Only one incumbent faces challenge in Lakewood Council races

LAKEWOOD – Only two races in the upcoming city election attracted challenges: Ward 1, where two seats are up for grabs after the mid-term resignation of Vicki Stack, and Ward 3, where voters will decide who will replace term-limited incumbent Ed Peterson.

Incumbents in the other three Wards – Adam Paul in Ward 4, Cindy Baroway in Ward 2 and Tom Quinn in Ward 5 – are unchallenged for second terms.

Mayor Bob Murphy is seeking a second term and his challenger – Linda Delay from Ward 1 – poses only token opposition. Delay, who also ran in 1999, 2003 and 2007, drew only 1,200 votes in the 2007 race, well short of Murphy’s 13,162 votes and Rita’ Bertolli’s 12,176 votes.

Her 1,200 votes put Delay in the spoiler’s role in 1999, but she represents Murphy’s only challenge this year, a mayoral election year in which few issues loom large in the citywide race.

Ward 1, though, offers two races: one for the remaining two years of Stack’s second term and the other for incumbent Karen Kellen’s City Council spot.  Kellen is the only incumbent facing a challenge for re-election and originally had two opponents before Julian O. Bravo dropped out of the race last week.

Cathy Kentner, a neighborhood activist and long-time teacher at Creighton Middle School, remains in the race against the development-oriented Kellen, who told her colleagues at a Council retreat in Estes Park the she hopes her legacy will be “a redeveloped Colfax.”

In contrast, Kentner promises “to strengthen the representation that often eludes the community’s neighborhoods and small businesses,” according to her campaign announcement. As co-president of the Bonvue Neighborhood Association, Kentner headed community opposition to the rezoning of Jeffco’s Health Department campus at west Alameda Avenue and Kipling Street.

The campaign for Stack’s vacant Ward 1 Council seat pits another new face on the Lakewood political scene against longtime community representative Ramey Johnson.

Johnson, a resident of Ward 1’s Eiberhood community, faces a challenge from Kellen’s friend, Golden lawyer and political newcomer Briana Peterson.

The Ward 3 race to replace Peterson is the city’s most crowded race this year with a trio of diverse candidates – Pedro “Pete” Roybal, Carolyn Evans and Mark Barrington – offering clear-cut choices to voters.

Roybal is a longtime community activist who has championed a number of community causes. He also has served on the Advisory Commission for an Inclusive Community. Roybal spent six years on the city’s Cultural Diversity and Human Relations Commission and participated in the Citizens Planning Academy for Lakewood’s Hispanic Community. He also completed the city’s Citizens Planning Academy, Citizens Police Academy, West Metro’s Citizens Fire Academy and the Jeffco Sheriff’s Citizens Police Academy.

Both Ed Peterson and Sue King, the other incumbent Council member from Ward 3, support Evans. Evans is a member of the Alameda Gateway Community Association, Citizens for Lakewood’s Future, the Lakewood Senior Commission and the Advisory Commission for an Inclusive Community. She attended the city’s Citizens Planning Academy and helped compile s active the Belmar Addenbrooke Neighborhood Plan.

Mark Barrington rounds out the field of three vying for Peterson’s seat. Barrington, a longtime Lakewood resident, first ran for Council in 2003. He is a 2001 graduate of Colorado Christian University and last year ran for the state House District 26 seat in an unsuccessful effort to oust incumbent Andy Kerr. Barrington ran on a platform of “Fiscal responsibility, Accountability, Conservatism and Traditionalism.”