Monument’s council adopted Monument 2040, the comprehensive plan that will guide its land-use decisions for the next decade, together with the town’s first downtown master plan, by four votes to three after Mayor Pro Tem Steve King proposed removing the plan’s support for apartments by right and was not taken up. It heard the final draft of the 2027 budget, which comes back for adoption on December 7, and was told the Jackson Creek Parkway widening should go out to bid in late November or December. All seven members were present; Chad Smith took part remotely.
Monument 2040 adopted
Resolution 78-2026 makes the Monument 2040 Comprehensive Plan and its component, the Monument 2040 Downtown Master Plan, the town’s comprehensive plan, together with the 2026 Stormwater Master Plan the council adopted in May. It replaces the plan adopted in February 2017. Mayor Mitch LaKind and councilmembers Marco Fiorito, Laura Kronick and Chad Smith voted for it; King and councilmembers Sana Abbott and Kenneth Kimple voted against. Smith, taking part remotely, moved the resolution by its title, with no amendments.
The Planning Commission recommended approval 6–0 on October 14, after continuing its hearing from September 9, and asked the council to give “additional consideration” to four topics: clearer density standards for the Downtown Business and Flexible Residential areas; the scale of the redevelopment illustrations for downtown and the 2nd Street site; de-emphasizing multifamily housing in favor of single-family and single-family attached homes; and language saying the plan’s action steps and success measures are not exhaustive. Planning Director Dan Ungerleider’s memo to the council says the plan already addresses all four and that staff “supports addressing these themes through subsequent Land Development Code amendments and policy actions rather than amendments to the Comprehensive Plan itself.” He told the council that the commission had not asked for specific changes, that staff would bring code amendments early next year, and that he recommended none to the plan: “this is your plan, it’s not mine.” The resolution records that the council “determined” the plan “appropriately addresses” the four topics.
The plan before the council was the October 9 draft the commission reviewed, with a corrected schools map and three typographical fixes; the Independent compared the text of the two documents by computer. On the commission’s points, the plan says this:
- Density. Neither the Downtown Business nor the Commercial Corridor zoning district sets a residential density. The plan recommends setting base densities through future code amendments, and suggests that “a reasonable beginning point may be 6-10 DU/acre” downtown. The Flexible Residential category is matched to the town’s Residential Attached zoning district, which allows up to 25 units an acre.
- Housing mix. The Flexible Residential category, around downtown, lists small- and large-scale multifamily and mixed use as primary uses and single-family detached homes as conditional. The plan also recommends allowing multifamily housing downtown “by-right at appropriate densities, rather than a conditional use.”
- The illustrations. The downtown plan draws two concepts: a three-story building with 60 apartments over 20,000 square feet of shops at Front and 3rd streets, which the comprehensive plan puts at 60 units an acre, and, at the 2nd Street gateway, a 4.5-story building with 140 apartments, 36 rowhomes and 80,000 square feet of retail. The downtown plan says the 140-unit building “received mixed feedback.” Both documents describe the drawings as conceptual; adopting the plan approves no project and rezones no land.
- Implementation. The plan calls its implementation matrix “a living document that can evolve in response to changes in Monument’s planning and development environment.”
Three people spoke at the public hearing. Haley Chapin, executive director of Tri-Lakes Cares, and Terry Hayes of the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce, both members of the plan’s steering committee, spoke in favor; Hayes said the chamber supports adoption. Daniel Ours, speaking remotely, who served on the Planning Commission until the end of 2025, spoke against. He said the process for bringing the commission’s recommendations to the council had been compromised, that staff had held back the commission’s early input, and that two council members had appeared before the commission in October. LaKind, presiding, stopped him, said council members serve on committees all year, and told him: “Do not disgrace this council by lying about what their presence is or isn’t.” Ours said he was being told what he could and could not say. Earlier, at Kimple’s request, the council had agreed to enter Ours’s letter in the record as testimony, and Smith had said that he and Kronick spoke to the commission as steering committee members. After the hearing, Smith said the plan’s first community meeting had been held at an elementary school on the east side of town.
Smith, who sat on the steering committee with Kronick, asked Ungerleider whether adoption gave him authority to approve anything administratively; Ungerleider said it did not, and that the council would take part in rewriting the land development code. Fiorito, who worked on the 2017 plan, praised the new one’s detail. Kimple asked what would happen to the state grant if adoption were delayed; staff said the town could have to return the money it has received. Abbott asked how often the plan would be reviewed; Ungerleider said annually, with a fuller review in about five years.
King then read a statement and proposed changes. The plan’s goals, he said, “say the right things, but some of its policies point in a different direction.” He asked the council to remove the Flexible Residential category and to remove the plan’s call for multifamily housing by right downtown, citing the commission’s recommendations: “by right means no hearing and no ability to say no to a project.” He said that about 2,571 apartments were built or approved in town, against a need of 647 or 691 over ten years that he took from the plan, and that rentals would approach 40 percent of homes; the Independent has not checked those figures. Ungerleider said the plan is not code, creates no zoning and gives no one a right to a rezoning. Andy Cross, a senior planner at The Lakota Group, the town’s planning consultant, said Flexible Residential is a land-use category, not a zoning district, and that removing it “has the potential to really hamstring the town.” Abbott suggested removing the two items so the plan could still be adopted that night; LaKind said he would remove nothing, and King said he would not vote for the plan without the changes. No amendment was moved.
The plan’s drafting began in early 2025 and was paid for in part by a $200,000 planning grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, split equally with the town, whose terms require adoption by December 31, 2026. The town hired Lakota in January 2025 for this plan and the stormwater plan; the memo says there has been no change in the contract’s scope or cost. The engagement count in the resolution is twenty focus groups, two community meetings, ten or more pop-up events and open surveys; the October 14 staff memo puts survey responses at 270.
Adoption starts several clocks. State law requires a housing action plan, which the plan schedules for adoption by January 1, 2028, and the town expects to bring a water master plan and a transportation master plan to the council as further components. Ungerleider announced the transportation plan’s first open house for November 10, 5:30 to 7 p.m., at the office of Triview Metropolitan District, 1641 Baja Drive. After the vote a council member asked staff to hear from residents with concerns as the code is rewritten. Among the plan’s goals is to “modernize and streamline Monument’s Land Development Code.”
The 2027 budget, final draft
Jennifer Phillips, the finance director, presented the final draft of the 2027 budget and a second amendment to the 2026 budget. No vote was scheduled; both are set for adoption on December 7, with the mill levy at a special meeting after the county certifies values in mid-December.
The general fund, which pays for most town services, takes in $16.31 million and spends $17.06 million in the final draft, against $16.31 million and $16.97 million in the version presented on October 5. Phillips said operations are balanced and the gap is one-time capital spending drawn from reserves. The bigger change is in the reserve. The 2026 amendment cuts this year’s expected general fund revenue by $1,235,500: $501,500 in interest earnings moves to the funds that earned it, and $734,000 in police impact fees moves to a fund of its own, so the general fund begins 2027 with less. The town’s own forecast now ends 2027 with an unreserved balance of $4.64 million, or 27.2 percent of spending, where the October draft showed 38 percent. The forecast falls below the town’s 20 percent minimum in 2029, a year earlier than before, and to 6.3 percent in 2031. The amendment’s slides also note a $240,000 payment due from Veregy, which Phillips described as damages for delays on the town’s solar project; it is not yet in the figures.
Staffing rises from 81 full-time-equivalent positions to 83.5. The general fund adds one police officer and the voter-approved 2F police fund a sergeant; two officers move from the 2F fund to the general fund, and the two further officers the police chief asked for remain unfunded, with a plan “to evaluate revenue in mid-2027” before requesting them. Administrative staff get 3 percent raises and sworn officers 6 percent step increases. The council’s line for community sponsorships, shared by Tri-Lakes Cares, Silver Key and the chamber, rises from $62,000 to $80,000; the budget also adds stipends for council members and planning commissioners. The capital projects fund carries $8 million for the northbound lanes of Jackson Creek Parkway. The $2.39 million the town expects in traffic impact fees is “not programmed for expenditures due to its speculative nature,” the budget says. Asked by a council member, Phillips said the budget does not assume that Ballot Issue 2B, the use tax, passes.
The accompanying capital improvement plan for 2027 through 2031, the town’s first, totals $114,938,051, $85,000 less than the October draft; Phillips said much of it is unfunded. Its largest items are $36.8 million for stormwater and $31.9 million for police, most of it a new police station now priced at $30 million, all town money, with its location “To Be Determined.” The station’s sheet places the money under “Future,” beyond 2031, though the plan counts it in the five-year total. A council member went through the plan sheet by sheet; staff said a police-vehicle sheet carried a typographical error that would be corrected.
Kimple proposed paying the community sponsorships quarterly, if revenue allowed, and holding them at past levels; removing the council stipend; and getting a new appraisal of the town’s building at 166 Second Street with a view to selling it. LaKind said the sponsorships were 0.47 percent of the general fund. Smith said he would vote against the budget if it kept the chamber’s increase to $30,000. King said the council’s own line was its main discretionary spending and that he would rather the stipend come out for now. LaKind concluded that the council wanted the budget left as presented.
Jackson Creek Parkway
Andrew Archuleta, the town’s director of public works, gave the council a status report on the widening of Jackson Creek Parkway between Higby Road and Fat Tire Drive. The funded first phase adds the northbound lanes and leaves the existing road to carry southbound traffic, with a sidewalk lit by solar lights, a grass median, drainage work and utility relocations. The full project, estimated by the town’s engineer in 2025 at $17.1 million, exceeded the money available; the town identified $7.55 million for construction in April 2026, and the southbound rebuild remains unfunded future work. Archuleta said about $380,000 has been spent on design.
Design is at 90 percent. The slides proposed advertising for bids on November 20, 2026, “subject to required CDOT prerequisites”: an agreement with the Colorado Department of Transportation on maintenance, CDOT’s review of right-of-way plans, utility clearances and easements. Archuleta said the bid should be ready to advertise near the end of November, or in December, and would stay open 45 days. The schedule puts selection of a contractor in early 2027, construction in 2027 after CDOT’s notice to proceed, and completion in spring or mid-2028. On October 5, staff had told the council the bid would go out in December and construction would start in February or March. Under an agreement the council approved on October 5, Woodmoor Water and Sanitation District will relocate an 8-inch sewer line and the town a 12-inch water main.
During the budget item a council member asked how confident the town was that the state and federal money would arrive. Phillips said the money is assigned to the town and that without it the project would not go ahead and the road would stay as it is.
A $29,000 test of the town’s network security
The council voted 7–0 for Resolution 79-2026, which awards the town’s first penetration test and security assessment of its computer network to RubinBrown, an accounting and consulting firm whose Denver office will lead the work, for a fixed $29,000. The test covers the town’s internet-facing systems, its internal network, its user accounts and passwords, its Microsoft 365 setup, and the systems that support the police department’s access to criminal-justice records. The water department’s control systems are excluded; Will Williams, the town’s director of information technology, said he means to add them in a later year of what he called a three-year approach. The town received more than 55 qualified responses to its request for proposals. Williams said work would start in mid-November with initial reports by mid-December, and Rob Rudloff of RubinBrown, speaking remotely, said the firm could meet that timeline. The price includes one round of retesting for serious flaws the town fixes within 60 days of the final report. Detailed findings will be kept confidential, the memo says.
Also on the agenda
The consent agenda passed 7–0 with nothing removed for discussion. It carried the October 19 minutes, the third-quarter financial and sales tax reports, and payment of two invoices.
The invoices. The two invoices, from Alpine Civil Construction, which does business as Mountain Peak Controls, total $49,318 for two solar-powered pressure-monitoring stations, in the Willow Springs and Wagons West subdivisions, that will report to the water system’s control network around the clock. The water manager’s memo says the purchases were begun under a former department director, that “available records do not reflect completion of a competitive procurement process or a documented sole-source determination,” and that staff “cannot independently verify the original procurement rationale.” The council’s approval was needed because the sum exceeds the town manager’s spending authority.
Sales tax. The town collected $3,540,074 in sales tax in July, August and September, the finance staff’s report shows, against $3,476,017 in the same months of 2025 and $3,588,563 in 2024. For the first nine months the monthly figures in the same report sum to $10,111,141, about 6 percent above 2025 and level with 2024. During the budget discussion Phillips said collections were running about 10 percent above 2025, the figure in the quarterly memo. Of the third quarter’s collections, $674,577 went to Triview. The general fund had taken in $11.56 million and spent $9.01 million by the end of September.
Veterans Day. Williams read the town’s recognition of veterans among its elected officials and staff: 22 people, including four council members, Fiorito, Kimple, LaKind and Smith, with 239 years and eight months of combined active service.
Public comment. Terry Hayes of the chamber said about 2,000 people, about 1,000 of them children, came downtown for the chamber’s Safe Trick-or-Treat on October 31, with 21 businesses taking part. Chapin announced a fashion night at Shields on November 15, 6:30 to 9 p.m., with tickets at $25, for the charity’s benefit.
Council comments. King said the new connection on Old Denver Road does not work as built, citing a trail crossing without a stop and turns he said school buses could not make; Archuleta said staff and the town’s engineers had met on site and are reviewing options, including restriping. Smith, who lives nearby, said Doc Close Road was meant to meet the new road and that traffic was instead using Buffalo Valley Path. LaKind asked for a timeline and updated pricing for the water interconnect with Triview before year end; staff said pricing was being refreshed. A council member asked whether the town keeps a list of potholes on private commercial lots, naming the Walmart and Home Depot area. Staff reminded the council that OpenGov, the software vendor, would meet members two at a time and that the contract comes to the council on November 16.
Executive session. On LaKind’s motion, the council voted 7–0 to meet in closed session with its attorney for legal advice on “special district inclusion and exclusion procedures and a prior Triview exclusion,” and said it would adjourn from the session without returning to open session. The recording ends there.
What comes back, and when
- November 10: first open house for the transportation master plan, 5:30–7 p.m., Triview Metropolitan District, 1641 Baja Drive
- November 16: next regular meeting; the OpenGov contract
- Late November or December: the Jackson Creek Parkway bid, if CDOT’s conditions are met
- December 7: adoption of the 2027 budget and the second amended 2026 budget
- December 14: special council meeting for the mill levy deadline; the December 21 regular meeting is canceled
- January 1, 2028: the state deadline for the town’s housing action plan
Meetings: Monument Town Hall, 645 Beacon Lite Road, 6:30 p.m., with remote participation via Microsoft Teams.
Sources & further reading
The Independent’s own coverage: Monument’s Draft 2040 Plan Is Out. Here Is How to Weigh In., the Independent’s guide to both drafts · Monument’s 2040 Plan Gets More Time, on the continued hearing · Monument Town Council, October 5, 2026, the draft budget and the parkway schedule · Monument Town Council, October 19, 2026, whose minutes were approved here.
Town record: Agenda and 510-page packet, November 2, 2026 · the Monument 2040 Comprehensive Plan, draft dated November 2, 2026 · the Monument 2040 Downtown Master Plan, draft dated October 8, 2026 · the meeting recording.
Entities: Town of Monument · Monument Town Council · Comprehensive Plan — Monument 2040 · The Lakota Group · RubinBrown · Triview Metropolitan District · CDOT · DOLA
Methodology
This account is based on the town’s agenda and 510-page agenda packet, together with the two plan documents the packet links to, all read in full before the meeting, and on the town’s recording of the meeting, posted November 3. Figures, dates and the terms of each resolution come from the documents; votes come from the town’s on-screen vote display. The Independent compared the plan in the packet, dated November 2, with the October 9 draft the Planning Commission reviewed, by computer; the comparison covers the documents’ text, not their images. The third-quarter sales tax totals for nine months are the Independent’s sums of the town’s monthly figures. The Independent made its own machine transcript of the town’s recording with Whisper, an open-source speech-recognition program, and re-checked the passages quoted or attributed here with a second, larger version of the same program. Names come from the agenda, town records and the recording itself, including spoken names and the on-screen list of remote participants; Ours’s service on the Planning Commission is from Town Council Resolution 01-2026. Every quotation from the meeting was checked against the recording by the editor; remarks that could not be checked that way are paraphrased. The Independent has not put questions to town staff about the matters described here.
Using this reporting? Credit The Monument Independent and link to this article: https://monumentindependent.com/government/monument-town-council-november-2-2026/. Our guidelines are at Using Our Reporting.
