A retired Navy air traffic controller who manages Fort Carson’s airfield, Kenneth Kimple has spent years on the Planning Commission and the council pressing the town to plan ahead: for a wildfire evacuation on the east side, a backup connection for its water, and roads that can carry its growth. As mayor, he says, he would first connect the town’s water system to Triview’s for emergencies, then press the next council to commit to a renewable supply he believes can be in place within two years. He has already voted for the construction use tax he alone opposed sending to voters, wanting residents better informed first, and he would set aside the council stipends the draft budget adds until the town’s finances are on firmer ground.
In July 2019 Monument’s Planning Commission voted 6–1 to recommend the first phase of Home Place Ranch, the subdivision now being built along Gleneagle Drive. The one vote against came from Kenneth Kimple, who had joined the commission two years earlier. His concern, as the town’s staff report recorded it, was that the emergency evacuation routes were not sufficient.
Seven years later he is running for mayor, and the concern has not changed. “It’s not going to be if, it’s when,” he said in an interview, speaking of the next fire or emergency that forces the east side to leave at once. He and fellow councilmember Laura Kronick are competing in the only contested race on Monument’s Nov. 3 ballot, for the seat Mitch LaKind is leaving after six years in town government. Kimple’s platform puts the town’s finances first, then a larger police force, aging infrastructure, renewable water and small business. In conversation, nearly every answer came back to the same idea: getting the town ready before it has to be.
The candidate
Kimple enlisted in the Navy in February 1986, trained as an air traffic controller and retired in 2016, after 30 years, as a master chief petty officer. Since 2020 he has been the airfield manager at Fort Carson, a civilian job with the Department of the Army. His degrees, both from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, are a bachelor’s in professional aeronautics, with minors in aviation safety and business administration, and a master’s in aeronautical science, with a minor in aviation aeronautical management.
He moved to Monument in 2016 and served as president of his subdivision’s homeowners’ association. He and his wife, Deb, a teacher, are a sponsor family for Air Force Academy cadets and have been a certified resource home for foster children. He substitute-taught in Lewis-Palmer School District 38 schools from 2016 to 2025, and he belongs to VFW Post 7829 and American Legion Post 9-11.
He came to the council the long way. The town’s board appointed him to the Planning Commission in June 2017 and later to the Board of Adjustments. He applied for a vacant trustee seat in 2018, ran for it in a special election that November and finished third, and applied for another vacancy in 2021. In November 2022, in the same election that adopted the town’s home-rule charter, he won a seat on its governing board; in 2024 District 2 returned him with 52 percent of the vote. Between those bids he was a regular at public comment, raising speeding on Gleneagle Drive, bus stops, wildfire mitigation and the need for a town-wide evacuation plan.
Why now
Kimple had planned to run in a later cycle and had not intended to challenge LaKind, he said. When LaKind told the council in August that he would not seek a second term, Kimple expected several council members to run, and at first, he said, four were considering it. In the end only he and Kronick filed, and he is glad to be in the race for that reason. “I want to make sure that the residents have a choice instead of just having one person run,” he said. He also wants to put the trust he has built through years of volunteering to work, he says, so that “residents and community voices are heard and help shape our future.”
One change he wants as mayor is shorter meetings. Some agendas require long nights, he said, and staff and council put in long hours preparing for them, but “I think we can manage that time better.” He wants the council to respect the time of the residents and presenters who come, he says, and to keep its own for “important policy issues and long-term future concerns without belaboring decisions.”
Water
Monument is landlocked, Kimple said, and every option for water costs money. The town has worked on the problem for at least six years, and he has spent much of that time asking about it: of the town manager, the water department, Triview Metropolitan District and the town’s water attorneys.
East of Interstate 25, much of Monument gets its water from Triview Metropolitan District. Triview customers have paid about $48 a month extra for renewable water for the past year and a half, he said, and in his view the approach has worked. The town’s own water system, which serves what he calls the west side, still draws on Denver Basin wells, and he puts the build-out of that side at about 2,000 homes.
He thinks the council was right to leave the Loop, the regional water project Monument helped found in 2022 and voted 7–0 to quit on Aug. 3, once it was clear, as he put it, how much it would cost and that it would take seven to ten years to bring water north. In December 2023 he had cast the only vote against staying in. The town waited too long, in his view, while the price of the alternatives climbed.
His plan has two steps. The first is an emergency connection between Triview’s system and the town’s, so that homes on either side keep their water if a main breaks. He recalled one such break, near Bear Creek Elementary, that left homes on Triview’s system without water for several days while crews opened and closed valves to move water around. Talks on the connection are under way, he said, and it is “becoming a larger priority.” Initial discussions have been held, he wrote in answer to follow-up questions, and Triview and the town still need to schedule a planning charrette to work out the details. He thinks it could be built in less than a year, probably once the new council is seated, and town staff already list it among their action items.
The second is a decision. Once the new council is seated, he wants it briefed on the options for a renewable supply for the west side and asked to choose one. The town’s water attorneys, he said, have advised the town to get off the Denver Basin “as quickly as possible and as much as possible.” He believes one option on the table is “a clear winner that is affordable” and could be done in one to two years. It would raise west-side rates by about as much as the east side is paying now, he said, and customers should be told early so they can plan for it. The option was first proposed years ago, alongside the Loop, and he wants staff to bring updated costs before he discusses figures, he wrote. The council has been briefed on it, including in executive sessions, and in his view the town is ready to act: it can build the option on the table while it keeps looking for water rights and other longer-term projects. “Let’s lock something in, and then look at other options as well,” he said, as neighboring towns and districts, some of them already ahead of Monument, compete for the same water.
He would also cut demand. Monument has already reduced how much grass and landscaping it requires of new development, he said, and he thinks it should go further, especially for businesses facing higher water bills, and that the town could help them use a state fund that pays to replace turf. Asking what can be done first is how he works through competing concerns, he said: “What’s the closest alligator to the boat?”
The money
The town’s use tax is the money question on Monument’s ballot. It would raise the tax on construction materials from 2 percent to 3.5 percent, matching the sales tax a homeowner already pays on lumber bought in town, and restrict the revenue to capital projects, including streets, roads, bridges, sidewalks and stormwater. The town estimates it would bring in $2,272,500 in its first year. Kimple describes it as a tax that developers pay up front for the infrastructure their projects need, and says much of the opposition rests on “a misconception.” He would be surprised if it passed all the same, he said: people see the word “tax” and hesitate, and he has already seen campaigning against it.
On August 17th he cast the only vote against putting the question on the ballot, which passed 6–1. His objection, he wrote afterward, was to the timing. The council had talked about workshops, information sessions and question-and-answer meetings to explain the tax, and he did not think residents would get that explanation before they voted. Without it, he wrote, “many may just see the word ‘tax’ increase on the ballot and object to it.” He supports the increase itself. The 2 percent rate has stood since the 1980s, according to Mayor Pro Tem Steve King. “Existing residents should not continue bearing the financial burden of development simply because of past missteps,” Kimple wrote. The builder pays the tax up front, he acknowledges, and will probably pass it on to the buyer of the new home; the point, in his view, is to keep the cost of growth off current residents. He has already returned his ballot. “I’ve voted yes for this measure,” he wrote.
His platform promises to expand the police force and to oppose “unnecessary tax increases.” He would have liked to hire three officers at once, he said, but the budget allows one or two. The draft 2027 budget the council saw on Oct. 5 adds one officer and a records specialist; two more officers the police chief requested are not funded. A staff slide asked whether to fund them anyway, on the expectation that the Legacy at Jackson Landing development will produce the revenue to pay for them from 2028. He praised the finance department for budgeting conservatively, so that the town can hire more quickly if revenue grows. Over the long term, he said, a larger town covering more ground will need more officers.
The draft general fund takes in $16.31 million and spends $16.97 million, and the town’s five-year forecast shows spending running ahead of revenue every year through 2031. The town manager told the council on Oct. 5 that “this is not sustainable.”
Kimple does not think the town is spending on unnecessary things. The gap, in his account, comes mostly from rising costs across the economy, from supplies to labor, and from fuel and maintenance for public works and police vehicles, many of which, he wrote, are past their service life. Revenue from development the town has already approved, such as the Target at Legacy at Jackson Landing and the Alpine Buick GMC dealership the council approved in May at Falcon Commerce Center, is not yet counted and will mostly arrive in 2028 or later, he noted, and could help pay for more officers. In the meantime he would look at selling some town-owned property, or at least get an estimate of its value so the council can discuss a sale, and he named two cuts. The finance memo for the draft budget says it adds stipends for the mayor, council members and planning commissioners. The council’s own budget rises from $138,500 to $208,700, most of the increase a new $43,800 contingency line and $18,000 more for community sponsorships; the ledger shows no separate stipend amount. Kimple opposed a $500-a-month stipend in 2024 and asked then that it go to voters; it was not part of his platform then or now. He would vote to remove it now and would reduce the town’s charitable contributions for a year, which he estimates would free more than $100,000 for equipment for town crews. He thinks council and planning commission members deserve a stipend, given the time the work takes, just not with the budget where it is, and he would still rather voters decided it. The timing troubles him too. Adding stipends in the same year the town starts charging to park at Monument Lake would, in his view, eat up the revenue the permits bring in and leave residents asking “why now.” For this year, he wrote, the town should “tighten our belts.”
If Buc-ee’s is ever built at County Line Road, he said, Monument may need to talk with the company about paying for the emergency calls its police could be drawn into. He drew a line between the business and the site. “I am not against the company,” he said. “I’m against the location.”
The roads out
Kimple’s longest answer was about evacuation, and it began with Home Place Ranch. As a planning commissioner he sat in meetings with the developer, the fire district and town staff before the project reached a vote, he said, and urged the developer to seek Firewise certification from the Colorado State Forest Service before building a single home. His worry was the direction a fire would come from: out of Black Forest and through Sanctuary Pointe toward the neighborhoods along Gleneagle Drive. The forest service’s hazard maps, he said, put that area in the red.
In that case, he said, few residents would use the subdivisions’ second exit. Everyone would head down Gleneagle Drive to Baptist Road and the interstate, meeting traffic from the Colorado Springs side of Baptist doing the same. East of I-25, he said, residents have two ways onto the highway, at Baptist Road and at Highway 105. The police and fire chiefs have worked out evacuation plans with Colorado Springs, El Paso County and the State Patrol, he said, and he credited them for it; those plans include a staging area near the Walmart, the Home Depot and the Target now being built. He has proposed one addition of his own: turning a fenced stretch of road near Higby Road, south of the YMCA, into a locked emergency route onto the interstate. It was once planned as an on-ramp, he said, but sits too close to the Baptist and 105 interchanges to serve as one.
Under the plans, he said, Home Place Ranch is to connect Gleneagle Drive north to Higby Road, and the developer has asked to build more homes to pay for that connection, which the council has refused until the connection is solved.
He is skeptical of claims that thinning trees makes new subdivisions safe. When presenters tell the council a project has reduced the fire hazard, he said, his reaction is that it hasn’t: “You’re putting in matchboxes,” he said of the houses themselves. He has also worked, he said, with the fire district, the state forester, the town and Triview on fuel breaks behind homes, cut back about 15 feet where the ponderosas allow.
Evacuation was one of his objections to Santa Fe Meadows, the 205-home subdivision beside the Air Force Academy that the council rejected in August; everything there leaves by way of Baptist Road and I-25. His other concern was the training next door. The Academy uses the adjoining land for drone flights, helicopter operations and parachute drops, and he raised the risk of a lost drone or a curious child crossing the fence. He would rather see a sports complex there. It would serve a need the town has, he said, and would bring visitors who stay to shop and eat.
Growth
Kimple calls the Monument 2040 comprehensive plan, due for a council vote on Nov. 2, a great product that is “pretty well aligned.” He wants to check its design language before adopting it: earth tones rather than “a bunch of white buildings,” as he said Woodland Park managed to write into its code. He wants to hear from residents at the hearing rather than rubber-stamp the document. Downtown, he has asked about shops with apartments above, about parking, and about closing streets to cars for event days.
On housing, he has asked developers appearing before the council whether they would set aside apartments for police, firefighters, teachers and town staff, some of whom, he said, commute from as far as Falcon and Fountain. One developer said it would look into it. He would also like the town to do more for first-time buyers and young families: promote down-payment assistance and grants, offer builders an incentive for highly energy-efficient homes, and encourage smaller homes like those built in parts of Colorado Springs. Plans for homes of that kind, he says, have now reached the planning department.
He has pressed the planning department to recruit businesses that would give residents somewhere to go. He has suggested a Dave & Buster’s and a ViewHouse; both declined, he said, because each already has a location in Colorado Springs. He would like indoor pickleball in an empty warehouse, an indoor snow park and, above all, more sit-down restaurants, which he says are what residents ask for most.
On the council
On several decisions Kimple has voted his own way. In 2023 he cast the only vote against staying in the Loop; this August the council voted 7–0 to leave it. He voted twice against the lease for the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce in the town-owned Old Town Hall downtown, a building he expects to need major repairs. The Chamber also has a meeting house on Highway 105, and with the town looking to cut costs, he would rather see the Chamber upgrade that building, and the town sell Old Town Hall to a business or restaurant and spend the proceeds on equipment for public works. He was also the only vote against the Monument Lake parking permits in July and, for the timing reasons he gave, against sending the use tax to voters in August.
On the lake permits he gave two reasons. He would rather police spend their time out in the neighborhoods than “looking for parking tags,” and he expects visitors who prefer not to pay to park on residential streets nearby instead, causing problems for the people who live there. The permits were approved, and the town, he says, is now putting the system in place. “Let’s see how it plays out,” he said.
As mayor he would need four votes. His answer is about how he would work: share the facts, be clear and concise, and keep emotions out of the discussion. “As Mayor, I’d plan to be a facilitator of effective teamwork and help define and agree upon mutual goals,” he wrote.
On data centers, which he told the Chamber forum in September he is “absolutely dead set against,” he would renew the six-month moratorium the council adopted in July for the longest period allowed when it expires, then write a prohibition into the town code. The power and water data centers need are beyond what Monument can supply, he wrote, and their diesel backup generators would bring noise and pollution to the neighbors.
The race
Monument’s mayor serves four years. Both candidates sit on the council in seats that run to 2028. The winner must resign that seat, and the council then has 90 days to fill it by appointment or by special election; an appointee serves only until the next regular election, in 2028. The loser keeps their seat. If he wins, Kimple would ask the council to appoint his successor after taking applications and holding interviews, rather than spend what he puts at more than $10,000 on a special election. Ballots went out on Oct. 5, in-person voting centers open Oct. 19, and ballots are due by 7 p.m. on Nov. 3.
Kimple is not accepting contributions. His filings with the town clerk show $689.18 of his own money spent through Sept. 29: a domain name, notarization and $586.13 for yard signs and a banner. He has held small neighborhood meet-and-greets and a coffee with voters, and has two more at Serranos Coffee on Highway 105: Oct. 17, 9 to 11 a.m., and Oct. 24, 7 to 9 a.m.
What the winner inherits
The next mayor takes office in January with the 2027 budget already adopted. The final draft comes to the council on Nov. 2, the same night as its vote on the 2040 plans, and adoption is set for Dec. 7. Kimple wants the new council to choose a renewable water source for the town’s own customers. It will also have to decide how to pay for the southbound lanes of Jackson Creek Parkway, which the capital plan prices at $8 million with no funding source, and fill the seat the new mayor leaves behind.
Asked what would be different after two years, Kimple said he would spend his first year being strategic, and hoped residents would see “both visible improvements and a more stable, forward-looking governance environment.” The improvements he kept returning to are concrete: a water connection he thinks can be built in under a year, a renewable supply he believes the town has already identified, and a plan for getting the east side out on the day it has to leave. On water he has a warning for whoever holds the chair. “The longer we wait the more any plan will cost,” he wrote.
Sources & further reading
The Independent’s own coverage: Laura Kronick Reads Every Line of the Budget — the profile of his opponent · Six Candidates, Five Seats, One Contested Race — the ballot, the terms and the charter’s vacancy rule · Monument Town Council, October 5, 2026 — the draft 2027 budget and the police positions · Monument Town Council, August 17, 2026 — Santa Fe Meadows, the use tax and Hillpointe · Monument Town Council, August 3, 2026 — leaving the Loop, and his reasons on lake parking · Monument Town Council, July 20, 2026 — the parking permits · Home Place Ranch: The Empty-Nest Promise — the 2019 approval and its access conditions.
Campaign: Kenneth Kimple for Mayor, all five pages, read Oct. 12, 2026 · Colorado Politics voters guide, Oct. 4, 2026 · his LinkedIn profile.
Town record: the Town of Monument’s Elections page and the candidates’ campaign finance filings · the staff report for Ordinance 28-2019 (Home Place Ranch Phase 1) · BoardWatch, Monument.
Other reporting: Our Community News on his Planning Commission appointment (2017), his 2018 and 2021 bids, and his council votes from 2023 to 2024 · The Gazette on the Sept. 28 Chamber forum · Our Community News, “Monument Town Council, May 4 and 18,” June 2026 — the Alpine Buick GMC approval · Colorado Politics, “Monument seeks increase for use tax on construction materials,” Oct. 4, 2026 — the 6–1 referral vote and King’s account of the rate.
Methodology
Kenneth Kimple was interviewed in person on the afternoon of October 12th, 2026, in a recorded session of about an hour and a half, and answered further questions in writing on October 14th and 15th; those written answers are quoted as he wrote them. Quotations from the interview come from the recording, worked from a machine-generated transcript. Transcripts of this kind misrender names and garble phrases, and the Independent’s reporting process uses AI tools that can make mistakes. Where his spoken answer was hard to follow, the passage is paraphrased rather than quoted. If we have got something wrong we will correct it, via the Independent’s corrections page.
His Navy service, career, education and community roles are his own account, from the interview, his campaign website and his answers to Colorado Politics. They have not been confirmed with the Navy, the Army or Embry-Riddle. His votes are taken from contemporaneous reporting, the town’s records and this newspaper’s own coverage of the council. His figures for Triview’s water costs and the west side’s build-out, and his account of the Home Place Ranch negotiations, are his and are attributed to him throughout. Budget figures are from the town’s draft 2027 budget as presented on October 5th; the council budget figures and the stipends are from the finance memo and the line-item ledger in that meeting’s packet, and the ledger does not show the stipends as a separate amount. The age of the 2 percent use tax rate is Mayor Pro Tem Steve King’s account, as reported by Colorado Politics. His campaign spending is from his statements of personal expenditures filed with the town clerk.
Using this reporting? Credit The Monument Independent and link to this article: https://monumentindependent.com/government/kenneth-kimple-monument-mayor/. Our guidelines are at Using Our Reporting.
