Dorothy Wisecarver, Lakewood community leader, dead at 79

LAKEWOOD – Long-time community activist and former City Councilwoman Dorothy Wisecarver died Wednesday. She was 79.

Wisecarver – who fought for protection of neighborhoods, property rights and the concerns of individual citizens – also waged skirmishes against big government, officials who spend public money too freely or parlay elected office into favors for their friends and those who stray from what she saw as the public’s best interest.

“She was really a Lakewood institution, and worked on every significant campaign or issue in Lakewood ever since” said Edie Bryan, former City Council member and one of Wisecarver’s close friends.

“She remained active until the end and was a very influential voice until the end,” said Mayor Bob Murphy, who was at times the recipient of Wisecarver’s sharp criticism. “Officially, we sometimes disagreed on things. But I would frequently run into her at Safeway and I just found her – offline, shall we say – to be the warmest, most gracious woman I know. It’s a great shock.”

Wisecarver was found unconscious on the floor of her kitchen Wednesday morning by friends who became concerned about her after they could not reach her by telephone, said Wisecarver’s daughter, Lynn Johnson, who lives nearby.

Wisecarver recently underwent heart surgery.

Her involvement with city government began soon after she and her husband, Bucky (David) Wisecarver, moved to Colorado when he was assigned to work at the Federal Center as a geologist. But she moved to the forefront of city issues in the late 1970s, when she first ran for City Council.

Wisecarver served two terms on Council, leaving office in 1985.

After the death of her husband, Wisecarver stayed out of the political picture, but only for a while. After City Hall floated the idea of a tax increase in 2005, Wisecarver picked up the cause and helped for the Lakewood T Party to oppose the ballot issue. Voters approved the 50 percent sales-and-use tax increase, but Wisecarver was back on the scene.

In the following few years, she helped turn back a City Hall plan to swap a parcel of parkland in the Rooney Valley for a parcel of similar size in a nearby development. That parcel contained a gulch and the grass-roots opposition dubbed the pending land swap the “Switch for the Ditch.”

Wisecarver, Rita Bertolli and others circulated petitions opposing the City Hall proposal and succeeded in getting the issue before voters, who soundly defeated the land swap.

Wisecarver in 2007 helped stitch together a coalition of candidates for city office and walked mile after mile to in neighborhoods across the city to drum up support.

One of those candidates recalled the door-to-door campaign Monday, remembering that Wisecarver was in a great deal of pain after one of the walks.

When asked what was giving her such pain, Wisecarver said her knees were going bad.

“The doctor says I need knee-replacement surgery,” she told the candidate as she grimaced with pain. “But I just won’t have time until after this election.”

But after that election came a petition drive that eventually prompted City Council to end Lakewood’s sales tax on groceries. And there were other issues to be addressed and, this year, another election. But her heart problems and other ailments kept her from beating the bushes for votes.

Still, she frequented City Council meetings, delivering the citizens’ messages in no uncertain terms, cautioning Council to observe the City Charter, be more frugal in spending and to more closely consider the citizens’ points of view.

“She kept the city clean. Nobody could do something sneaky or under-the-table because she would bring it to light, Bryan said. “She had a very positive impact on the city.”

In addition to her daughter, Lynn, Dorothy Wisecarver is survived by her son-in-law, Robert Johnson, and grandson Matthew Johnson as well as a number of nieces, nephews and other family members in Virginia, where she was born and raised.

Services are pending.