Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Buried in the Lakewood Home Rule Charter, down in Section 12.12, there is a line that has been quietly on the books for decades. It says the city can bump your property tax levy up to 7% a year. No vote. No sign-off from you. Just the previous year plus seven, every year.
Today, November 3, 2026, Lakewood voters decide whether that line stays or goes.
This is the part most people miss. The headline fights get the attention, but Question 2I is the one that actually touches every single homeowner's bill in the city. So let me walk you through it.
Ballot Question 2I asks whether to repeal and replace Section 12.12 of the charter. The city calls the old language "obsolete." A YES vote removes the 7% clause and says Lakewood has to follow the Colorado Constitution, meaning no property tax increase without approval from Lakewood's voters. A NO vote leaves Section 12.12 exactly as it reads now.
The path here was pretty standard. City Council passed Ordinance O-2026-27 on August 10, 2026, which put 2I on the ballot, and the ballot certification was filed September 2. The whole thing is a coordinated general and special municipal election run by the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder's Office.
And City Council is not staying neutral. At its October 12 regular meeting, the council formally urged voters to vote YES on 2G, 2H, 2I and 2J. All four.
Here is where it gets interesting, because not everyone thinks killing that 7% clause is a win for taxpayers.
Kim Monson, who hosts The Kim Monson Show and runs the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, is recommending a NO vote on 2I. Her argument is worth understanding. She says Section 12.12 does not just authorize increases, it also caps them. It holds property-tax revenue to last year's levy plus 7%, which functions as a ceiling. And as home values climb across the Front Range, she argues that ceiling is actually protecting taxpayers, not threatening them.
So you have got the odd situation where the city says the clause is an outdated license to raise taxes, and a taxpayer group says it is one of the few real revenue caps on the books. Same sentence, two completely opposite readings. If you ask me, that is exactly why you want to read the actual ballot language before you fill in the oval.
While you are in there, 2I shares the ballot with Ballot Issue 2G, and this one is straight cash.
2G asks to raise Lakewood taxes by up to
There are two more charter items too. Question 2H deals with when newly elected officials actually take office, under Charter Section 2.6. Question 2J amends Sections 13.1 and 13.2, the rules for initiative and referendum, which is basically the process residents use to put their own questions on the ballot. Keep that last one in your back pocket, because Lakewood voters have been using that process a lot lately.
And this is the context that makes today matter. Lakewood has turned into one of the most engaged electorates in the metro, and it has been swinging hard.
Back on April 7, 2026, Lakewood voters repealed the city's roughly 400-page zoning rewrite. The lead repeal question passed with about 62%. That special election cost the city around
Then it kept going. The Lakewood Citizens Alliance tried a separate citizen-initiated charter amendment to lock those zoning protections in beyond council's reach. That one got pulled in June 2026 after the city said it needed about 12,260 valid signatures, which is 10% of registered electors for a non-regular election, not the 5% the group had originally been working toward. Big jump. The amendment came off the table.
And Lakewood was not alone. That 2026 fight marked the second time in roughly five months that metro Denver voters rejected more housing types in single-family areas. Littleton got there first, with Question 3A passing at about 55% in November 2025.
Look, here is the real story on this. Lakewood voters have spent the better part of a year telling the city, loudly, that they want a say in what happens to their neighborhoods. 2I is the property-tax version of that same argument. Should the city be able to raise your bill on autopilot, or should it have to come ask you first?
For anyone who owns in Lakewood, or is thinking about buying there, this is not abstract. Property-tax policy and sales-tax rates both show up in the actual cost of living somewhere. They factor into what a monthly payment really looks like and what a neighborhood costs to stay in long-term. When clients ask us at Symbio Homes what is happening in Lakewood right now, this election is a big part of the answer.
Polls close tonight. If you live in Lakewood and you have not turned in that ballot, the Jefferson County Clerk is running the show, and the deadline does not care how busy your day is.
Go vote.