Mitch LaKind announced he will not seek re-election as Monument’s mayor in November, ending a six-year run from trustee to mayor that spanned the town’s conversion to home rule. His departure puts an open seat atop a ballot already carrying four council seats and a use-tax question.
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 inGovernment
Thursday’s Buc-ee’s Hearing: Time, Place, and How to Take Part
El Paso County commissioners hear Buc-ee’s appeal Thursday at 9 a.m. in Centennial Hall. Doors open at 8:30. Written comments close at noon Wednesday.
Posted inSchools
The State Released 2026 Test Scores. Where D38 Finished Among Its Peers.
The state released its 2026 test results on Aug. 19. Adjusted for who each school teaches, the two schools at the extremes of D38 are not the ones the raw table names.
Posted inOpinion
The Comment I Filed on the Buc-ee’s Appeal
Filed with El Paso County as a resident of Monument, not on behalf of this newspaper. The full text, exactly as submitted.
Posted inGovernment
Kent Hutson Chaired Palmer Lake’s Master Plan. Now He Is Running for Mayor.
A neuroradiologist who chaired the volunteer team behind Palmer Lake’s 2022 community master plan is running for mayor, taking no campaign contributions. He would inherit a water emergency, a Highway 105 sidewalk design due at year’s end, and a budget drawing on reserves.
Posted inLocal News
At the Ford Amphitheater, the Complaints Track the Wind
Three seasons of complaint reports joined to hour-by-hour weather show submissions running nearly six times higher on downwind nights — and no detectable change after roughly $2 million of mitigation.
Posted inSchools
D38’s Board Sets June Deadlines on Pay and Retention
Lewis-Palmer’s school board adopted seventeen dated goals for 2026-27, two of which give it until June 2027 to find continuing revenue for employee compensation and to lift staff retention to the average of surrounding districts. The board also raised secondary meal prices, admitted a farm to its homeschool program, and pulled a $38,500 school-security design off the consent agenda.
Posted inGovernment
Monument Town Council, August 17, 2026: A Subdivision Denied, a Tax on the Ballot, a Fee Schedule Rewritten
Monument’s council rejected 205 homes beside the Air Force Academy, sent a construction-materials use tax to the November ballot, approved 354 apartments on Old Denver Road, and adopted a fee schedule that in places departs sharply from its own consultant’s advice.
Posted inGovernment
BoardWatch Adds Palmer Lake and a Tracker for Each Board
BoardWatch now covers three boards. Palmer Lake’s trustees join the Monument Town Council and the El Paso County commissioners, each with a vote tracker of its own — 266, 275 and 369 recorded decisions, each linked to the minutes it came from.
Posted inLocal News
A History of the Monument Police Department
From a marshal who was also the mayor and the fire chief, to a department planning around thirty-seven sworn officers: how Monument built its police force.