LAKEWOOD — Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy laid out an optimistic vision in his eighth and final State of the City address Thursday afternoon while also touching on high points of his 21 years in city government.
During those years Murphy has played a role in securing development projects including , and the West Line light rail that have given Lakewood a regional identity.
Colorado’s fifth-largest city has also added money to it fund balance every year for 10 years, leaving the city with a healthy reserve fund and little debt.
“Through the largest recession in the last 70 years, we have accomplished this with no layoffs, no furloughs. We have provided our deserving employees with performance-based raises every year, we’ve lowered taxes and we’ve invested tens of millions of dollars back into our community,” Murphy said.
Along the way,
Murphy said the event that changed everything was a penny per dollar more in sales tax that Lakewood voters approved in 2005. In living rooms and conference halls across Lakewood, he presented a “Tale of Two Cities”: one at the existing 2 cents and the other at the proposed 3 cents.
One bleak scenario showed the city continually shutting down services while the other showed growth and prosperity.
“As I said earlier, we have put money into our reserves every single year since the voters granted us the increase, while also expanding services in police, parks, streets and the arts and starting to rebuild our infrastructure,” he said.
He said there’s still plenty of room for economic and cultural expansion, including revitalization along the West Colfax corridor.
Bill Marino, chairman of 40 West Arts District, said development taking place along areas like West Colfax and Alameda Avenue doesn’t happen overnight, and he commended Murphy for the transformative work he and city staff have done.
“Bob Murphy is truly a man of vision who has an innate ability to take people with opposing views to the table and work with them to find a common goal,” Marino said. “More remarkably, he’s able to help drive that vision into becoming a reality.”
Austin Briggs: 303-954-1729, abriggs@denverpost.com or twitter.com/abriggs
