city. “Looking at just the neighboring property, the Link Rec Center, that was basically given to the city by the district for $0 in 1994.”

If cleared by the court Monday, the City Council will move to approve the three ordinances just hours later.