Monument’s council voted 7–0 to bar e-motos, electric dirt bikes and off-highway vehicles from the town’s streets, sidewalks, trails and parks, with a fine of up to $250 for a parent who knowingly lets a minor ride one. It also voted 7–0 to support Ballot Issue 2B, the construction use tax on the November 3 ballot, and heard Silver Key ask the town to raise its yearly contribution from $12,000 to $25,000. All seven members were present, every vote was unanimous, and the town’s recording of the meeting runs 42 minutes.
E-motos and dirt bikes off town property
Ordinance 25-2026 makes it unlawful to operate a “prohibited motorized device” on public property, which it defines as any street, sidewalk, trail, park, open space, public parking area or facility the town owns, operates, maintains or controls. Four kinds of machine are covered: off-highway vehicles, electric dirt bikes, electric motorcycles and mopeds operated in violation of state law, and any similar motorized recreational vehicle that does not qualify as an electric-assisted bicycle.
Class 1, 2 and 3 electric-assisted bicycles, as Colorado law defines them, are untouched. The ordinance says a device is not an e-bike “solely because it is marketed, labeled, advertised, sold, or described as an ‘e-bike'”; its classification depends on state law and on what the machine actually is. Street-legal, registered and insured vehicles, government and emergency work, and riding on private property with the owner’s permission are exempt.
A violation carries a fine of $50 to $1,000, and each one counts as a separate offense. A parent or guardian who knowingly lets a minor under 18 ride a prohibited device commits a civil offense with a fine of up to $250. Officers may impound a machine when they have probable cause to believe it was ridden in violation of the ordinance, that the rider fled or failed to stop, that it was involved in a crash, injury, property damage, reckless riding or a repeat violation, that it lacks the registration, insurance or plate state law requires, that a minor rode it after a warning, or that impounding it is needed for public safety or to preserve evidence. Police Chief Patrick Regan is to set the procedures for impounding, storing and releasing machines and for recovering fees.
Lieutenant Mitch Mihalko of the Monument Police Department told the Town Council the ordinance follows its discussion on September 8, when it directed staff to draft one. It targets “electric motorcycles, dirt bikes, off highway vehicles and other similar devices that don’t legally qualify as an e-bike,” Mihalko said, and enforcement stays “education first,” with officers left to decide whether to educate, warn, cite or impound.
Councilmember Marco Fiorito said the ordinance gives an officer room to judge each case, from education to impounding a machine for “gross buffoonery.” Mayor Pro Tem Steve King said it was not fair to drivers “to worry about running over a little kid that darts out in front of them.” Asked by Councilmember Chad Smith whether the town has procedures for impounded machines and their costs, Mihalko said it does and that the department will review them once the ordinance takes effect. No one spoke at the public hearing, in the chamber or online.
The ordinance amends Section 10.04.015 of the town code, the section that lists Monument’s local changes to the state’s Model Traffic Code. When the Independent reported on e-bike rules in September, that section read, in its entirety, “None.” The ordinance takes effect ten days after the town publishes it in full on its website, which Mayor Mitch LaKind said would happen the next day.
Council support for Ballot Issue 2B
Resolution 77-2026, adopted 7–0, puts the council on record supporting Ballot Issue 2B, which asks Monument voters on November 3 to raise the town’s use tax on construction and building materials and construction equipment from 2 percent to 3.5 percent, the same rate as the town’s sales tax. LaKind moved it. The council referred the measure to the ballot by a vote of 6–1 on August 17.
The resolution says the added revenue “will provide a dedicated source of funding for capital projects including streets, roads, bridges, sidewalks, and stormwater improvements,” and it “encourages residents to review the ballot language and available information before casting their votes.” The ballot estimates the increase at $2,272,500 a year from January 1, 2027.
Colorado’s campaign finance law generally bars a town from spending public money to urge a vote on a ballot issue. It does not stop a council from passing a resolution or “taking a position of advocacy,” or from reporting that resolution through its usual channels other than paid advertising. Members returned to the point twice. King said the council is “permitted by law to take a position,” and LaKind, making the motion, said it was “legally allowed to take a position despite what some people on social media think.”
King said the measure keeps the use tax “in line” with the sales tax, as almost every other community does, and that Monument’s use tax is one of the lower ones along the Front Range. Councilmember Sana Abbott said the town “should have done this probably years ago,” adding: “I’m behind it 100%.” King noted that the rate on construction materials has not changed since the 1980s, and LaKind that the town’s leaders could have matched the two rates “with a stroke of the pen” before 1992, when the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights began requiring a vote for any new tax or rate increase, and “chose not to.” The Independent’s comparison of 2B with ten similar Front Range towns found that Monument’s 2 percent rate is the lowest of the eleven and that 3.5 percent would put the town in the middle of the group.
Silver Key asks for $25,000
Jason DeaBueno, president and chief executive of Silver Key, which serves older adults, asked the council to raise the town’s contribution to its work from $12,000 to $25,000 in 2027. Silver Key runs an activity center at Monument Presbyterian Church, DeaBueno said, and a thrift store whose proceeds stay in Monument to pay for it.
Silver Key’s slides put its yearly cash operating spending in Monument at $296,576 and list $120,513 in facility and equipment expenses and $117,452 in personnel costs there, which together, DeaBueno said, come to more than half a million dollars. They count 400 participants at the activity center, 80 percent of them Monument residents, and forecast $310,970 in taxable sales at the thrift store, about $10,884 a year in town sales tax. Citing problems at the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority, DeaBueno said Silver Key has been told that a contract will be cut by $432,000 from January, and that there would be no cuts in Monument. The organization’s plan for a new activity center in Monument, which won approval as an Enterprise Zone contribution project last December, would need about $7 million for its first phase, DeaBueno said.
Abbott called the request “a fair ask.” LaKind said Silver Key provides its services “at a much better value than what any municipal government could do,” said the council should “make sure that it’s in the budget,” that it already was, and that the council would discuss it at its next meeting. The draft budget presented on October 5 carries one line for the council’s community sponsorships: $80,000 for 2027, up from $62,000 in each year from 2024 through 2026. It does not list the organizations the line pays for. No vote was scheduled.
Downloaded software becomes taxable
Ordinance 27-2026, adopted 7–0, changes how the town’s sales tax treats computer software, to match House Bill 26-1223, which became law this year. Councilmember Laura Kronick moved it. The town code now taxes software only when it is prepackaged, sold under a “tear-open” license the buyer cannot negotiate, and delivered on a physical medium, so software that is downloaded or delivered online goes untaxed. From January 1, 2027, the exemption will cover only software “developed specifically for use by a particular user rather than commercially available to multiple customers,” and software governed by a negotiable license agreement. Everything else becomes taxable, as it does under the state’s sales tax from the same date.
Finance Manager Laurie Young told the council that Monument, as a home-rule town, was bringing the ordinance so that “we can do the same here in town.” No one spoke at the public hearing.
A snowplow swap with El Paso County
Resolution 69-2026, adopted 7–0, renews an arrangement under which the town and El Paso County plow stretches of each other’s roads. Smith moved it. The county plows 2.23 miles for the town: Beacon Lite Road from State Highway 105 to the town limits, and Mount Herman Road from the town limits to Mitchell Avenue. The town plows 0.88 miles for the county: Mitchell Avenue between Santa Fe Avenue and North Monument Lake Road, North Monument Lake Road between the town limits and Raspberry Lane, and Second Street between Mitchell Avenue and Front Street. The roads do not change hands, and each government remains responsible for claims about the condition of its own roads.
Andrew Archuleta of the public works department, who presented the item, handed the council a revised agreement at the meeting. Archuleta said the town’s attorneys had found errors in the version the county board approved on September 29, including a mislabeled road list, outdated contact details and unfinished sentences in one section, and that the county’s attorneys had reviewed the corrections. Archuleta said the arrangement has been in place for about ten years and that the town and county will review the road list each year.
Asked by LaKind whether the agreement covers the recently annexed part of Beacon Lite Road, Archuleta said the county will plow all of Beacon Lite north of Highway 105 this winter and that the town expects to take over that stretch once the rebuilt road is out of its warranty period.
Also on the agenda
The consent agenda, which carried the minutes of October 5, passed 7–0. Those minutes record that the council canceled its December 21 regular meeting because of a special meeting called for December 14.
Public comment. Tia Mayer, of Lake of the Rockies, asked for warning signs on Old Denver Road, where, the speaker said, a stop sign for drivers coming from the south is followed closely by a sharp left turn that school buses struggle with in bad weather. The speaker asked whether the developer or the town is responsible. LaKind, presiding, said public comment is not a dialogue and pointed to the public works department. No one commented online.
A municipal judge. Town Manager Madeline VanDenHoek, who joined online from a conference of city managers in Long Beach, California, said the town has issued a request for proposals for a municipal judge, because the current appointment runs only through the end of 2026. Two council members are needed on the selection committee; LaKind and Kronick volunteered. Staff hope to finish by December.
The town manager’s report. VanDenHoek said the Monument 2040 comprehensive plan will come to the council at its next meeting.
Council comments. Smith, Kronick and Phil Stuepfert of HR Green, all three members of the plan’s steering committee, spoke in favor of Monument 2040 at the Planning Commission‘s meeting on October 14, Smith said, and there was “a little bit of pushback” from the commission. Smith urged other members to watch that meeting before the plan reaches the council. LaKind reminded members that the town manager’s annual evaluation is due in about ten days. Fiorito urged residents to vote.
The council held no executive session.
What comes back, and when
- Ten days after the town publishes it: Ordinance 25-2026 takes effect
- November 2: the Monument 2040 plan and the 2027 budget, at the council’s next regular meeting
- November 3: the regular municipal election, including Ballot Issue 2B
- December: selection of a municipal judge for 2027
- December 14: special council meeting; the December 21 regular meeting is canceled
- January 1, 2027: the software change takes effect, and so would 2B’s higher rate if voters approve it
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 Town Council, September 8, 2026, the meeting at which the council asked for the e-bike ordinance · E-Bike Rules in the Tri-Lakes: What Parents Should Know, on the state’s e-bike classes and the town code’s empty list of traffic amendments · 2B Asks Monument’s Builders to Pay the Rate Shoppers Already Do, the Independent’s analysis of the use tax measure · Monument Town Council, October 5, 2026, the meeting whose minutes were approved here and at which the draft 2027 budget was presented · Monument’s Draft 2040 Plan Is Out. Here Is How to Weigh In., the Independent’s guide to the plan and its steering committee · Monument’s 2040 Plan Gets More Time, on the October 14 hearing and the November 2 council vote.
Town record: Regular meeting agenda and 51-page packet, October 19, 2026, containing the draft October 5 minutes, Silver Key’s presentation, Ordinance 25-2026 with the police chief’s memo, Ordinance 27-2026 with its memo and the marked-up Chapter 3.09, Resolution 69-2026 with the county agreement as first signed, Resolution 77-2026, and the town manager’s September report · the meeting recording on the town’s YouTube channel · October 5, 2026 council packet, draft 2027 budget, Town Council account details.
State law: HB26-1223 · Colorado Revised Statutes § 1-45-117, as published by the Office of Legislative Legal Services · Colorado Constitution, Article X, Section 20, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Entities: Town of Monument · Monument Town Council · Monument Police Department · Silver Key Senior Services · El Paso County · Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority
Methodology
This account is based on the town’s agenda and 51-page agenda packet, both read in full before the meeting, and on the recording of the meeting the town posted to its YouTube channel the next morning. Item numbers, dollar figures, dates, road segments and legal language are taken from the packet wherever the packet carries them; the Silver Key figures are the organization’s own, from its slides and its president’s remarks. The budget figure for community sponsorships is from the draft 2027 budget presented on October 5. Vote tallies were read from the town’s on-screen vote display, which shows each member’s vote.
The recording had no captions when the Independent obtained it, so the Independent made its own transcript with automatic speech recognition (OpenAI’s Whisper model, run locally), and ran a second, smaller Whisper model over every passage quoted here; each quotation appears in both. Machine transcription misrenders names, garbles figures and carries no speaker labels, so names in this article were checked against the agenda, the packet or the town’s own published record rather than taken from the transcript, Speakers were identified from the video by the editor, who also checked each quotation against the recording. Figures come from the meeting documents wherever the documents carry them.
The council adopted Resolution 69-2026 on a revised agreement handed out at the meeting, which was not in the published packet and which the Independent has not seen. The road list and the division of responsibility described here are from the version in the packet; the changes the presenter described did not touch them. Characterizations of what a document says are the document’s; characterizations of the meeting’s tone are avoided. 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-october-19-2026/. Our guidelines are at Using Our Reporting.
