The Lakewood City Council held its regular meeting on Monday, June 15, 2026, at 7:30 PM in Council Chambers. The meeting covered a range of items including appointments, budget priorities, Juneteenth recognition, park renovations, zoning updates, and public safety. Council adopted several resolutions and referred multiple communications to committees for further deliberation.
Note: The meeting date in the instruction (2026-06-12) conflicts with the agenda and transcript (June 15, 2026). The summary uses the actual meeting date.
All right, we will call to order the June 15th meeting of council. If you're able, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Now pause for a moment of silence. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Vice President Baker. Here. Councilmember Bixenstein? Here. Councilmember Bullock? Here. Councilmember Evans. Here. President Keppel. Here. Councilmember Hamilton Steiner. Here. Councilmember Streebig. Here. Reading and disposal of the minutes of the regular meeting of council held June 1st, 2026. Move to approve without the necessity of a reading. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. And that motion passes. Item one report from Committee of the Whole meeting held today, June 15th, 2026. Colleagues, Committee of the Whole met earlier this evening to go through the remaining charter amendments that were before Committee of the Whole. The we voted to table the two ranked choice voting amendments. Council members noted that although many of us support uh ranked choice voting, the particular situation we find ourselves in is untenable and would potentially confuse voters to place them on the docket at this time or on before them at this time. So we're looking to move forward with the other three ordinances, which are ordinance uh 16 2026 uh that would uh uh referring to elected officials' salaries uh that would change the frequency with which civil service reviews elected official salaries that ordinance uh was amended and referred favorably back to full council. Ordinance 17 2026, which uh is to um uh uh adds requirements to the process by which council appoints new members to fill a vacancy, so it codifies our current practice of hoping holding uh call for applicants, open interviews, and then um uh appointing. Uh it does change the date structure uh for that, so that if there's a lengthy vacancy, uh is recently happened when Councilmember Shatner stepped down of more than two years. Um we amended that language so that whether or not there is a primary, so should ranked choice voting be adopted in the future, um that we voters would not need to come back to this section of the code. Um so we're trying to lay some pathways there so um if we come back to ranked choice voting or when we come back to ringed choice voting uh when sands shift um that those will not be needed to be amended. And then ordinance nineteen twenty twenty-six uh was also uh in ordinance seventeen twenty twenty-six is amended, was referred favorably back to full council. Ordinance nineteen twenty twenty-six, uh, which is established a process and requirement for ward redistricting in the city of language, was amended uh so that establishes a best practices such as wards being contiguous um and set by natural boundaries, and we added in language uh regarding running north-south and being bordered by the uh or essentially running north-south, one element being by the lake and one by the south southern border. So that was ordinance nineteen twenty twenty-six was also referred favorably back to full council, and then ordinance twenty-one and twenty-seven regarding ranked choice voting were uh tabled um at this time. And with that, I will move to uh receive and file that report from committee of the whole. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, aye, and that motion passes. Item two. Um actually, without objection, let's move items four and five to the top. Item four, communication from Councilmember Hamilton Steiner and President Keppel regarding Juneteenth, National Independence Day. Uh Councilwoman Hamilton Steiner. Yes, thank you. Uh thank you, President Keppel.