Mitch LaKind announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election as mayor of Monument, ending six years in elected office — trustee from 2020, mayor from 2022 — that spanned the town’s conversion to home rule. His departure puts an open mayor’s seat at the top of a November 3 ballot that already carries four other council seats and a use-tax increase.
“After spending July thinking about what comes next, I’ve decided not to seek re-election as Mayor of Monument this November,” LaKind wrote on his official Mayor of Monument Facebook page. “Serving this community has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.”
The statement is direct about the circumstances. “I want to be clear: no one pushed me out. This decision is mine, made freely, with a clear conscience and my integrity intact,” he wrote. He said he spent July “stepping back and thinking seriously about what I wanted the next chapter to look like,” and that “the answer became clear.” He was absent from the council’s July 20 meeting, which Mayor Pro Tem Steve King chaired, and returned to the chair on August 3. Asked afterwards by the Independent what that next chapter looks like, and what he hopes the town remembers, he answered at length; his responses appear below.
From Scottsdale to the Dais
LaKind has worked in information technology for more than 30 years and moved to Monument from Scottsdale, Arizona, in January 2018, according to his biography on the town’s website. By his own account his involvement with the town began with brief stints on the planning commission and the board of adjustment. Voters elected him to the Board of Trustees in 2020, alongside Jim Romanello and Jamy Unruh.
Two years later the two trustees ran against each other for mayor. LaKind won the November 8, 2022 race with about 60% of the vote, the Gazette reported, succeeding Don Wilson, who had just been elected to the state House. The same night, Monument voters approved the home-rule charter by roughly two to one — the change that gives today’s council its shape: a mayor and six members, all elected to four-year terms. LaKind’s four years in the office span the town’s first years under that charter. His term ends this year; the office he holds is on the November 3 ballot.
The Record He Cites
His statement names two projects: “completing the town’s first strategic plan in its 147-year history and advancing the comprehensive plan that will guide Monument through 2040.” Monument was incorporated in 1879, which makes 2026 its 147th year.
The strategic plan is real and recent. The council adopted its 2026–2028 Strategic Priorities on May 19, 2025, and the accompanying Strategic Objectives on November 17, 2025 — four goals, with dated tasks, covering town finances, public communication, community development and workforce. It arrived in a hard year: 2025 brought layoffs and spending cuts to close a structural deficit, and the plan’s financial goals — yearly independent audits, a long-term forecast, a capital-asset plan — read as a response. “As times change, I’m sure the objectives will change, as well,” LaKind said when it passed.
The Monument 2040 comprehensive plan, developed with the planning firm Lakota Group as a blueprint for the next 10 to 15 years, is nearly done. The town will present the final draft at a public open house on Wednesday, September 9, from noon to 4 p.m. in the Town Council Chambers at 645 Beacon Lite Road, where planning staff will take questions and hear final comments before the plan is finalized. Residents may stop by at any point in those four hours. It will fall to LaKind’s successor to govern under the result.
The rest of the record is the daily business the Independent’s Monument vote tracker records. Since that record begins, in 2024, LaKind has attended 44 of 46 council meetings and cast 189 recorded votes in favor of items, none against — on a council that decided 267 of 275 recorded items unanimously. His final year in office included the first economic incentive package in Monument’s history, which brought ACCO Engineered Systems’ $36 million fabrication plant and up to 135 jobs to Terrazzo Drive (“This was the first time the Town has put together a local economic incentive package, so being chosen over the competition means a great deal,” he said in July); the withdrawal from the Loop regional water project it helped found; a six-page letter, signed by all seven council members, opposing Buc-ee’s zoning claim at the county line (“A regional travel center of this scale should not be approved through an expansive interpretation of an obsolete zoning category,” his line in the town’s release); the first water-rate increase since 2020; and, on August 17, the denial of a 205-home subdivision beside the Air Force Academy, which he called “a non-starter for me.”
Home Rule, Water and a Word on His Successor
Asked what he hopes residents remember, LaKind named neither of those projects. “I hope they remember home rule,” he told the Independent. “It doesn’t get talked about the way the strategic plan or 2040 comprehensive plan do, but in some ways it’s the most important thing we did.”
His account of why rests on where authority sits. Before the charter, he said, “the state had significant control over how Monument governed itself. Local decisions had to work around state statutes that weren’t written with Monument in mind.” Home rule, on his telling, “put the power directly in the hands of the people who live here,” letting the town set its own rules on local matters rather than defaulting to “what works for the state as a whole.” He was careful to place the credit with voters: “The residents voted for it, and that’s exactly how it should have happened. I’m proud we made it possible for them to make that choice.”
On what faces the town next he was unequivocal, and it is the subject his own final year turned on. “The biggest challenge facing Monument over the next five to ten years is water,” he said. “This is an existential issue for the town and must be treated as such.” Growth management he ranked “a close second”: Monument “will continue to attract development, and the next mayor needs to understand both the tools available and their limitations.”
His advice on choosing a successor was about temperament rather than policy. “Find someone genuinely invested in this community, not just in the title,” he said, and someone who treats the office as non-partisan, because “roads, water, development — none of that should be about party politics.” He wanted a candidate “who shows up beyond the two meetings a month,” who can work with staff and council, “and who is here because they want to serve Monument, not because they’re using this seat to get somewhere else.” He expects voters to sort it out for themselves: “The residents will figure out pretty quickly which one they have.”
Five Seats and a Tax
The seat LaKind leaves open joins an unusually full municipal ballot. Five of the council’s seven seats are up on November 3: the mayor’s, two at-large seats and the two district seats. The mayor and the district members serve four-year terms; of the at-large pair, the top vote-getter takes four years and the runner-up two. The same ballot carries the town’s use-tax increase on construction materials, referred by the council on August 17. Palmer Lake elects a mayor the same day.
Whoever wins will take office with the big decisions of the next year already in motion: the 2027 budget is scheduled for adoption on December 7, by the council now sitting, and the Monument 2040 plan is due to be finalized after the September 9 open house.
“To the residents of Monument: thank you,” LaKind’s statement ends. “You put your trust in me, and I never took it for granted. Every decision I made was made with this community in mind. Serving you has been an honor.”
His own next chapter, the one the announcement left unnamed, turns out to be Monument again. He said he would like to stay involved — “whether that means serving on a board, a committee, or in an advisory capacity” — and qualified it: “if the staff and council find it useful.” He named two things in particular. Monument reaches its 150th year in 2029, and “that milestone deserves something special”; he would like a hand in planning it. He also wants to stay close to the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce’s work supporting local businesses, saying he cares “deeply about the health of our local business community.” “Monument has given me a lot,” he said. “I’m not done giving back.”
Sources & further reading
The Independent’s own coverage: Monument Town Council vote tracker — LaKind’s attendance and voting record since 2024, from the official minutes · Monument Town Council, August 17, 2026 — the five seats and the use-tax question on the November 3 ballot, and the Air Force Academy subdivision denial · Monument Town Council, August 3, 2026 — the Loop withdrawal and the water-rate increase · Monument Council Asks the County to Reject Buc-ee’s Zoning Claim — the position letter all seven members signed · Monument Wins Its First Bidding War — the ACCO plant and the town’s first incentive package · Monument Town Council, July 20, 2026 — the meeting LaKind missed in the month he says he spent deciding · Kent Hutson Chaired Palmer Lake’s Master Plan. Now He Is Running for Mayor. — the other Tri-Lakes mayoral race on the same ballot
The announcement: Mayor of Monument Facebook page, August 26, 2026
Town record: Mitch LaKind, staff directory · Town Council — home rule, four-year terms · Election results — the 2020 trustee election · Monument 2040 Comprehensive Plan
The 2022 election: Monument elects new mayor, decides on home-rule charter — Colorado Springs Gazette, November 2022
The strategic plan: Town of Monument releases 3-year goals — Colorado Springs Gazette, November 18, 2025
Town history: Monument History — Palmer Lake Historical Society, incorporation in 1879
Methodology
LaKind’s announcement is quoted from the statement posted to the Mayor of Monument Facebook page on August 26, 2026. His further remarks — on home rule, water, growth, his advice to a successor and his own plans — come from written answers he sent the Independent on August 27 in reply to emailed questions, and are quoted verbatim from that reply. His characterization of what home rule changed is his own and is attributed to him rather than asserted here; the Independent has not independently assessed the legal scope of the charter. His attendance and voting figures come from the Independent’s Monument vote tracker, compiled from the town’s official minutes; that record begins in 2024 and runs through the July 20, 2026 meeting, so it covers roughly the second half of his mayoral term and none of his service as trustee. Positions are counted per recorded vote and attendance per meeting, as described on the tracker page. The 2022 election margins, including the home-rule charter’s roughly two-to-one approval, are the Gazette’s election-night figures. The town’s four-year terms and the composition of the November 3 ballot are from the town’s own pages and from the ballot ordinance adopted August 17. Monument was incorporated in 1879, which places its 150th year in 2029, consistent with the timing he gave. Every other statement here is taken from a public document, a public meeting or published reporting credited above.
