A Jefferson County judge hit the brakes on Lakewood this week — halting votes by its City Council scheduled for Monday and shining light on a real estate scheme involving Jeffco Schools, City Hall and a homeless-services nonprofit.

Last April, Lakewood’s City Council authorized City Manager Kathy Hodgson to negotiate a $4 million, below-market purchase of the Jeffco school district’s shuttered 17-acre Emory Elementary, worth nearly $12 million. The city plans to flip 10 of those acres to the Jeffco Action Center for just $1 million.

The sweetheart deal gives the nonprofit a massive taxpayer-funded discount at bargain pricing, made possible through a “Municipal Interest” process Jeffco Schools created last year.

The school board doesn’t even have the Emory sale scheduled for discussion until Nov. 5, let alone a vote. The sale won’t close until December, so the board still could ditch the deal.

Yet, Lakewood’s council already has teed up three separate ordinance votes for Oct. 27: selling Emory Elementary to Action Center; buying the nonprofit’s two existing buildings, and leasing those buildings back to Action Center until they move into Emory.

In other words, the city was set to resell a property it doesn’t own yet, buy Action Center’s existing buildings, and lease them back — all authorized before Jeffco Schools approved the sale. A fait accompli, seemingly locked in before anyone — even a judge — could intervene.

Enter Anita Springsteen, an attorney and former Lakewood councilwoman who has challenged this scheme in court. Last week, she moved for an injunction and temporary restraining order to stop the upcoming votes, citing two illegal closed-door meetings held in September 2024.

Springsteen already had a trial set for next Tuesday over those secret executive sessions. Lakewood’s meeting notices stated they were “to determine a position relative to issues subject to negotiation,” but they never identified specific topics as required by law — which also forbids taking a “position” behind closed doors.

In a sworn affidavit, former Councilman Richard Olver said constituents had asked him what the mysterious backroom meetings were about. He had no idea — even assuming they concerned another topic entirely — so he voted against going into executive session.

Springsteen calls everything that followed “fruit of the poisonous tree” because “it started with a violation of the people’s rights.” Soon after the council scheduled its votes — despite the upcoming trial — she prepared her motion.

On Monday, Judge Meegan A. Miloud granted the injunction, stopping the votes cold.

“(B)ased on the facts stated in the motion,” Miloud ruled, “the Court finds that unless immediately enjoined, the Defendant’s actions will cause real, immediate and irreparable injury, loss or damage.”

Follow the money: Jeffco unloads Emory at a head-scratching discount — $4 million for a property assessed at nearly $12 million — which Lakewood flips to Action Center for $1 million.

Meanwhile, the city purchases Action Center’s current buildings, similarly authorized for up to $4 million — nearly twice their combined $2.1 million assessed value, per the county assessor. The inflated price covers the nonprofit’s entire move, including the lease-back arrangement on their old buildings through 2027. In the end, Action Center pays nothing while taxpayers get fleeced.

Springsteen’s motion argued, “Allowing defendants to simply ratify their illegal conduct by proceeding with an ordinance for the sale of the land, at taxpayer detriment, to be given away to a Non-Governmental Organization without a vote of the people or participation by the people, will cause additional injury.”

City spokeswoman Stacie Oulton said Lakewood may have $3 million in federal grant funds to put toward Emory, plus the $1 million from Action Center. But as of deadline, she hadn’t answered my questions about where that grant money specifically came from or what its express purpose was.

Given how flexible federal grants often are — especially the American Rescue Plan Act — the $3 million could conceivably go to any number of other things that aren’t yet funded or are funded by the city’s general fund. That’s called fudging the numbers.

Then there’s the part about spending millions of taxpayer dollars buying Action Center’s existing properties — subsidizing their lease of those buildings and purchase of Emory in the name of “supportive housing.”

Oulton argued in an email that nonprofits “provide services of value” that “improve the quality of life for all residents in the city,” justifying city subsidies. As a former nonprofit president, I get it — but that doesn’t excuse the shady business going on.

In a statement, Oulton noted Lakewood will table Monday’s ordinances assuming the injunction remains. She stressed the votes were publicly noticed on Oct. 3, “long before” the Oct. 16 injunction filing, and the injunction “wasn’t issued until late Monday afternoon.”

Except the trial date was set on Feb. 4 — and Springsteen filed a separate notice of claim against Jeffco Schools on Sept. 12. The only thing moving fast is City Hall’s effort to ram through votes before the courts could stop it.

“The judge sees the city is not acting in good faith and is rushing votes in line with the election and to circumvent the court’s ruling on the (open meetings) issue,” Springsteen told me. “(The) school board hasn’t even approved this or put it on the agenda for approval.

What’s the rush, Lakewood?”

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.