Monument’s council heard the draft 2027 budget and gave no formal direction on either question it posed, learned that the bid for the northbound lanes of Jackson Creek Parkway has moved from October to December, and accepted five drainage tracts from the Conexus development after staff said two of them may have been taken out […]
Author Archives: Michael Christensen
Michael Christensen is the editor of The Monument Independent. He holds a BA in history and an MS in statistics, and has spent 30 years in marketing — the last 15 focused on digital marketing, data analytics, research, and artificial intelligence. In his professional work he is Director of Marketing Operations, Marketing Analytics, and AI Initiatives.
For the past ten years he has worked in educational research, land use assessment, and local government research — the three subjects that account for much of what this paper covers. The statistics training informs how the Independent handles numbers: test scores, campaign finance filings, and public-meeting vote records are traced to primary documents, and the method is published alongside the findings.
He is a married father of four school-age children. He coaches youth soccer, hikes in the Colorado mountains, fly fishes, and reads historical non-fiction and, less defensibly, books about data analysis strategy.
Posted inLocal News
Tri-Lakes Home Sales: August 2026
Sixty-five Tri-Lakes homes changed hands in ordinary market sales in August, 26 fewer than in July, at a median price of $710,000, according to El Paso County Assessor records.
Posted inLocal News
Five Acres at a Time: Sixty Years of Zoning in Black Forest
Most of Black Forest has lived under one rule for sixty years: a house for every five acres. The county spread it across the forest in 1965, residents wrote a plan around it in 1974, and for years, by its own account, the county followed the plan. The plan is gone now. The rule is […]
Posted inLocal News
The Palmer Lake Historical Society Turns 70
The Palmer Lake Historical Society was founded in 1956 to publish one town history. Seventy years on, it runs a museum. It celebrates on Oct. 15 in Palmer Lake.
Posted inSchools
D38 Buys Colorado Produce with Its First Local Food Grant
Colorado-grown carrots, peaches and heirloom tomatoes are on lunch trays at seven Lewis-Palmer School District 38 schools this fall, bought with the district’s first grant from the state’s Local Food Program. D38 received $68,925.50 for food, the most the state’s formula allows, and a further $20,797.26 for stipends to the kitchen staff who serve it. […]
Posted inGovernment
Atis Jurka Wants Palmer Lake Residents Heard First. Now He Is Running for Mayor.
A retired Army officer who has spent two years on Palmer Lake’s board, and cast its lone dissent on some of its biggest decisions, is asking voters to make him mayor. Atis Jurka’s campaign rests on the idea that residents should be heard before decisions are made and able to see how their money is […]
Posted inLocal News
The Forecast Said High. The Map Logged Five Reports.
The Independent’s sound forecast gave the September 25 concert at the Ford Amphitheater its highest rating, a band in which past nights have drawn a median of twenty-four reports to the resident-run noise map. The map logged five, three of them the following day. The forecast has now misjudged three shows in a row, twice […]
Posted inGovernment
Monument’s 2040 Plan Gets More Time: A Hearing on October 14, a Council Vote on November 2
Monument has pushed back adoption of its comprehensive plan and downtown master plan by four weeks. The Planning Commission hearing continues October 14; the council vote is now November 2.
Posted inLocal News
The Walker Road Rezoning Came Back with New Numbers and the Old Argument
Fifteen acres at Highway 83 and Walker Road are back before El Paso County, refiled seven weeks after the Board of County Commissioners turned them down. A denied application may only return if it is “substantially different in a material way,” and the applicant says this one is, because it asks for fewer homes. The […]
Posted inGovernment
No Rural Health Transformation Money Reaches El Paso County
The federal official who runs the program announced Colorado’s $169 million share from Colorado Springs on Monday, alongside the congressman for the Fifth District. None of the money may be spent in El Paso County, which is not among the 52 counties the program covers. Federal rules keep at least 85 percent of it from […]