A Woodmoor resident’s letter to the editor: as zoning language is stretched to fit Buc-ee’s and the Highway 83 rezoning, the Tri-Lakes must fill Centennial Hall on July 23.
Monthly Archives: July 2026
Posted inLocal News
Buc-ee’s Appeals — and the Question Lands with the Commissioners
Having failed to get a quiet “yes,” Buc-ee’s is taking its convenience-store claim to the elected Board of County Commissioners. Its 298-page appeal argues the county’s code, read literally, makes a 74,000-square-foot travel plaza a “convenience store” — and that the board, as the code’s “ultimate interpreter,” should say so.
Posted inGovernment
Home Place Ranch: The Empty-Nest Promise
Home Place Ranch was pitched to Monument as an age-targeted community for buyers 55 and older — quieter, lower-traffic, low-maintenance. That pitch helped win a contested approval. It was never written into the law, and it isn’t what got built. First in a three-part examination of Home Place Ranch. Part 1: the promise versus what […]
Posted inGovernment
A Town Without Guardrails
Palmer Lake has spent a year showing what becomes of a small town when the ordinary machinery of self-government goes missing — an ethics code, a permanent administrator, a clean line between the police and the town’s payroll, and minutes that match the recording. Local watchdog groups have published a heavily documented dossier arguing that an elected trustee is being run out of office by improper means; the town’s own record and the region’s reporting fill in the rest. The striking thing is not who is right. It is how little now works in Palmer Lake to decide it.
Posted inLocal News
Is a Buc-ee’s a “Convenience Store”? The County Says It Cannot Tell
The administrative shortcut Buc-ee’s chose has produced no answer. El Paso County’s planning director says she cannot determine whether the proposed 74,000-square-foot travel plaza on Monument Hill is a “convenience store”—so she has neither approved it nor denied it. The one party who can appeal the non-ruling is Buc-ee’s itself.
Posted inLocal News
Eighty-Plus Objections to Buc-ee’s, Filed “for Reference Only”
Residents are writing to El Paso County by the dozen to oppose the proposed travel plaza on Monument Hill. The county is logging every message—and stamping each one “not part of the official record.”
Posted inSchools
Blame the Buildings? What D38’s Test Scores Actually Show
Critics blame new apartments for D38’s test scores. The data shows scores are flat, far above Colorado, and the district’s lowest scores are its own charter.