Ten of the twelve candidates for Palmer Lake mayor and trustee answered six questions at a Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce forum at Palmer Lake Town Hall on Sunday, Oct. 4, the day before ballots were mailed. Several kept returning to the town’s finances; the town administrator estimated last month that Palmer Lake could run out of money in about two years at its current rate of spending. The candidates differed on Buc-ee’s, on joining the Monument Fire District and on whether to trim police coverage.

The Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce organized the forum, which ran from 4 to 6 p.m., recorded it and had invited residents to submit questions beforehand. Alasyn Zimmerman, a reporter and anchor for KOAA News 5, moderated. The two candidates for mayor, Kent Hutson and Atis Jurka, sat with eight of the ten candidates for trustee: Becky Albright, William Bass, Tony Beltran, Eric Alan Burton, Kathy Keeley, Karla Kerstner, Roger Moseley and Dennis Stern. John Marble, a sitting trustee, sent a one-minute statement, which the moderator read; she said a last-minute challenge with his business had kept him away. Beth Harris, also a sitting trustee, was not on the panel; no reason was given at the forum.

Each candidate had a minute to open and a minute to close, and two minutes for each of the first five questions; the sixth was held to one. The moderator rotated the speaking order from question to question.

Voters will choose a mayor for a two-year term and up to five trustees. Because the Town of Palmer Lake is restoring staggered terms, the two trustee candidates with the most votes will serve four years and the next three will serve two. Ballots must be in the county clerk’s hands by 7 p.m. on Nov. 3; Colorado does not count postmarks. The Independent reported the certified ballot in September and has profiled both candidates for mayor, Hutson and Jurka.

The candidates, as they introduced themselves
Candidate Running for Town role now From the opening statements
Kent Hutson Mayor Planning Commission A physician in what he called the semi-retired phase of his life; cited his work on the town’s master plan
Atis Jurka Mayor Trustee Involved with the town for six years; said he is running because he wants “people to have a choice this year”
Becky Albright Trustee — A 33-year resident and licensed clinical social worker in Monument for about 28 years
William Bass Trustee — Mayor from 2020 to 2022, by his account, with more than 40 years in information technology
Tony Beltran Trustee Trustee A professional pilot and resident for most of two decades; said he applied to the board in 2025
Eric Alan Burton Trustee — A professional counselor for 18 years and a mechanical engineer for 13 before that; moved to town in 2012
Kathy Keeley Trustee — Moved to Palmer Lake to be near family in Franktown
Karla Kerstner Trustee — A licensed counselor for 40 years, recently retired; a former president of a legal aid board
Roger Moseley Trustee Trustee Said his focus is contracts, accounting and money management, and that he would keep the zoning map as it is rather than change it for developers
Dennis Stern Trustee Mayor Running for trustee rather than re-election as mayor; opened with the town’s budget deficit
John Marble Trustee Trustee Did not attend; statement read by the moderator
Beth Harris Trustee Trustee Did not attend
Source: opening statements at the Oct. 4 forum, from the chamber’s recording; current roles from the certified ballot and the Independent’s earlier reporting. A dash means the Independent did not establish a current town role from the public record, not that none exists.

Restoring civility

The first question asked what should be done to restore trust and civility after a period of recalls, resignations and division. Most answers turned on communication. Albright noted that three mental-health professionals were running this year; she, Burton and Kerstner each described careers in counseling or social work in their opening statements.

  • Kent Hutson said effective teams are ones in which people can share ideas without feeling attacked, and that in Palmer Lake the team takes in the board, the town staff, the commissions and residents. “It’s all y’all,” he said. That team, he said, needs enough stability to talk openly and work its way toward the best solution.
  • Atis Jurka said his platoon sergeant had taught him, as a new second lieutenant in the Army, that “it’s critical that you lead by example,” and that the town’s leadership often had not. “We have leaders who cuss people out,” he said, leaders who “call people terrorists,” adding that “that kind of spreads throughout the rest of the citizenry.” He said residents had watched divisive issues argued in black and white.
  • Becky Albright said she had been proposing restorative dialogue for about a year and a half and would keep at it whether or not she is elected. She described Palmer Lake Listens, a residents’ effort she belongs to, and asked residents to practice civil discourse themselves, including on social media.
  • William Bass said much of the incivility grew out of misunderstanding and a belief that the town was not transparent. As mayor, he said, he held special meetings and town halls to lay out the facts and hear residents.
  • Tony Beltran compared good board work to the communication discipline pilots are trained in, and said the board should encourage full participation from all its members.
  • Eric Alan Burton said many past disputes grew out of misperceptions about what was being voted on, which more open communication, including publishing minutes, could have cleared up. He said he and Albright are involved in Palmer Lake Listens, which has started a book club around The Soul of Civility, Alexandra Hudson’s book on the subject.
  • Kathy Keeley said people too often do not listen to one another, and described a sequence she knows from negotiating: communicate, collect information, collaborate, compromise, create and conclude.
  • Karla Kerstner drew on her background in group dynamics and said decisions should rest on what the community wants rather than on personal agendas.
  • Roger Moseley said Tony Beltran was the only sitting board member at the table who had not lost his temper over the past year. “All the rest of us at some point or another have gotten excited about something,” he said, and had lost their tempers. His rule, he said, is to “go to the people or the person and apologize,” recognize the mistake and move on.
  • Dennis Stern said he and Albright had signed a civility pledge the week before. He said Hudson had given the town copies of her book for reading groups, and that he had helped bring her to Palmer Lake for a workshop in June. “I am obviously committed to a civil discourse,” he said, adding that this would not stop him disagreeing with colleagues.

Buc-ee’s

Buc-ee’s is pursuing a travel center at Interstate 25 and County Line Road in unincorporated El Paso County, after withdrawing its request to be annexed into Palmer Lake. The county commissioners voted 4-1 on Aug. 27 to allow it in the C-1 zoning district, and on Sept. 24 opponents asked a district court to overturn that decision. The moderator asked how Palmer Lake’s elected officials should respond to its effects if it is approved, and what they should do in the meantime.

Four candidates said they did not want the travel center. Stern called it “somewhat inevitable” and said it could help Palmer Lake’s businesses. Beltran declined to discuss it.

  • Kent Hutson said “Buc-ee’s is not in our master plan,” which, he said, reflects residents’ wish to keep big-box franchises out of town, and that Palmer Lake should join its Tri-Lakes neighbors in saying so. He said the town should also plan for secondary effects and expect to work with the county to reduce them.
  • Atis Jurka said the town is still tied to Buc-ee’s while it completes an accounting of money owed to the company, and should study what the travel center would mean for local businesses, traffic, and police and fire services. Whether to join Monument and other neighbors in opposing it, he said, is for residents to tell the board.
  • Becky Albright said: “I would like to state as a citizen, I prefer no Buc-ee’s.” She said the town should work directly with the commissioners, protect the wildlife corridor and water at the site, and hold the project to its dark-sky commitments.
  • William Bass said: “I’ve never been a proponent of Buc-ee’s.” He said the company had chosen the worst possible location but had come to the town in good faith, offering help with infrastructure including a well, and that the town had lost much of its control over the effects. Given the town’s finances, he said, if Buc-ee’s came back “we would be hard-pressed to automatically reject this again.”
  • Tony Beltran declined to discuss Buc-ee’s, saying the town is not yet legally untied from it and that he could not speak to a quasi-judicial matter. When the moderator asked him to speak broadly about the effects, he talked instead about the voter-approved rule requiring an election on annexations, which he said would leave businesses paying thousands of dollars for the vote and could keep good ones away.
  • Eric Alan Burton said that as a citizen he did not favor Buc-ee’s, and that the master plan “is a guideline. It’s not law.” If annexation came up again, he said, residents would get to vote, and the town would need an open conversation about whether they want the revenue.
  • Kathy Keeley said supporters and opponents alike should make their views known to the county. “I think the county has been very disrespectful to the people who are not proponents,” she said, and she doubted travelers would stop in town.
  • Karla Kerstner said the question was not as simple as being for or against: “We should be for Palmer Lake.” She expects the project to go ahead and said the town should plan for its effects on water, wildlife, lighting and transportation. She closed her answer: “I haven’t read the city’s master plans.”
  • Roger Moseley said about 70 percent of residents had voted last September in a way that indicated opposition, but that the board could not formally oppose Buc-ee’s because about a third of the town wanted it. He said water had not been weighed heavily enough in the annexation agreement, and that “money doesn’t fix some things,” naming the lights, the disruption to wildlife and the overpass.
  • Dennis Stern said the board had known Buc-ee’s had a legal right to build in the county if Palmer Lake turned it down, and that the commissioners had ruled on that legal question rather than on their personal views; trustees, he said, owe the same discipline. He cited studies estimating that about 300 of 10,000 daily cars stopping at the travel center would continue to Palmer Lake, and board research finding that revenues at businesses near a Buc-ee’s rise about 25 percent.

Keeping staff

The third question noted the town’s difficulty keeping employees and its turnover in elected offices, including its administrator and attorney, and asked how candidates would keep employees and contractors wanting to work in Palmer Lake. Most answers came back to one division of labor: the board sets policy, and the administrator runs the town.

  • Kent Hutson named two keys, “adequate compensation” and respect, and said the town had failed some of its staff on the second. He described a disconnect between what the board is supposed to do and what it has done, and said the proposed code of ethics now before the board would help. Volunteers on the commissions, including the Planning Commission he serves on, also want their work valued, he said.
  • Atis Jurka traced the turnover: a former administrator who left for a better job, the police chief serving as interim administrator, almost a year before a permanent administrator arrived, and changes in the clerk’s office. He said trustees asking what an invoice is for, including legal invoices, are exercising their fiduciary duty rather than micromanaging.
  • Becky Albright said the board should assume good intent, trust staff and volunteer commissioners as the experts they are, and keep its oversight without getting in their way. Keeping people, she said, would also help the budget.
  • William Bass said the best advice he got on becoming mayor in 2020 was to support the town staff. “The town staff runs the town,” he said; when board members cross that line and micromanage, the town loses good people.
  • Tony Beltran said hiring and firing belong to the administrator, and that the town has lost employees who quit after misinformation spread about them. He cited a communications specialist who he said “did a fantastic job,” and said that after information about her surfaced, “not just on the web, but by our trustees, she quit. And that hurt us.” He said he raised what he called unprecedented attrition with the board in July, and that a code of ethics due at the board’s Oct. 8 meeting would help keep members in their lanes.
  • Eric Alan Burton said restoring civility is central to people wanting to work and live in town.
  • Kathy Keeley said that once the new board and the new administrator are in place, “there should be a workshop” at which everyone learns their role and its limits.
  • Karla Kerstner said micromanaging is never good, and that staff and trustees need to understand each other’s roles; people leave when they do not feel respected or heard.
  • Roger Moseley called Town Administrator Patrick Davidson’s two-year warning “extremely courageous” and said the town had suffered years of poor contract management. He said trustees may ask questions but only the board as a whole may give direction.
  • Dennis Stern said the board should act as a board of directors, “not to be micromanagers,” and keep at arm’s length from the daily work of departments.

Water

Palmer Lake’s trustees declared a Stage 1 water emergency on Aug. 13, limiting outdoor watering to one hour a week by bucket, after Monument Creek ran dry and the town came to depend on groundwater alone. The moderator asked what the town should look at in managing water and its cost in a dry year.

Several candidates said they were not water experts and would rely on the town’s staff. Three sitting members gave estimates of what a new well would cost, and they did not match.

  • Kent Hutson said recent budget talks showed the system in good shape and running well, but without the capital for work it needs, a gap that has built up over years rather than overnight and calls for long-term planning. “I’m not an expert on water,” he said, and the board should listen to the people who are.
  • Atis Jurka said that perhaps half of Palmer Lake residents are on the town system and the rest on wells. The town may have to re-drill its well in five to 10 years, at $2 million to $4 million, and should set money aside now, he said; he credited the water department’s work on leaks and a new water main.
  • Becky Albright called for a multi-pronged approach: a strategic plan for infrastructure, care of surface water, and work with other Front Range communities drawing on the Denver aquifer, where she said the town’s wells are “teeny tiny cocktail straws” beside the rest. New water taps should be reviewed against the master plan, she said.
  • William Bass said he suspects the town is ill-prepared for a major failure, and that it wants both limited growth and good infrastructure. Growth the town does allow, he said, should help pay for the water system.
  • Tony Beltran invited residents to email him to join a tour of the town’s water treatment facilities with its water engineer.
  • Eric Alan Burton said he worked for a global water-treatment company installing municipal plants, and that the town needs a plan from its experts, explained to residents.
  • Kathy Keeley said rationing was a good step and suggested rates that vary by time of day to spread demand. She also raised the security of the water system.
  • Karla Kerstner said she would need to rely on experts, and that drought raises the town’s fire risk as well.
  • Roger Moseley said a life-cycle study three years ago produced numbers so high that the town shortened its planning horizon from 30 years to 10. Replacing a failed well would cost about $4 million, he said; saving for it now would cost each ratepayer about $10 a month, against about $24 a month for a 6% commercial loan after a failure. He added that the town is behind on a review its three water loans require.
  • Dennis Stern said the board raised water rates in 2023, and that the town has money for maintenance but not for new infrastructure and is too affluent to qualify for grants. “And lastly, Mr. Moseley’s mathematics is wrong,” he said. On his figures, $10 a month across the 1,100 he counted on town water, over five years, comes to $660,000, while the town needs about $6 million for a new well and storage. That, he said, means increases of around $100 a month. Moseley had not said over how many years his $10 would be collected.

The moderator told Stern to “refrain from directing statements” at other candidates. Stern said he was “correcting something” and had “just referred to him as saying what he said,” and the forum moved on.

Police and fire

The board voted 5-0 on Aug. 27 to begin negotiating a merger of the town’s fire department into the Monument Fire District, aiming at a special election in March 2027. The district’s levy is 18.4 mills, and at an August workshop it told trustees that joining would raise town property owners’ taxes by 8.4 mills if the town dropped the 10 mills it now puts toward fire. The moderator asked how the rising cost of both departments, and their aging equipment, should be met.

Stern said he strongly favors joining the district, and Kerstner leaned the same way; several others said voters should decide on fuller numbers. On police, Stern and Jurka raised trimming coverage; Albright and Keeley said they did not want cuts.

  • Kent Hutson said the choice was roughly 18.5 mills to move to Monument or, by one estimate at a budget meeting, 22 to 24 to keep the department, so either way costs more in the short term. The long-term answer, he said, is a town attractive to entrepreneurs who want to live and start businesses there, something Palmer Lake has not done well. He noted that he and Jurka have both served as president of the Palmer Lake Economic Development Group.
  • Atis Jurka said residents already pay 19 to 20 mills for fire once the town’s general-fund spending is counted, against the district’s 18.4, so the change “might be a wash.” He said residents worry about the station’s location and the Palmer Lake Star, which the town’s firefighters maintain. The police budget rose with a goal of two officers per shift, he said, and the town could look at fewer hours or officers.
  • Becky Albright said a merger has been discussed for decades and should be weighed seriously, given the wildfire risk around the town, and that voters need to know what the tax increase buys beyond the mutual aid the district already gives. “I wouldn’t support cutting back police officers,” she said.
  • William Bass said the town has run lean budgets for years: “I don’t see where there’s a lot of easy cuts left to be made.” As mayor, he said, he took budget options to residents at town halls and put tax questions on the ballot. Revenue from reasonable growth is the answer, he said.
  • Tony Beltran said a merger will be for voters to decide, and that the administrator had told him raising the levy to keep the department would barely keep it running. He called police and first responders heroes, and said every department will face scrutiny as money tightens, with cuts if required.
  • Eric Alan Burton said: “I would love to keep and upgrade our police and fire departments,” which he counted as part of the town’s small-town charm, but that whether it can afford them is a question of revenue.
  • Kathy Keeley said she would not want hours without police on duty. She raised the town’s ISO fire-protection rating, which insurers use, asked whether residents could end up paying more in insurance than in taxes, and said the town needs firm numbers before deciding.
  • Karla Kerstner said of joining the district: “I tend to lean towards that being a good idea.” She said she had lived in places that relied on state police who took hours to arrive, and that crime rises without local police.
  • Roger Moseley recalled a 2022 mayor’s message suggesting a levy increase of about 30 mills, which he thought crazy then and now sees as foreshadowing. He credited recent budgets for showing clearly how much money goes to fire, and said: “We are the world’s worst business development organization.”
  • Dennis Stern said he strongly favors joining the district, which would free the roughly $800,000 a year the general fund now gives the fire department, at the cost of a levy increase; keeping the department would need an even larger one, he said, and still not pay for new equipment, buildings and competitive wages. The police department, he said, runs fairly efficiently, but the board should look seriously at coverage of 18 hours a day instead of 24.

Bringing in business

The last question, held to a minute, asked for specific steps to encourage development and attract business.

  • Kent Hutson would start with the sidewalk along the park on Highway 105 that the master plan calls for, funded through the Colorado Department of Transportation, as a center point for visitors. The town’s personality, he said, is what brings people back: “We have the bridge, we have the troll.”
  • Atis Jurka wants the chamber and volunteer groups helping fill vacant lots, and noted that the town is working to annex county-owned land at Centennial Park for parking and to collect fees from food trucks. In the long run, he said, the town needs a staff member for economic development and grants.
  • Kathy Keeley would revive the town’s economic development committee, open a welcome area with brochures on what the town offers, and bring in a business broker.
  • Roger Moseley said he had learned that week that one of the town’s most visible businesses was having trouble renewing a license it had held for seven years, and that another had waited a long time for a minor subdivision. That, he said, is the board’s fault, not the businesses’.
  • Becky Albright pointed to parking kiosks that she said bring the Parks Commission about $50,000 a year as the kind of creative solution the town needs more of. She also proposed opting into Proposition 123, the state’s affordable-housing program, and asking existing businesses, including manufacturers along County Line Road, what they need.
  • Tony Beltran said the town has to avoid its projected bankruptcy and make it easier to run a business and build a home.
  • Karla Kerstner called for outreach to businesses outside town and for asking existing ones what keeps them here.
  • William Bass named two needs: “image restoration” after two years of strife, and permitting and licensing that are easier for businesses.
  • Eric Alan Burton called the town one of the best-kept secrets in Colorado, pointed to its empty lots and buildings, and proposed an economic development commission.
  • Dennis Stern said “Palmer Lake has a business unfriendly reputation,” which will not turn around quickly, and that the board can set policy and create a commission but cannot “wave the magic wand.”

Closing statements

  • Kent Hutson said the town has big problems and a good chance of solving them by bringing the board, staff, commissions and residents together.
  • Atis Jurka said the master plan matters because it rests on residents’ ideas, and that the candidates “don’t have the answers” and need residents’ ideas too.
  • Becky Albright said she wants to help the town move past its discord, and that she leaves Oct. 14 on a three-week backpacking trip.
  • William Bass said he would listen, look at the facts and bring solutions rather than simply identify problems.
  • Tony Beltran said the town has the tools, including a new administrator he called “one of the best I’ve ever seen,” and should follow the master plan.
  • Eric Alan Burton said: “Whether I’m elected or not, I will serve this town.”
  • Kathy Keeley said transparency had not come up during the evening and she did not want to let it go, and that the board should open its executive sessions unless there is a reason not to.
  • Karla Kerstner said she would work with residents to find answers, and acknowledged that many were seeing her for the first time.
  • Roger Moseley said the town has about 50 water taps left and about 100 empty building lots, and that allocating taps to a developer would harm current property owners.
  • Dennis Stern said his candidacy is about the town’s fiscal health: “We’re in big trouble.”
Read the entire transcript (machine-generated, about 18,000 words)
About this transcript: it was created with artificial intelligence, and AI can make mistakes. The Independent ran automatic speech-recognition software, OpenAI’s Whisper, over the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce’s recording of the forum. No person typed it, and no one has checked it word for word. Expect misheard words, garbled figures, missing punctuation and, in places, sentences attributed to the wrong speaker. The Independent added the speaker and section labels, replaced the moderator’s calls to each candidate with bracketed notes, and corrected the spelling of the candidates’ and moderator’s names, a few other names, Palmer Lake, Buc-ee’s and Elephant Rock where the software misheard them. Nothing else has been edited. Quotations in the article above appear only where two separate machine transcripts agree. Before relying on any passage, check it against the recording: each timestamp opens the video at that moment. Spot an error? Email [email protected].

Welcome and ground rules

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:00:00

I’ve got it all up there on the table. As you all may know, you will be voting on a mayor and five trustee positions. In alphabetical order, we’re going to read off the candidates tonight. Candidates for mayor are Kent Hutson and Atis Jurka. Candidates for trustees are Becky Albright, William Bass, Tony Beltran, Eric Alan Burton, Beth Harris, Kathy Keeley, Karla Kerstner, John Marble, Roger Moseley, and Dennis Stern. All right, unfortunately not everyone was able to make it tonight, but a big thank you to those students who have decided to be here. I have to make your voices heard for others. So candidates, let’s just go over how this is going to work. So you guys can each have two minutes for the response to your questions. You all know you also have a minute for opening statements as well as a minute for closing statements. Terri here is going to hold the card when you have 30 seconds left and then for 10 seconds left as well. And when your time is up, we ask that you finish your sentence, but don’t continue past that. Try and speak in short sentences for us tonight. We don’t have a whole lot of time. We have two hours, and there’s so many of you. We want to try and get to as many questions as we possibly can. So do your best. But if you have two minutes, if you’d like to fill that whole time. Foreman’s set up to answer the question. Speaking to the audience here, please do not make statements that do not answer the question, and please do not address comments made by other candidates. This is a forum here, not a debate, so we’re not looking to spar with each other. This is really just an opportunity for the community to hear your position on these different issues. So I’m going to interject before we’re not staying on topic or staying to the format because we want to make sure that everyone gets the benefit of participating this evening. And we want to keep a positive experience for everyone. So that brings me to the audience. You guys are already doing an incredible job of staying quiet and listening. You’re so attentive. I love that. Let’s keep this going throughout the duration of the program. We also ask that you do your best not to whisper to one another because the microphones actually do pick up quite a bit. And this is being recorded. So for those of the neighbors that didn’t make it tonight, they do have an opportunity to listen to what our candidates here have to say a little bit later. Also, we ask for what you’re having. No express any words. And if you have any comments about my moderating, talk after. But no bullying as well. I think that’s what covers it. Honorable language. Also a no-go for tonight. Again, I just want to keep this a fair environment for our work.

Opening statements

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:02:26

Okay. I’m going to get on to the program now. We’re going to begin with one-minute introduction by each candidate. I’m also going to do my best to rotate the order. We’ll likely only get to about five questions this evening. And so I’ll do my best to make sure that we’re not starting with the same person. But for opening introductions, we’re going to begin with Kent Hutson.

[Unclear in the machine transcript.] 0:02:45

KENT HUTSON · 0:02:45

Okay, thanks, Alasyn. I’ll make it really fast. Just as an introduction, I’m a physician in the kind of semi-retired phase of my life. I’ve cut back on my professional stuff. So for me, this is a great opportunity to give back to my community. I have a lot of experience in leadership, not just as a physician, but in many aspects, mostly in the health care field. And I feel like my local experience working with the master plan and with a number of the people here will help me to be a good mayor.

[The moderator calls on Atis Jurka.] 0:03:24

ATIS JURKA · 0:03:26

Well, so you probably already know who I am. I’m a current trustee on the board of trustees, and it’s been an up and down past two years for all of us. I’ve been involved with the town for the last six years, trying to make it better. There’s been some contention about what’s best for the town, but the bottom line is I believe in the voice of the people. And I do listen to everybody. You may not agree with what I vote on. I generally vote with the body of the Board of Trustees. But it’s important to remember, Palmer Lake is an important part of all of our lives, and we all want to do the best for it. And I’d like to be your mayor, mainly because I want people to have a choice this year. Thank you.

KATHY KEELEY · 0:04:20

And I’m Kathy Keeley. Hi, I’m Kathy Keeley, the premier resident in Isoff from Palmer Lake with lots of people who have been here a long time. I moved here to be near my family in Franktown, and I found a very special home here. I want to start by thanking Palmer Lake citizens because they are what prompted you to get this fine choice for your trustees and mayor. I mean, at one point in time, I thought nobody was going to show up for this position. So it really brought the best of in people out here. I think Palmer Lake citizens are a very passionate and diverse group. They want many of the same things, though. And I thank you very much.

ROGER MOSELEY · 0:05:09

As you guys all know, I’m a trustee currently, and that my focus is mainly on contracts and accounting and money management. I will tell you that I have a very strong commitment to maintaining the zoning map as it has been and not modifying it for developers. So the smart development is something that I want to pay attention to because I think treating your neighbors equally and protecting their values is very important for the coalition of the town. so I’m glad to be here with all ten of us that are here tonight and I wish us all luck on the questions thank you can you stop for a second do you know when my time is going out that’s right yeah it’s a little about one spot so maybe just need power

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 0:06:00

all right so I get the good night hi I’m Becky Albright I’m a 33 year resident of Palmer Lake and I’ve been a licensed clinical social worker in Monument for about 28. I am really excited to be running for the board of trustees and I believe that the citizens of Palmer Lake really care wholeheartedly and engage in our community and deserve effective leadership. I am committed to restoring civil discourse in our community. I believe that’s what we all want. And the master plan, the folks who wrote that made sure that it was in there, that there was a commitment in the governance and engagement. And so I propose that we view each other charitably and see the humanity in each other and that we all desire mutual flourishing. And then we’re going to be much more effective in our governance. And as I look at issues that are set before us, I’ll be asking myself questions like how does this impact our natural resources like wildlife and water. And I commit to ensuring the public also knows the answer to these questions that I had the opportunity for input.

TONY BELTRAN · 0:07:11

I’m Tony Beltran, and I’ve been a Palmer Lake resident for the better part of two decades, and I love Palmer Lake. It’s my home. As a professional pilot, I’ve flown over 6 million people to their destinations, and of those, I’ve engaged about half of them. So, yes, I’m a people person. It’s no different in my personal life. I consider all my neighbors to be my friends, and over time, my circle of friends has grown in Palmer Lake. I’ve always said that I never have too many friends. And my other tenant is never put politics before friendship. I have 370 friends in Palmer Lake, and it keeps growing, and I think that’s a good thing. I applied to the board in 2025, because at the time there was a split among the six members, and I felt compelled out of a sense of civic duty to serve on Palmer Lake’s board, and I’m privileged to do so. I met each trustee to learn as much as possible from their perspective. I communicate with the town staff to keep abreast of current affairs. But the other more important objective is actually hearing what the people of Palmer Lake have to say. The challenges we face are numerous, but for the first time, we now have fully qualified personnel to give Palmer Lake VOT every opportunity to grow our town economically, conserve, ecological, and flourish socially. Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Karla Kerstner.] 0:08:21

KARLA KERSTNER · 0:08:23

Hi, I’m Karla Kerstner. I have lived in Colorado for many, many years. I grew up here, sort of. I went to college at Island State. I, like a person down here, I’m a licensed counselor. I worked in the field for 40 years and recently retired. I have been on numerous boards, task forces. I was the president of a legal aid board. And I have always been involved in my community. I’m not I wouldn’t say I’m a political animal I am more of a support my community and I want to be a part of this community listen to the folks that I will be serving and take your message forward and hopefully we can be like I hear from folks out there that the town used to be

WILLIAM BASS · 0:09:23

I’m Bill Bass My name is Bill Bass, and I’ve lived in Palmer Lake for 10 years and had the privilege of serving on the board as mayor from 2020 to 2022. I believe Palmer Lake is a rare gem of a town, and I also understand the many challenges we face. During my time as mayor, we had a very active board. We held numerous special meetings in town halls because we believed that the community should be involved in the decisions affecting its future. We tackled some tough issues. We made a lot of progress, but some of those fundamental challenges remain today, particularly revenue and infrastructure. I understand the role of a trustee, the importance of working constructively with fellow board members and supporting town staff. I also bring more than 40 years of experience in IT, leading people, projects, and organizations. I believe that a combination of municipal experience and professional experience can help homerly move forward.

[Unclear in the machine transcript.] 0:10:39

WILLIAM BASS · 0:10:40

Thank you. Oh.

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 0:10:44

Good afternoon, I’m Eric Burton, and my wife and I, Stacy, we moved here in 2012 with our two kids. My kids graduated from Palmer Ridge, and my daughter worked at the Speed Trap a couple of summers before she went off to college. They’re both in college now. I have been a professional counselor for the last 18 years now, and this is kind of what I do. we’ve had a rough couple of years and I sit with people who are in very difficult circumstances and I help them find a way back to health so I’m hoping that I can bring that skill set to the town and to the Board of Trustees. Before that I was a mechanical engineer for 13 years and I worked on many multi-million dollar projects so I know what it is to run a project and to understand the budgets and all that kind of stuff. So I look forward to serving the town.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:11:44

Yes, sir.

DENNIS STERN · 0:11:45

Hi, I’m Dennis Stern, and as you all probably know, I’m the current mayor of Palmer Lake. I’m running for trustee because Palmer Lake needs help. There’s a couple weeks ago by our administrator that we’ve maybe got two years at the current revenue and expenditure rate and we will run out of money because we’re currently 750 pushing a million dollars in the rent that we have to take it out of the capital funds to meet that deficit. We cannot, we have to balance a budget. So there There are numerous things that we need to do this year and in the coming years, and I’m going to be working towards positive solutions that we need to save our talent together. Thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:12:43

Thank you, Mr. Stern. I appreciate that you keep that mic. There will be a few of you for the first question.

John Marble’s statement, read by the moderator

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:12:48

John Marble was not able to attend tonight due to the last-minute challenge of his business, do have a one-minute introduction that he will read on his behalf. He says, thank you to the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce for putting on such a meaningful event, and I apologize for not making it. No matter who you vote for this upcoming election, I am very proud as a citizen to see the amount of collaboration and collaboration during this election season. We should be very encouraged by the foundation being laid today, and our youth, you are outside, and passion will create a Palmer Lake that our children can be proud of is only up from here.

Question 1: Restoring civility

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:13:22

All right. We’ll move on to the question and answer portion again. Reminders for candidates, you have two minutes to answer each of these questions. So let’s begin. We want to talk specifically about civility here in Palmer Lake. Looking back on the last few years and the challenges that elected officials had, what do you feel needs to be done to restore trust and civility in the community after the community’s really gone through a lot between recalls, Resignations and Division. Mr. Stern, we’ll begin with you.

DENNIS STERN · 0:13:50

I’m going to refer to Becky Albright, one of my opponents for trustee. She and I just finished attending a… Gosh, it’s slipping my mind, Becky. Reclaiming civility. Yeah, but what was the document that we signed? pledge. Yeah, a civility pledge. So we’ve had Alexandra Hudson who wrote the books The Soul of Civility and she gifted the Town of Palmer Lake numerous copies of that. There are some book reading clubs that are reading through that. I’ve been part of getting her here for a workshop back in June. Like I said, I participated in this last week’s civility pledge signing with Mayor Yemi from Colorado Springs and other council members and so forth. So I am obviously committed to a civil discourse. That does not mean that I won’t have positions that people disagree with me about. It doesn’t mean that I will not disagree with others on the board that have positions that I disagree about. But the whole bottom line is that we can agree to disagree civilly and not raise the temperature in Montreal and other things that have occurred over the last few years. Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Eric Alan Burton.] 0:15:36

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 0:15:39

I’ve been involved with Becky as well with this effort and we are calling Palmer Lake Listens, which is starting this book club of the Soul of Civility to try and get residents and neighbors talking to each other again and talking about differences in a civil way that we can disagree with each other but still talk about things. I think one of the main things that I would like to see if I’m elected onto the board is that we do a better job of communicating. And I think a lot of the problems that we’ve had in the past have been, in the past few years have come. Because of misperceptions about what was being voted on and what all the details were, and things that were being voted on that could have been cleared up with a little more open communication, publishing the minutes and maybe doing a little more with that. So that’s what I’m hoping that we can do to restore some stability in this town and get to know each other better.

[The moderator calls on William Bass.] 0:16:57

WILLIAM BASS · 0:17:03

So I believe that a lot of the instability is a result of a lack of understanding and in some cases a belief by many of the lack of transparency. I believe that it’s very important when we’re tackling these tough issues to make sure that we communicate clearly to Palmer Lake residents what the issue at hand is, what the process is to solve that, and make sure that’s communicated clearly. I feel like there are some examples of the past couple of years where conclusions were, people jumped to conclusions because they didn’t understand the process and things became quite uncivil. There were just misunderstandings. and I don’t believe that it was necessarily intentional. I just think it’s something that we really need to focus on and make sure that we communicate clearly. When I served as mayor, we made it a point to hold as many town hall meetings as we had to, besides normal town meetings. We had special meetings. We had town halls. We invited the public in, and we laid the facts out for them and opened it up for their input. And I feel like it helped tremendously. You know, people aren’t always going to agree, but I feel like during that term, things were fairly simple. And I think that was largely due to the communication that we provided to the community.

[The moderator calls on Karla Kerstner.] 0:18:41

KARLA KERSTNER · 0:18:43

I’ve done a lot of work in dynamics just because of my educational background and working with a lot of different groups and individuals who, in a group, wouldn’t necessarily think would come to a consensus or be able to even work with each other. You would think they were very polarized. But I agree that communication has to be fundamental in working on this board and also with working with the members and residents of this community. We have to have that knowledge from the folks we are serving and your trust and our respect for you and coming to some decisions that’s going to move our community forward that’s going to settle some of these things that seem to be polarizing people. and as long as people are willing to listen, share ideas, and talk, I, my fellow guy, will believe is that things can be fixed. I mean, I’m a counselor. I have to know that that’s the way it is. But it’s that news for respect. It’s that basic communication and gathering information to make important decisions based on what the community wants and not hidden agendas or personal desires or reasons. Because that’s not why we have this job. It’s for the town.

TONY BELTRAN · 0:20:24

Thank you. And communication is key. And it’s key in your industry. It’s key in my industry. We have cockpit resource management. And it just nails how we communicate. It’s not something that just comes naturally. A lot of times there’s a lot of work that has to go into it and understanding about how people communicate. I agree that sometimes the lack of knowledge has a lot to do with it, but also the passion. I think we’re all passionate about common life. I’ve seen it in meetings where that passion breaks out from somebody who’s been holding it inside. We need to be able to make everybody inclusive in participating in the discussion when we when we have public open comments, but also outside of these walls. And when it comes to the BOT, I think it’s really important that we encourage 100% participation from all of our members. So let’s get that information if we have to. The mutual respect, of course, is a base, and trust in leadership is a must. I think we have come a long ways, and I think we have two ways more to go, but we’ll get there. Thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:21:39

And now over from Ms. Albright.

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 0:21:41

Well, I just want to say it’s really notable that there are three mental health professionals that have stepped up to run this year. And this has been something I’ve been proposing for about a year and a half, that we start having restorative dialogue. And I’m very committed to that. Whether I get elected or not, I will continue to work on that. Because when our system becomes more functional, we create a positive feedback loop. When we listen and respect each other, we have tough conversations and we make the hard decisions. And then we create a more cohesive work environment in which town staff and volunteers feel supported. And then the people who are working with the town are able to get their jobs done and their work done, which improves our quality of life and it starts to rebuild that trust, which then makes it easier for us to assume charitable intent for each other. And so this restoration of civil discourse is imperative. And as Eric mentioned, I’ve been part of Palmer Lake Listens. We are really hoping to have conversations with everyone. And as I’ve gone around and talked with people, mostly about the Soul of Civility book read and about Palmer Lake Listens, but also a little bit about my campaign, people spend about 20 to 30 minutes talking with me about the concerns that they have about the civility. They want to get things done. And we have a lot of things ahead of us, in front of us, that need to be addressed. And if we can talk about it, we can do it, even when emotions run high. And I would also like to challenge all of us as citizens of Palmer Lake that we all need to step up into what it means to have this civil discourse. And so that could be the way we use social media. That could be ignoring things that are happening. We all have a responsibility to reclaim our town and be whom we know we are as Palmer Lake.

[The moderator calls on Roger Moseley.] 0:23:34

ROGER MOSELEY · 0:23:35

Let me just say I’m glad to see that we have some previous trustees here tonight, and five of us here are on the table. And in evaluating our performance over the last eight months or year, I would just like to say that there’s only one who has a lost school, and it’s Tony. all the rest of us at some point or another have gotten excited about something and have lost our tempers but it hasn’t destroyed us and I think that recognizing each person’s contribution whether it’s because they’re very committed to a particular issue or they have mollies that they don’t have, you have to recognize that and my number one rule is, is when you screw up like that my number one rule is go to the people or the person and apologize and recognize a mistake and move on. And I think that’s been very successful. I see a smile in the audience because I’ve had some very congenial emails with people that I’ve disagreed with and I appreciate that very much. So thank you and we’ll just keep pressing on. And maybe we’ll get some help for our mental health professionals potentially.

[The moderator calls on Kathy Keeley.] 0:24:44

KATHY KEELEY · 0:24:46

I think listening is one of the number one problems that we have in society as a general. People don’t listen to one another. They have preconceived notions about what somebody else is going to be saying and how they’re saying it. And we need to listen, listen, listen to what people are telling us, especially as Board of Trustees members. Board of Trustees members, we have an obligation to work for the public, and we have to hear what they are telling us how they’re telling us. I know from negotiations there is a formula that’s called communicate, collect information, collaborate, compromise, create, and conclude. And those are all steps for positive communication that allow you to have the civil discourse with another person or groups of people and get all the information you need to put forth to come to a collaborative end result that probably has a lot of compromise that is better than what you could have come up with yourself. Groups together, working through their differences, can come up with some pretty significant means of communication and working together that make it for a whole for the community. I think that we have here in Palmer Lake, I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t want to maintain the lifestyle here that we currently have or is not involved with wanting to take care of nature and some of these things. And I think when you can bring some of the commonalities we have into this, you can make it a much more civil arena and bring in your commonalities versus your differences. Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Atis Jurka.] 0:26:37

ATIS JURKA · 0:26:41

One of the things I learned at an early, early age, I was a brand new second lieutenant in the Army. My petunions are to be aside, it’s critical that you lead by example. And that’s something the town has failed in some degree the last few years. The town leadership oftentimes don’t lead by example. We have leaders who cuss people out, who call people terrorists, et cetera, and that kind of spreads throughout the rest of the citizenry. And they say, hey, if it’s okay for them to do it, why can’t I do it? But it’s a good idea that, you know, we have a lot of people willing to make the change and try to bring people together. Communication is critical, and part of communication is a willingness to compromise. We’ve had some divisive issues and it’s pretty much black and white on one side, black and white on the other side and it’s difficult for people to come together and the citizens see that and they wonder, what are they doing? Now the other part of that is we’ve gone through a few changes with town staying. town attorneys, town administrators, even some town staff itself. And that’s caused concern to people. But, you know, the separate with civility is fine, but, you know, we’re all adults. And one of the things I remember, there’s a book called Everything I Need to Know and Learn in Kindergarten. You know, be kind, share, and be friendly. and that’s, you know, staying as good today as it was back then. Thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:28:38

Okay, thank you.

KENT HUTSON · 0:28:39

So I’ve had the privilege of leading a number of teams over the years, and the effective teams are the ones that can communicate with each other, they can share ideas, and share those ideas in an environment where they don’t feel like they’re going to be attacked by their ideas. And in the case of our town, the team is not just the board of trustees. The team is the board, town staff, the commissions, the various commissions, and the people. It’s all y’all. And we need to be able to work together as a team. And for us to be effective as a team, we need to have that level of stability that lets us all talk and communicate with each other and share what we think is going to work best and move our way towards the best solution.

Question 2: Buc-ee’s

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:29:28

All right, for this next question, we’ll begin with you, Mr. Jurka. So the approval process is still underway for a proposed bucking in our house of county after developers pulled out of Palmer Lake. If it does get final approval, how should Palmer Lake’s elected officials address any potential impacts, and what should be done in the meantime, if anything, as it’s making its way through the county approval process?

ATIS JURKA · 0:29:53

As you know, my dear McQuinnis submitted a withdrawal of their application for annexation. In the meantime, Buc-ee’s bought the property. Now, as you may have followed, we’re still dealing with the aftermath in Palmer Lake. Now, we’re trying to get finalized accounting with financial money that is owed to Buc-ee’s, so we’re still tied to Buc-ee’s to some degree. Now, as far as El Paso County, we’re part of El Paso County, so we certainly need to be aware of what’s the impact going to be to Palmer Lake. Even if Buc-ee’s goes in, do we need to be concerned about the impact to our town businesses, the traffic, are people going to come to Palmer Lake or bypass us because there’s Buc-ee’s? And what’s the impact on our police and fire services? That’s something we need to take a look at down the road as Buc-ee’s moves forward. Now the question was, is Palmer Lake a good place for Buc-ee’s to come and be annexed? And it might come back up at a later time. because Buc-ee’s desires have water rights and we have water that may be attracted to them so we have to be considerate of what their plan going forward is. As far as what the town should do, first is figure out what’s the impact in Palmer Lakes and then move forward from that, whether or not we should join Monument or some of the other surrounding communities and strongly oppose it being built or we’re okay with it. That’s something for the citizens to let the board of trustees know.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:31:53

I’m actually going to have Mr. Hutson go next to me. We’re going to have this together and then we’ll go back to the line.

KENT HUTSON · 0:32:00

Okay, thanks. So to start with, I want to make it clear that Buc-ee’s is not in our master plan. It was very clear from the beginning that Palmer Lake did not want, this is one of our top three things, did not want big box franchises to move into town. So using the master plan as our guide there, then we should go along with our fellow Trilachians, for lack of a better word, and say, hey, look, this is not what we want in our area. This is in our master plans, not what the people of Palmer Lake want Palmer Lake to be. And sometimes with the people who are going to be impacted the most by it, which are going to be the ones that live here, we’re going to have secondary impacts if they move in, if they do build. I think we need to be, like I was just saying, I’m completely ready to be prepared to deal with those secondary impacts and understand that we may be dealing with the county or some other entity to try to mitigate those problems. So I think from a planning standpoint, we have to assume that’s going to happen and start making that, having that conversation among ourselves. It’s okay, now what? So, thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:33:18

How do you pass that mic to Ms. Keeley? And a reminder, how should Palmer Lake’s elected officials address any potential impacts of Buc-ee’s? And what should be done in the meantime as it’s making its way for the recalculable process?

KATHY KEELEY · 0:33:30

Thank you. I think as Buc-ee’s is going through the approval process, I think if you are a proponent of Buc-ee’s, then you let it be known. And if you are not a proponent of Buc-ee’s, you also let it be known to the county. I think the county has been very disrespectful to the people who are not proponents at this point in time. I do think they’ve shown very, put us in a very difficult position when the majority of our citizens have said, this is not what our master plan is. This is not what we were looking for. This is not where we were hoping that this community would go. However, if it does come through, then I think we have to try to mitigate as much as we can as a town the aftermath of what happens when they come down the road, if they do. And do they come and shop here? I doubt it. I mean, all evidence states that they will not come in through town, or if they do, it’s just a pass-through. They won’t stop at the restaurants. They won’t stop. They may go out to the link for a minute, but that’s about it. So I think we have to just be prepared for the traffic, for the different, you know, be a different lifestyle for us. And we’re going to have to just make do it the best we can if they come in.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:34:46

All right, we’re going to do this one for now.

ROGER MOSELEY · 0:34:48

I just want to remind everybody that we had an election last September, and about 70% of the residents voted in a way that would indicate they were against Buc-ee’s. We’ve been asked as a board to take a position against Buc-ee’s. I don’t think we can. And the reason we can’t is because a third of the town says we’d rather have Buc-ee’s. So I think we need to respect both sides of the issue and still point out the history that we have from the election and say that perhaps we are, because of what the Planning Commission did with the rezoning for Buc-ee’s, to say, no, we’ve taken an official position sort of against it. But as a board and as a town, I don’t think we can stand up and say we’re against Buc-ee’s because I respect the other third of the town. I do think that the water issue is big. I don’t think we considered that as much as we should have when we did the annexation agreement for Buc-ee’s. I think if they do come back, we need to be careful about that. But I will tell you, my core belief is that money doesn’t fix some things. Money doesn’t fix the lights. It doesn’t fix the interruptions of the wildlife or the overpass. There are a number of things that you really have to think about. Is it enough or do we need it that much to change our minds? And so I’m very concerned that considering money as one of the high interest items is a bad approach, that I think all the other issues need to be considered, and I think we should be open to all of those issues. but I do recognize a third of the two-thirds of the town sort of indicated that they were against it and I want to recognize that.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:36:36

Ms. Albright again. What should Palmer Lake do to address any potential impacts of Buc-ee’s and what should be done in the meantime?

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 0:36:42

Yes, thank you. And I would like to state as a citizen, I prefer no Buc-ee’s. I am a small-town girl and I love our small-town feel. And if this is going to happen, we need a multifaceted approach. We’re going to need, it’s in the hands of the commissioners, of the El Paso County commissioners, and so we need to be working with them directly. And we must protect our wildlife and our water. That’s such an important wildlife corridor where the Buc-ee’s is proposed. We also need to make sure that we’re enforcing the commitment to the dark skies. What happens with the lighting? What happens with the water? We need to be working hand in hand with the county, with Buc-ee’s. And we also need to be making sure that we’re careful about how vulnerable we are to outside influence. I think our infighting and our budget constraints have made us very vulnerable, and it’s really impacted us. So now we have to just come together, figure out how we’re going to support our small businesses who are the heart of our town, how we’re going to protect our natural resources. and that requires enforcing the agreements and the commitments and the codes and the statutes.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:37:58

Mr. Beltran.

TONY BELTRAN · 0:37:59

Hi, Tony Beltran. As Trustee Jurka said, we are not untied from Buc-ee’s yet. As a trustee, in a quasi-judicial matter, I cannot speak to that, or will I, until it is untied from Palmer Lake legally. However, I’d like to ask you another question. maybe rephrase the question to not include it, I’d be happy to answer.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:38:21

Well, I believe you can still speak broadly about the impacts to the community. And if you are elected, what would that look like? This is the value for you as your next position.

TONY BELTRAN · 0:38:31

Well, I’m not going to discuss Buc-ee’s at all, but I will say this. My time starts now, and I’ll keep it a lot shorter. We recently passed an ordinance stating that all annexations would be voted on. I say yes, more power to the people. However, the caveat and the drawback for that is any business that comes into Palmer Lake is going to have to pay for that vote for that annexation. It’s very expensive. Now, all of a sudden, we have an impotence to that business. How much does it cost? Thousands of dollars lately. And it may keep good businesses from coming in. These are things that are important. These are things that happened as a result of the past few years and the turbulence that outside influences have caused. I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Karla Kerstner.] 0:39:18

KARLA KERSTNER · 0:39:20

I realize that Buc-ee’s seems to be a very polarizing subject in the town. People are either entrenched in one side or the other, and I just don’t think it’s that easy to say I’m for Buc-ee’s or against Buc-ee’s. We should be for Palmer Lake, and we… I personally have a feeling that Buc-ee’s is going to be moving forward. They got tons of money, right? So we all know how that works in the real world. So what we as Palmer Lake have to look at is those unintended consequences from that. Our water, our wildlife, the lighting, the transportation. How are we as a town going to come together to address those things? because we can’t stay polarized against our four Buc-ee’s. We have to start looking at how are we as Palmer Lake going to deal with those unintended consequences. What are we going to do as a town for all of those things that could and probably will be happening? And we can’t just complain about it and say, you know, this is horrible. It’s going to ruin us. we have to figure out how it’s not going to do those things, how we are going to stay ahead of that and protect the small town we have in Palmer Lake that we all choose to live here and want to keep that feeling and sense of community. So it’s how we address those things and how are we going to deal with those things coming down the pike. So I haven’t read the city’s master plans. I feel they’re a little disadvantaged. And again, the council kind of split on those things. And so my time is going up in flames.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:41:21

Mr. Bass.

WILLIAM BASS · 0:41:23

Well, I’ve never been a proponent of Buc-ee’s, although I’ve heard rumor that many people think I’m a proponent. I’ve never been a proponent of Buc-ee’s. I have always felt like they probably picked the worst location they could have possibly picked. That being said, as far as having any control over the impact that may be caused by Buc-ee’s, I believe that should have been sailed. I believe we’ve lost any control that we, or much of the control that we would have had. even though I’m not for Buc-ee’s, I believe that they came to us in good faith and offered concessions and tried to make accommodations they offered to help us with our infrastructure our water supply, I think they wanted to drill another well, help us build up the infrastructure so I think we let they get past us as far as controlling the impact. So if they did come back to the town, I would say that given our financial challenges, we would be hard-pressed to automatically reject this again. You know, I do believe in the master plan. I don’t believe it should be used to prevent reasonable progress. My goal would be to honor the master plan’s intent while recognizing that we do have to change to adapt to changing circumstances. And I think that’s become more and more clear as this discussion has gone on.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:43:02

Mr. Burton?

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 0:43:05

I would agree with a lot of what Becky said. And as a citizen, I do not in favor of Buc-ee’s. The master plan clearly states that you all, the citizens of Palmer Lake, said we don’t want franchises in Palmer Lake. And the master plan is a guideline. It’s not law. So we could have avoided this if we had codified that rule and said, yeah, that’s what we want to make law here in Palmer Lake. No franchises. Okay. Having said that, it is an extremely complex issue. I was at the budget meeting that Dennis mentioned. If we run out of money in two years, that’s a big problem. And so if this comes up again, that maybe there’s an opportunity to annex that land. One of the laws that we did pass is that you all get to vote on that. And that’s why the communication around this is so critical. because we need to know, like, if Buc-ee’s is going forward anyway, and they’re going to be out there, do the citizens want the potential revenue that could come or not? And we don’t follow what we said in the master plan. I think that if we are given a chance to vote on annexing that land, that’s going to be a huge conversation that the town needs to have and that the board needs to be real clear and communicate about.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:44:50

And Mr. Stern.

DENNIS STERN · 0:44:54

So I heard it said that Buc-ee’s coming, which I believe is somewhat inevitable. We as the board knew that they were going to build in the county if, for whatever reason, Palmer Lake rejected them because they have the legal right to do it. And so that’s what the county board of commissioners voted on, was whether or not they had a legal right to do it, not whether or not individual commissioners liked it or didn’t like it. And as trustees, we have the same sort of obligation is to look at what the legal question is, not necessarily what our personal views are. It was also said a little bit earlier that most likely people won’t be coming to Palmer Lake and they won’t be using their businesses and that’s going to be horrible and terrible. So there were studies done that approximately 300 cars of the 10,000 daily cars pulling off the freeway to Buc-ee’s will make the trip to Palmer Lake. and we did the research as the board in regards to what happens to businesses that are close to a bucky’s and in general their revenues go up 25 percent. So it’s very possibly going to be a very good thing if it does happen. Tell me what I’m going to do.

Question 3: Keeping staff

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:46:44

All right, so what I’m going to do for this next question is we’re going to begin with you, Mr. Burton. but I’m going to have you go to Mr. Stern in a second, and then try and get switched with the word, but also want to deploy a microphone. So that being said, as our partners at the Gazette have reported that Palmer Lake has had a difficult time retaining employees and then turned over in elected offices, including its town administrator and town lawyer. How do you plan to keep people, employees, and contractors wanting to work in Palmer Lake?

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 0:47:15

Great question. We’ve had a lot of time over the last two years. Mayors, trustees, a bunch of staff. And that just compounds the strife and the problems that we have in town. So, yeah, how do we keep people? well we make we make these jobs things that people want to do and want to and want to work together we started out with the first question about raising this ability level in our town I think that’s pretty key to people wanting to keep their jobs wanting to work here wanting to live here

DENNIS STERN · 0:48:05

Is there two minutes? Is that what you said? I don’t know that it will take two minutes, but just wanted to remind myself. I believe that the way to keep town staff and town officers and outside contractors engaged with Palmer Lake willingly is for the Board of Trustees to do what they’re tasked to do, and that is to be the Board of Directors, not to be micromanagers of the various departments within the town. We hire an administrator to do that, and so that’s what needs to be done, is that we need to stay as a board at arm’s length from the day-to-day operations of the different departments. And I believe and support the different departments by the policies that we make as the town’s board of directors. I believe that that support, that non-micro-management, will be encouraging to employees and officers and outside contractors, and that if we follow this path of doing what we’re tasked to do, that it will be a good working environment going forward.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:49:36

All right, we’ll go to Mr. Bass next again. How do you plan to keep people, employees, and contractors wanting to work in common length?

WILLIAM BASS · 0:49:45

Well, I’ll just say to start that some of the best advice I ever received as soon as I was elected mayor in 2020 was from the prior mayor who encouraged the board to whatever you do, support the staff, support the town staff. Along with that, as Dennis said, it’s very, very important for the board members to recognize their role and the difference between what the expectation is for them as it relates to what the town staff does. The town staff runs the town. The administrator runs the town. It’s not the board’s job to run the town. It’s the board’s job to set policy and to support the staff. Many, I believe, trustees come into this position, and I’ll speak for myself as well, not really knowing what to do, not really understanding the guidelines in some cases, but they become very clear at some point. And the sooner you recognize that, the better it is for everybody, the more productive you can be, the more productive the town staff can be. The bottom line is that without the board’s support of the staff, it makes it very uncomfortable. and when those lines get crossed and board members try to micromanage the town staff, you open yourself up to all kinds of issues and I believe that’s what has happened here in the past. It’s great. It hurts. We’ve lost good people.

[The moderator calls on Karla Kerstner.] 0:51:31

KARLA KERSTNER · 0:51:35

I firmly believe micromanaging is never good. It’s never a good thing But it’s also important for folks to know the boundaries in which they operate. So us as trustees and staff and leaders of the town to understand what each other’s roles are and how our two worlds touch each other. And that even though we have different roles, we can still have a line of communication. We can have that mutual respect. We can support each other in those roles. But I think, again, there might be some lack of understanding or some contention between the staff and the Board of Trustees crossing those lines and not understanding that and being frustrated with that. And that’s how you lose people because they don’t feel respected or heard. and then it starts impacting their work, their family, their lives, their health. And so I think it’s just being, again, a lot of things come down to that communication and respect. And a lot of the issues it seems that we have is because we need to build that foundation back up so that people have that feeling in the community.

TONY BELTRAN · 0:53:09

Thank you Tony Beltran. The town administrator is the one that’s in charge of hiring and firing, not the BOT. Retention, when we have people quit because there’s been misinformation spread about them, then we have a problem. We had a communications expert who did a fantastic job and negotiated a great contract with. And after her information surfaced, not just on the web, but by our trustees, she quit. And that hurt us. In July, I addressed the ERT session about the unprecedented attrition. And I did urge my colleagues to focus on employee retention. If you’ll tune in to this Thursday’s meeting, you’ll see we have a new code of ethics. And I think that’s going to go a long ways to showing the respect and keeping us in our lanes so that the good people stay.

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 0:54:10

Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Becky Albright.] 0:54:11

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 0:54:13

So I mentioned this earlier that I think there’s a positive feedback loop that we’re going to create now. And so if we approach our staff assuming charitable intent, we assume that they’re the experts and they know what they’re doing, and we allow them to do their jobs without hindering that. It doesn’t mean that we’re naive. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have systems of oversight. Those are very important. But we need to stay out of their way, and we need to support them and trust them in the experts that they are. I’d also like to add not just the people who work here, but also the people who volunteer. Our various commissions are also experts. We have so many people who are volunteering and we need to know their expertise, we need to trust their expertise, and we need to support that. And again, I think that if we are able to retain staff, retain contractors, retain volunteers, we’re going to help our budget tremendously because people are staying and getting their work done and are being much more efficient and much more effective. I think I covered it. All right. Thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:55:25

Mr. Moseley.

ROGER MOSELEY · 0:55:26

We had a real surprise a couple weeks ago when our new administrator, Patrick Davidson, said we’ve got two years until we’re bankrupt. I thought that was extremely courageous of him to look at the budgets and figure that out so quickly. I have a lot of respect for that, and I’m glad he’s here because he’s very experienced. One problem that we’ve had over the years, and I mean a lot of years, five or more, is we’ve had very poor contract management here. We haven’t had the professionals who can write professional contracts, people who track them, people who understand all the requirements of the contract. And I think we finally have somebody who can do that. Now, that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything. But I do respect the fact that we have somebody who can give us a hand. We have an organization, a contractor organization within the town called the Development Review Team, the DRT. And they have made a lot of the decisions that we should have been making as our own staff. And as we show Patrick that we trust him and that we respect his judgment, I think that is the number one step to retaining a very important staff member. And I intend to do that, and I hope the rest of the board also does that. It doesn’t mean we don’t ask questions. That, fortunately, is one of the privileges that we have as trustees and the mayor. We get to ask questions. We do not get to give direction. Only the board can give direction. And I think that has been lost a little bit over the last year or so, and people don’t understand, but we appreciate that. And I want the whole staff and everybody in the town to understand that. It takes some time to make a decision and to take a vote and to talk about things publicly. So be patient. We will do our best. Thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 0:57:21

Ms. Keeley.

KATHY KEELEY · 0:57:23

Hi. I think that there’s been a lack of understanding of the policies, procedures, and defined roles within the city. And I think if once we have now this new administrator and we have the new board set, that there should be a workshop where they sit down and everybody gets to ask questions and figure out what is my rule, what do I get to do, what are my boundaries. And then if they all have that understanding in a common setting, I think it will make things a lot easier. I think with the turnover we’ve had, new people will come and go from the staff and from the board that left people not sure what their role was, how far they should go, where they could get answers to questions, and I think it will make it a lot easier and make it with the new administrator, make his job a lot easier.

[Unclear in the machine transcript.] 0:58:19

ATIS JURKA · 0:58:21

You’re okay. Yes, it’s okay. Yeah, everybody’s absolutely correct. We had a lot of change in, not only the town staff, but the board of trustees. You talk about Dawn Collins, she left not necessarily because she didn’t want to stay, she found a better position elsewhere. In the meantime, we kind of voltold the police chief to be our interim administrator. It took, as you can tell, almost a year before we actually got a true administrator. It was kind of a growing pain. I mean, when you talk about policy changes, not only with the town staff, Miss Erica was also the deputy town clerk, and then she became the town clerk. So there’s a little friction when you have changes, massive changes in organizations. People don’t always know what works best. Everybody has an opinion, and there’s friction, and it’s part of the reason why we’ve had some contentions between the town staff, contractors, and board of trustees. The board of trustees, as has been mentioned, we make policy decisions. And part of that policy decision, our important role is fiduciary responsibility. So we want to make sure that every tax dollar is spent wisely. and people kind of think that might be micromanaging when we ask what is this invoice for? What was this dollar amount for? More recently, we’ve had questions about legal services because part of it is not all the information on a legal invoice was provided to the boards. We have questions. Where did this money go for? so we’re going forward we have a new town administrator who’s got a lot of experience and is a positive attitude and once the new board is in place i think we’ll move forward willingly and happily

KENT HUTSON · 1:00:28

so there are two key things to retain employees number one is adequate compensation granted the trusted board and then the commissioners don’t get any compensation so they don’t That doesn’t make a difference with them. But the other thing is that they feel respected and appreciated. And I think that’s where we failed, quite frankly, in some of our town staff in the recent past. The Board of Ethics, or the, excuse me, the ethics proposal that recently came out, I think will go a long way towards helping that. There has been, like many of you have said, there’s been a huge disconnect between what the board is supposed to do even though the board has done. And that’s resulted in those issues. And making the staff feel that they’re not respected and appreciated. I think that also extends to the commissioners. I currently serve the Planning Commission. And the commissioners want to feel that they’re respected and appreciated. And so when things are brought to the Board of Trustees, they want to feel like the work that they put into it is appreciated and listened to. So it’s not just the town staff, it’s also all the other volunteers that make our town work. Thank you.

Question 4: Water

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:01:48

Okay, bear with me. So we’ll begin with Ms. Keeley, but then I’m gonna have her go to Hutson, and Mr. Jurka, and we’ll go. Just kidding, okay. All right. In August, Palmer Lake declared a water emergency. What solutions does the town need to look at when it comes to managing water resources and their cost, especially in a dry year like we’ve been experiencing?

KATHY KEELEY · 1:02:09

I think that water is probably the number one concern that we have in this town, or many of us have. But all throughout the western United States, it’s not just Palmer Lake. I do believe that we have to look at the infrastructure. And I was doing a little research today. It said that in our towns, about 3,000 people, give or take. just over 57% of all small community municipalities with less than 10,000 people are experiencing a horrible time trying to keep their water clean and safe. So it’s not just Palmer Lake. It’s everywhere that doesn’t have, that have older infrastructures and older systems to be dealing with, whether it’s groundwater they’re bringing up or surface water they’re bringing in, that it’s just become a really hard situation for economically. If you raise your rates enough to cover all of the costs, you’re going to have people that have to move because they can’t afford the water coming through. I think our rationing is a good step forward. I think that we can have, I know in other communities, they have times where you can use water at different rates. payment rates so that if there are prime times when we have more of a drain on the system or it’s harder on our pumps that you don’t have as many people trying to use and go through and use all the water and then quickly I really want to hit on water security I think that’s going to be a big issue also that we’re going to have to put under our umbrella with the security problems they’ve had and I suspect the way our system is set up that it would be easy for somebody to come in and have some malfeasance with the system as they’ve had in other areas.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:04:11

Mr. Hutson?

KENT HUTSON · 1:04:14

Thanks. So the recent budget talks have been very helpful in understanding, getting a better understanding of where our water situation is. So based on those, our water system is pretty good shape as far as the state of the art and running well. The problem is that we don’t have the capital to do the things that need to be done to get it to where we want it to be. And that’s something that’s been developing over years and years. It’s not something that’s just come up overnight. And so as a board, the board needs to plan on that and start changing the approach so that we do have some foresight, some strategic planning with regards to water and other things. So the water that we have, apparently we can’t get to it, the water equipment that we have is running pretty well, and we have a really good guy in charge of water, and we should listen to him and listen to the experts. I’m not an expert on water. I can certainly listen to experts, and I can run it through the litmus test, right? that’s where we need to go that’s where the board needs to go thank you

ATIS JURKA · 1:05:34

yeah what are we decided on support resource you know our water department has done an excellent job to maintain the quality of water we have here one thing to keep in mind not everybody who lives in Palmer Lake is on the town system so we talked about 3,000 people. I think it’s, I don’t know the exact number, maybe half are actually on the town system. The rest of them are on wells, using the same aquifers that people around us use. So that’s the concern going forward is what’s going to happen with the aquifers. Eventually they’ll run dry. But more importantly is long term, we have a well, the reservoirs and we use fountain creek. Fountain creek is not running into the levels that we can make use of surface water. The reservoirs is kind of the same situation. We’re depending on a snowpack to raise the levels so that we can start using the surface water. But at some point in time, five, ten years, we may have to re-drill our well. So, as Kent mentioned, long term, long term is we need to continue setting money aside for that time to come so that it’s not a big shock to the town finances that we need to spend two to four million dollars to re-drill a well or put it in another well. Now the other concern is recently Shady Lane just got a new water main line getting slowly put down which replaced some of the aging infrastructure. One of the things that the town water department has done is kept an eye on leakage. We don’t want to have a lot of leaky pipes because that’s a waste of water and it costs us money to replace the man line. So that’s basically giving Carp Blanche to the water department to come up with some short-term solutions on fixing what they can identify as leaks and then a plan for going forward at what time do we replace the well or re-drill it?

[The moderator calls on Roger Moseley.] 1:07:46

ROGER MOSELEY · 1:07:49

As you know, I’m haught on budgets, and I’m concerned about the water system. Not because it hasn’t maintained well, it has been. We did a study three years ago with Chris Brandywine on the life cycle cost and the future cost of replacing components as we failed. And because the number was so high and scary, instead of thinking 30 years out, we reduce that thing 10 years out. That’s just a symptom of our deferred maintenance, and one of these days it’s going to bite us. Let me give you an example. Before Dawn Collins left, she was always worried about welfare, and I think justifiably so. And so Buc-ee’s would have brought in two wells, one backup and then a well to service all the water they need. If we lost the well, it would cost around $4 million to replace it. Let’s just say that’s a good number. If we start paying for that now before it fails, it’ll cost every ratepayer about $10 a month. If we wait and have to take out a $4 million commercial loan at 6%, it’ll cost every ratepayer $24 a month. Now, the question is, do we have the courage to look at the whole picture and say, you know, we really ought to increase the capital fund or we can’t afford it? I don’t know the answer to that. I think it’s something that we need to debate. But we haven’t done the water review that’s required by the three loans that we have this year. We’re behind on that. And we need to have a financial review so we can think about these things and decide what the solution is. I don’t know what it is. I’m just telling you that those are the size of the numbers we’re talking about. And it’s because of a catastrophic failure of a well. Thank you. Thank you.

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 1:09:36

Thank you. Yes, our water issue is going to take a creative and multi-pronged approach. We do need to trust our experts, as I said before. Our experts in water are the ones that are the experts in water. We do need that strategic plan for making sure that we are budgeting for what the infrastructure is needing. We need to steward our surface water, and we’re doing that in all sorts of ways, including including citizen participation in stewarding our water. We all have the awareness that the Denver Aquifer has a whole bunch of straws in it, right? And ours are probably like teeny tiny cocktail straws compared to a lot of the other straws that are in our ground water. And so we need to be working with all the communities up and down the Front Range who are also having their straws in the Denver Aquifer. The master plan also informs us about new water taps, and so we really need to be looking at the new water taps and how we’re making decisions about that, and if we need to look at code in regards to the water taps. Look at my notes again. I think those are the things I covered. I think we need a multi-pronged approach and get really creative about how we steward our water.

[The moderator calls on Tony Beltran.] 1:10:53

TONY BELTRAN · 1:10:56

The Avengers have a hulk. Palmer Lake has a Chaz, our head water engineer. Feel free to email me and we’ll put together a group together to two of our water treatment facilities. It will answer more questions than anyone can answer for you here, including myself for sure. And we will get a group together. It’s free. and I’ve already got Chaz’s personal invitation to take that to us and let’s all take it together and we’ll learn more about our water situation. And I’ll just add that if anybody takes water for granted, I recommend hiking the Colorado Trail for more than three days and you’ll find out just how important water is.

[The moderator calls on Karla Kerstner.] 1:11:45

KARLA KERSTNER · 1:11:45

I am by all means not a water expert. I like my ice and my water and I like and I realized how important it is to be hydrated. How towns operate with their water structure, I know very little. I mean, I would say I would need to rely on an expert or some experts telling me what the situation is, if they have some plans that we might consider. I know that you know when you have one thing there’s always unintended consequences because of that and yes we suffer with the water stuff and the dryness and the change of the climate you know that our fire risks go up and then you know and then it’s just it’s just kind of snowballs so I know there has to be a plan because you can’t run out of water now we can’t right we have to have water but the answer to that it’s for me as I need more information I need to hear people who know that kind of stuff tell me where our town is that and what our options are and what we need information we can share with the citizens of the town so that we can all be on board with the components of that plan that each of us can do our part to safeguard the water that we are in need. We need it.

[The moderator calls on William Bass.] 1:13:28

WILLIAM BASS · 1:13:30

So as a couple others have said, I’m certainly no water expert. I feel like I suspect that we are ill prepared to handle a significant failure in our system. I could be wrong but I feel like this all goes back to revenue we talk about the cost involved in shoring up our water infrastructure our infrastructure in general so we have some conflicting issues here we want to limit growth but we want good infrastructure so one of the key things there I think is we need to revisit how and why we want to limit growth what growth we want to limit and when we do allow that growth or have certain businesses come in whoever that might be or development for that matter that it helps fund the infrastructure improvements needed to shore up our water system. But I think we really have to address those conflicts. It’s like we can’t have no growth, and we can’t have growth at any cost, so there has to be some compromise there and look carefully at this issue of not allowing growth for the sake of preserving possibly the character of our town. I think we can have both. I think we can have growth. I think we can encourage that revenue to come to our town, and I think we can still preserve the character of the town at the same time.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:15:16

Mr. Burton.

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 1:15:19

I would echo much of what has already been said tonight. we this is probably the number one problem we have a water issue and if we run out of water we don’t have a town anymore so listen to the experts I worked for a global water treatment company and I did municipal water treatment plants and installations in a couple of cities in the United States and I have an idea about what is required for maintaining good water supply to a municipality. But we need a plan. We need a plan. And we need the experts to inform us on the board and the citizens on how to do that. And I’ll go back to, like, all the other issues. We need to communicate that information well to our citizens, to the people of Palmer Lake, to all of you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:16:19

And Mr. Stern.

DENNIS STERN · 1:16:21

Thank you. So I was on the board in 2023 when we looked very seriously, and Mr. Moseley was a very concerned citizen at the time, came before the board numerous times, and we took a look at the water rates and the water department, and we raised rates. and it wasn’t, you know, nobody likes any of their costs, fixed costs to go up, but it was necessary. And what was told us by the town administrator here at Lake is that our water system is in good shape. We have money set aside for maintenance, but we do not have money set aside for infrastructure. just to inform that there’s about 2,600 residents of Palmer Lake 1,100 of those are on our used town water the other 1,500 are not well users they’re some children, spouses all of those kinds of things the other thing that we’ve been informed of is that we are too affluent as a community to get any grants for new water infrastructure. We make too much money, and we live in too high-priced tunnels. And lastly, Mr. Moseley’s mathematics is wrong. $1,100 times $10 a month times five years only gets us $660,000. We need $6 million because we don’t only just need a new well. We need a new water storage thing. So we’re talking about raising rates $100 a month, and that’s not going to be something easy for citizens to swallow. It’s not going to be something easy for the board to decide.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:18:28

Hey, Mr. Stern. Please refrain from directing statements over candidates.

DENNIS STERN · 1:18:36

I didn’t direct him to other candidates. I was correcting something that the other guy said. I just referred to him as saying what he said.

Question 5: Police and fire

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:18:45

All right, we’re going to move on. We’ll begin with Mr. Bass, and then we’ll go to Mr. Stern, and then Mr. Burton. So the budgets for both the fire department and the police department have risen considerably in the past five to six years, with many infrastructure items and aging equipment still needing to be dealt with. How should these rising costs and current needs be addressed?

WILLIAM BASS · 1:19:06

Well, you know, for years, as far back as I can remember, we’ve operated on a very lean budget. And I don’t see where there’s a lot of easy cuts left to be made. The cost to provide the services continues to go up. That includes police. That includes fire. you know i don’t know if people understand fully but i hear a lot of people complain a little bit about the number of police officers we have well you know what what happens if we don’t have that police coverage uh the others that a great many of them are part-time they’re not full-time employees um i believe that it all goes back to generating revenue bringing in revenue to the town We faced some tough choices. When I served as mayor, we went to great lengths to not just have our normal yearly budget meetings, but we brought the numbers to the community with special town halls and asked them to come in, hear us out. We asked for their input. We gave them options, and we actually put on the ballot tax increases. of legalizing recreational marijuana sales in addition to the medical we already had. But we presented options to the community, and we helped them determine their future and the services they’re willing to live without. Again, to me, it all goes back to generating revenue for the town. How can we do that? I think it’s paramount for us to encourage some growth, reasonable growth, allow businesses to come in and at the same time recognize that we’re in really challenging times. We have a really tight budget all the time. We don’t have room for a lot of cuts.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:21:14

Mr. Stern, next again is a reminder. How should rising costing per age be addressed in regards to fire and police?

DENNIS STERN · 1:21:20

So I am a strong proponent of joining the Monument Fire District. In regards to our fire department, I believe that it will take, right now, we give the fire department $800,000 a year out of our general fund, and if we join that department, join that district, we can take that money and use it for other things in the general budget. And yes, that requires a mill levy increase, but in talking to our fire chief, if we want to keep our fire department and we want to take all of the funds that we currently give him, give them out of the general fund, He’s asking for an even larger mill leg increase, and it won’t get us to the place where we can afford new equipment and new buildings and competitive wages, whereas joining the Monument Fire District gets us there a lot sooner and keeps a very high level of public safety in place for Palmer Lake. The police department is operating fairly efficiently, but I think that because of our budget lows, that we need to take a serious look at cutting back. I know that the citizens in general like 24-7 coverage, but we have to take a serious look at maybe only having 18-hour-a-day, seven-day coverage or something of that sort. There’s all kinds of possibilities, and we as a board need to talk seriously about that.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:23:14

Mr. Burton.

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 1:23:17

Yeah, again, I’m going to keep saying this. It comes back to we need to inform the citizens about how we’re making decisions and why we made those decisions. This is a really complex issue. The police and the fire department, as a citizen, I would love to keep and upgrade our police and fire departments. I think that’s part of our small town charm is that we have that independent of monument. So is that possible? I don’t know. It seems like we have a lot of trouble with the budget. We have a lot of constraints because we don’t have the revenue. and that’s going to take a lot of work over the next several years. Where do we get the revenue to have the kind of community that we want to have?

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:24:15

Yes, sir.

KARLA KERSTNER · 1:24:21

Fire leases, again, I do think that’s a very complex issue. It’s services that we need. We need to keep those. we need to keep good people in those positions. You know, in the last few months, hearing about combining with the firewood monument, honestly, I tend to lean towards that being a good idea because it does help us out, and it helps us feel the sense of community with the folks around us. But we have to look at, again, creative ways to keep those services that operate here for our health and safety and how we’re going to be able to maintain those so that when we need them, they’re there. And if that’s one of the options that the gentleman to my left were talking about, if that can bring money to them so that we can afford those services. I’ve lived in places where they don’t have the police. They just depended on the state police to come, and it was like hours before they came. And so, again, the unintended consequences, your crime rate goes up, especially property crimes and drug and alcohol-related kind of crimes. But, again, I agree it’s a complex myth. We have to look at that. We have to work with you on how we’re going to maintain those things and be competitive and keep the people that in there are doing those good works. So it’s going to require some work for sure.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:26:11

Mr. Beltran.

TONY BELTRAN · 1:26:12

Would you please repeat the question?

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:26:13

Yes. So we’re talking about fire and police departments. The budgets for both have risen considerably in the past five to six years. So, with many of the searcher items that are still needing to be dealt with, how should these rising costs and current needs be addressed?

TONY BELTRAN · 1:26:27

Well, at the last meeting I suggested we trade an argue cause for Crown Victoria is to put bubble lights on the top and that didn’t go for it as well. Let’s take the fire department first. We have a property tax mill levy increase. I believe it’s 8 mill for each property owner and, you know, if you decide that, that would to the voters. If you want to merge with the monument fire department, go ahead. Go check that box. If you don’t, check no. I asked the town administrator, can we increase the mill levy and just keep our own fire department? He said hardly enough to make it run still. So that will be something that will be left to the voters, and all the information will be provided before that ballot comes out. Our police department, our first responders, They’re the heroes of our community. And they’re the unsung heroes. It’s a thankless job. As our financial constraints mount, every department will come under scrutiny, not just fire and police. And if required, changes and some cuts will have to be made. Thank you.

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 1:27:40

Yes. So the fire department merger has been discussed for decades. So my husband, Philip Tedeschi, served on the fire department along with Rich Kester decades ago. It’s been discussed for so long. And I think it’s something we really need to be looking at and considering. 8.4 mils averages, according to my Google search yesterday, $250 to $272 of additional property tax average for the citizens. And we all know we’re surrounded by really high risk. If you look at the wildfire risk map, we’ve got this whole red arc right around us. And so whatever we can do to collaborate is probably going to keep us safer in addition to being more cost effective. And again, as Toye mentioned, it’ll be put to vote in March. And so we need to be informing everybody about what that tax rate increase would be, what we get out of it in regards to what we’re going to be doing that’s more than the mutual aid agreement that we already have with Monument. and then how that impacts our budget. We’re not spending $800,000 for the fire department. We need a new fire station. We love our fire station. It’s very historic and we’ll keep that character, but we need a new fire station. And in regards to the police, I wouldn’t support cutting back police officers or their mom, their mom. We have a really good small town police force that knows our citizens and we know them. And I want to support that. So we need to bring in more revenue. And I don’t know if we have time to get into the revenue streams, but that’s going to be an extremely important part of how we do our budget, is being very creative and innovative in how we bring in revenue.

[The moderator calls on Roger Moseley.] 1:29:30

ROGER MOSELEY · 1:29:31

Wow. Back in 22, we had a mayor’s message that suggested that we needed a mill increase of about 30. I thought that was crazy. I’m now beginning to think that maybe that was a foreshadowing of today. I don’t know what the number is. But I will tell you that we did a compensation study for our staff, and this kind of goes back to how you retain people. Dawn Collins raised our salaries halfway from where they were to what the compensation study thought we ought to be. For this year’s budget, Glen Smith came another quarter, not quite the other half, but we’re making an effort to get there. I thought that was very decent. One compliment I will give Glen and Christy Berkland, who was doing the budget for him, that for the first time we saw very clearly what our real problem was. We saw the increased money that was going to the fire department, which was never very clear in the previous budgets. I have to compliment them for that. But that has started this conversation and it’s about time. I don’t know what the solution is, but I will suggest one thing. We are the world’s worst business development organization. We had Karen Stuth, as an example, headed up a business development unit for us a couple years ago. We have been fiddling around with Elephant Rock property for, I don’t know, forever, and we still haven’t figured out how to make that minor subdivision work. Okay? So I don’t think we’ll ever get enough business development to cover all this money. so it’s a combination of cutting back a little bit and doing a little bit better job out there with the public and business development and that might help out but it’s going to be a very long and difficult salon. Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Kathy Keeley.] 1:31:32

KATHY KEELEY · 1:31:33

I think that the police department again it does an outstanding job and I’m sure the citizens like knowing that all you have to do is pick up the phone and have them there so we would hate to have to cut back and have hours where there aren’t any unless we can figure out a different way to do it. The fire department, that’s a big quandary. What do you do for them? I think one thing that hasn’t been brought up is the ISO rating and if we get the mill levy raised or we move our fire department in and merge it with the monument do we pay more on our insurance than what we would have paid in taxes to keep them here? And so I think we really need to get some definitive numbers together so that we know that we don’t have insurance companies that are saying we’re not going to support Palmer Lake any longer, which we’ve had. And I think there are three or four or all that we have an option of right now and figure out how it affects with the fire hazards that we have here. and then try to just revenue. We have to get back together, like Roger just said about devising ways to get more revenue in here. It can’t be just one stream of revenue. We have to really get together and get different businesses in here that are going to attract different people in here, and I think that we have enough smart people in this community that we can put together some plans to bring in and make it an enticing situation to bring more businesses in here and have some more revenue.

[The moderator calls on Atis Jurka.] 1:33:16

ATIS JURKA · 1:33:19

When this all came up, I did a little background in investigation with the fire department. I came across an article, I think it was on KLA in 2019. They talked about this exact same problem. what do we do with the fire department because we have an old building we have a fire engine that’s older than some of the firefighters and it’s difficult to get parts as dennis pointed out we’re looking at considering merging with monument fire department uh district i’m sorry now doing a little bit of math you know the fire department gets 10 mils and what we spend extra out of general fund comes about nine to ten more bills. So right now residents are paying about 19 to 20 bills for the fire department. So my department district wants 18.4 it might be a wash but there is nostalgia for our fire department. They maintain the famous Palmer Lake Star so people are worry what’s going to happen to that if we merge. My consideration, on our fire engine we have two and a half firefighters, it voluntarily counts as a half. My mid-fire district will provide four. They also have two ambulances. So there’s some pros but there’s some cons in that people are worried is where is the fire station going to be if we merge. Now in the police department, one of the goals of theirs was to have two policemen on a shift, which is why the budget for them has gone up substantially. We can look at maybe cutting back hours or personnel on the shift. And on business development, you know, Curly Earhart has vacant properties. There’s a lot of properties here in town that don’t need to be annexed, but we should encourage business to come and make use of those properties and build something there for future revenue. Thank you.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:35:33

Mr. Hutson.

KENT HUTSON · 1:35:34

Thank you. So, you know, you’ve heard the numbers. It comes down to we’re going to have to pay 18 and a half, you know, roughly, bills to ship the over monument, or I think one of the estimates that one of the recent budget meetings was 22 to 24 if we’re going keep it here. The only thing that I was just thrown out there so but it’s going to cost us more. Now so I’ve said that that’s a short term and when I say short term I’m talking about the next couple years. The longer term solution is to increase revenue and in small towns like ours economic development is driven by having a desirable environment for entrepreneurs to come in and live so when they, and live and start businesses. So when they get here, they say, wow, this is a cool little town. This is the kind of place that I want to start a business. And we have not been very successful doing that. And I don’t think we’ve really approached it from that standpoint. Atis and I have both been president of the polling economic development group in one part or another. And so I’ve done a lot of research in economic development for towns like this. And that’s the direction we need to go, is to start creating that cute feel and that openness to small business owners. Thank you.

Question 6: Bringing in business (one minute each)

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:36:56

Okay, so I’m just keeping it up with the clock here. We’re going to do one more question, but I’m going to give you a minute for this question, and we’re just going to go down the line, and then for closing statements, we’ll be doing with Mr. Stern. Go down that way. Okay, and we’re going to stick with the theme of revenue, attracting businesses. A couple of you have talked about it. What specific action items, and be as specific as possible with goers here, would you take to encourage development and business attraction?

KENT HUTSON · 1:37:22

So one of the first things that I would like to see us do is to take that plan to the sidewalk along the park, on the Long Road 5, and get CDOT funding for that, because that creates a center point, the public promenade, a center point for people who are coming in town and like, oh, that is so cool, and give us a little bit more personality than just a parking lot with a brisbee golf and a lake. So say increasing that personality. We have the bridge, we have the troll, we have some cool stuff. And when I talk to people in the area, they talk about, wow, Palmer Lake is a cool place to go because it’s going to bring you back. Okay, we don’t have the local things on the police cars yet, but it brings you back. And I think that’s the personality that we would like to see in our town. And I saw that when I was working on the National Plan that we want to see. And we need to get that out there and develop that. Thank you.

[The moderator calls on Atis Jurka.] 1:38:22

ATIS JURKA · 1:38:24

I’m going to make a picture for the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce. I’d like to see more involvement with the Chamber, with the Palmer Lake, those volunteer groups like the Lake and the town in identifying businesses that could come in to fill the vacant lots that we have here in town. One of the factories, you know, Centennial Park, some of you may know that some of the property there is owned by El Paso County, and town is working to annex some of that so that we can actually make use of it for parking and also get some revenue from the food trucks that show up there because then they’ll be part of Palmer Lake and we can charge them money or fees or something for like that. Long term we probably need to develop someone on the town staff to look at economic development with grants from the state and federal to bring in businesses.

KATHY KEELEY · 1:39:26

I think we had that I believe Kent was part of and maybe honest the economic development growth committee that for whatever reason went by the wayside I think we desperately need that again I think we need to have a welcome area for people coming through town where there are brochures and all the fun stuff we have all the plays and all the the farmers markets and special events at the lake that will detail everything that people actually can do and see here. I think it’s kind of a no, no, they don’t know what all is going on here, so I think then keeping them better informed and getting maybe a business broker in here that can help us bring some business into this area.

[The moderator calls on Roger Moseley.] 1:40:14

ROGER MOSELEY · 1:40:16

I was distressed just this week to find out that one of our most visible businesses is thinking of leaving town. Why? because that business is having difficulty getting a business license that they’ve had for seven years, and they can’t figure out, they can’t get an answer on what the problem is. So to have a business that distressed, and I have another business that I know about, and I’m sure all of you will think of who it is, that we’ve taken so long to get a minor, that subdivision improved. It’s just like we are not very proactive when it comes to welcoming and helping our businesses. We seem to be in charge and you will do this, and I think that’s a long attitude. I don’t know why we’re in that position, but hopefully, and of course this is the fault of the board, not the businesses, that we can solve that. And I look forward to trying to do that because we have some really interesting small businesses in town and I want to encourage more. You know what I’m talking about.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:41:22

Ms. Albright, okay.

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 1:41:23

I have a whole long list, so I’m going to try to go through this pretty quickly. But the first thing is we need to have creative solutions. And quickly I want to talk about the Parks Commission. This is money that’s for them, but this was a brilliant solution. Those parking kiosks bring in $50,000 a year. That’s for the Parks Commission. But we need like 18 of those creative solutions, right? And we have a whole list of things that we can do. We get revenue from sales tax, property tax, and outside revenue like grants and propositions. So another one of our town business owners has a really great development proposal, and it would help her develop it if we opted into Proposition 123. Now, that doesn’t give us direct funding, but it would give us more attainable housing. It would give us some sales tax from the businesses that were developed, and it would give us property tax for the people who are able to get into the housing from this Proposition 123. We also need to be asking our small business owners, what do you need for support? And that includes in our main street, but it also includes the manufacturing businesses out along County Lane Road. One minute isn’t long enough to give all of the examples, but it’s something we were given.

TONY BELTRAN · 1:42:36

And there are plenty of things that we can do to stop bleeding and create financial stability within our account. but that is the root cause of where we’re at right now, financial stability. That’s the first thing that we need to do. We all want to preserve our town longevity, and we need to avoid this projected bankruptcy over the next two to three years. There’s a lot of things we can do to do that, but in the end, we’re going to have to open up Palmer Lake for business. We’re going to have to make it easier to operate a business and to build a home. Palmer Lake is going to be more than just a destination. It’s going to become a destiny for people.

KARLA KERSTNER · 1:43:17

I think we need to have some outreach outside of us. We need to let people know, businesses know, small businesses know. Why is it in their best interest to come here and be a business here and ask the businesses we have what keeps them here or what would keep them here. And again, you know, a lot of the things we’ve talked about tonight is the whole thing, the bottom line is revenue. You know, we have to figure out how we can get money in here so that people will come here, they’ll be able to live here, that we will have the infrastructure and the folks to run the town and operate the businesses. But I think there are ways that we can do that. There are ways with you folks involved in that process. We can all do that. We can build up the town and increase those kinds of things because we’re going to have to. Part of the town is, you know, the… We’re just going to have to keep cutting and losing things and you can only do that to a certain point.

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:44:29

Mr. Bass.

WILLIAM BASS · 1:44:33

I believe that there are really two issues that would need to be addressed to make our town inviting to businesses again, and that would be, first, we have some image restoration we need to take care of, because our town has really taken a hit this last two years with all the strife and discord. I would believe that that would scare some businesses away or make them very reluctant to come here right now. we need to become more cohesive more cooperative and more compromising as a community to be inviting to those businesses and then we need to ensure that we have processes in place that are business friendly so that it’s easier for businesses to get things done for them to get their licenses or their permits whatever it is they need I have friends that have businesses here and I know they face challenges with that and we just need to become more business directly

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 1:45:29

we have a great town lots of amazing things here I think we’re probably the best kept secret in Colorado we need to let people know and get the word out more hey come come to Palmer Lake as several people have said make it friendly for people to come here and do business we have plenty of places that empty lots and empty buildings that could could be used for new business and generate more revenue so I would love to see an economic development Commission formed people who just work on that issue and help us to find new ways and creative ways to generate revenue for this town.

[The moderator calls on Dennis Stern.] 1:46:24

DENNIS STERN · 1:46:25

Thank you. So there’s not much else that can be said. You know we need more money. We need to create a business friendly environment. Right now Palmer Lake has a business unfriendly reputation. And that is not necessarily something that’s built, referred to, easily turned around. But that’s our challenge. That’s what we’re going to have to do. There’s probably numerous ways. You know, an economic development commission. You just, you know, whatever the possibilities are, we need to explore them. Again, all that the Board of Trustees can do is set policy, commission to commission, or whatever, but we can’t just wave the magic wand and bring in businesses because we want to. They want to have to come here.

Closing statements

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:47:26

All right. And now we’ll move on to closing statements. We’ll leave a note of you, Mr. Stern, a reminder to all of our candidates, you have one minute.

DENNIS STERN · 1:47:35

Thank you. My candidacy for trustee is all about our fiscal health going forward. We’re in big trouble. We’ve been headed into this trouble for numerous years, decades, actually. and I just want to stay with the program and do what I can to find solutions for Palmer Lake to stay healthy and move forward. So vote for Dennis Stern. Let’s save our time together. Thank you.

ERIC ALAN BURTON · 1:48:17

Thank you Alasyn and the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce and all of you for coming out today for this. We need people who are involved in our community and want to see it grow and get better. My family and I, we love this town. And we want to make it better. And so I hope I get a chance to serve the town. Whether I’m elected or not, I will serve this town. I hope that my grandkids come back here and their kids and so forth. It’s an amazing place. Thank you. Vote for me. I’m the last name on the ballot.

WILLIAM BASS · 1:48:59

I also want to thank the chamber and you, Alasyn, for being here today and the rest of the candidates and all of you. I just would like to say that I have enjoyed serving the town in the past. I care deeply about this town. I’ll take the time to listen, look at the facts, ask the difficult questions, and help make the best decision that we can for the community as a whole. Whenever possible, again, just bring good solutions to the table, not just simply identify problems. I have experience serving this community, understand many of the challenges we face. I’m ready to get to work to help Palmer Lake get back on track and address these needs and protecting what makes this town special.

KARLA KERSTNER · 1:49:59

I am committed to working on the issues that we have in our community, and especially working with the citizens, not with the board, but to know what you, as the folks, me, as one of those people that live in this town, what we need, what we would like, want, how we’re going to, you all have ideas on things too. It doesn’t necessarily have to be us coming up with an answer. You guys probably have some good suggestions and answers that we can look at I need you too. So, you know, it comes down to, as a voter, I guess, and I mean, you don’t know me from anybody. Tonight’s probably the first time a lot of folks have even seen me. But if you feel like I’m going to be a person that’s going to be able to take those things forward, then I’m just saying I’m willing to do those things, and it’s up to you to decide who you think can do those things for you.

TONY BELTRAN · 1:51:09

With you. We have the tools to get it done. We have a new administrator in place who’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. Follow the master plan. There’s been tens of thousands of hours and numerous, countless people who have given to that, and that is what the people of Palmer Lake have wanted. years of preparation. We can follow that. That’s our game plan. A moment of clarity will come to all of us at some point and we’ll say, this is what Palmer Lake needs. This is what Palmer Lake should be. Look and ask yourself, what small town did you visit that you love besides Palmer Lake? There’s many I can think of all over the world, and we have the ability to be those towns. In the movie Field of Dreams, James Earl Jones says, raid, if you build it, they will come. Oh yes, they will come. They will open their wallets, and they will wash themselves in the members.

BECKY ALBRIGHT · 1:52:11

So thank you all for being here. This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about, that Palmer Lake citizens wholeheartedly engage and participate in our community. And I want to help us move past our discord and move forward to reclaim our community identity for years to come. That we really can all get together and see each other with humanity and respect. And I look forward now to the possibility of doing that. I was just sharing yesterday, I’ve learned so much just learning about running for trustee. And I’m looking forward to that challenge of learning more and working together with our town staff, the town commissions, and hopefully the board of trustees. I’m looking forward to that. Now, I’m going to be leaving on October 14th for a three-week backpacking trip. So if anybody would like to talk with me before I leave, you can contact me through AlbrightForPalmerLake.com.

ROGER MOSELEY · 1:53:11

my wife and I lived up in Iainville Valley for 25 years and then we bought a parcel down on 105 and believe it or not we designed the house and placed it on that parcel so that we could see the star application window so we are committed to this town and I think we’re also committed to the tri-race community. You’ve heard me speak before about the golden rule when it came to development over at I-25 I think we have a responsibility not just to ourselves, but to everybody in this community. So let’s not forget that. I will point out one thing about the community. We have about 50 water taps left at the current condition of the water system. We have about 100 empty building blocks. Believe it or not, I was shocked to find that out in the town. If we allocate those tasks to a developer, we are damaging the future of our own citizens who own property of the town. So think about that when it comes to decisions along those lines. Thank you.

KATHY KEELEY · 1:54:22

Thank you guys all for coming. It’s awesome that we get, during the Bronco game, anybody out here to listen to us. one thing that did not come up in the conversation tonight, but I just don’t want to let it go entirely, is transparency. And I think that’s been a big problem with our discourse that we have here. And I think that’s imperative that we go ahead and make all of our actions and even open up our executive sessions unless they are not. There’s absolutely a reason that we cannot do it. But I I think the town needs to know that we’re not keeping sequences, the board of trustees. I mean, I want to protect our lifestyle, values through responsible growth and development that represents our core values and those of the master plan that people put so many hundreds and hundreds of hours into. So thank you again for coming and lots more to be said.

ATIS JURKA · 1:55:18

A lot of talk’s been about the master plan, and the reason why it’s such a big deal is that it’s based on citizens’ input. The Elephant Rock, there was an advisory committee, and there were about 100 ideas that came up from people on how best to use that property. That’s not to say we can’t do that again. why you’re here tonight to hear us is important because we don’t have the answers. You probably, some of you, actually have a better idea than I do as far as how to bring you more revenue. But it takes all of us working together. Transparency and accountability is key in communication. We need to communicate with you, but it’s also just as important that you speak to us. your town leaves you because we don’t want to work in a vacuum we don’t always have best ideas so i appreciate you coming tonight anybody know what the broncos 40s

KENT HUTSON · 1:56:34

all right thanks thanks uh thanks Terri and Alasyn appreciate it um you guys great job um And I think it’s historic for us to have an independent run that’s kind of far. So that’s great. I mentioned earlier that I’ve been privileged to lead on my teams. And those have all been, almost all, I don’t know, most of them have been in healthcare to accomplish goals. And I’m very global oriented. I like to solve problems. That’s one of the reasons that I’m doing this. and I see this as an excellent opportunity to bring the whole team together, the board, the staff, the various commissions, and the people. I think we have potential to solve our problems. Do we have big problems? Yeah, yeah, we have huge problems, but I think we have a good chance to have solved it, so I hope you’re in your support. Thanks.

Close

MODERATOR (ALASYN ZIMMERMAN) · 1:57:31

All right, everyone, the big round. Thank you. Thank you. So again, thank you so much for joining us. And have a great time.

Sources & further reading

The Independent’s own coverage: Palmer Lake’s November Ballot Is Set: Two for Mayor, Ten for Five Trustee Seats — the certified ballot and the staggered-term rule · Kent Hutson Chaired Palmer Lake’s Master Plan. Now He Is Running for Mayor. and Atis Jurka Wants Palmer Lake Residents Heard First. Now He Is Running for Mayor. — profiles of the two candidates for mayor · Palmer Lake Sets Bear Workshop as Administrator Warns of Two-Year Cash Runway — Davidson’s estimate, the annexation-election ballot language and the code of ethics · Palmer Lake Could Vote in 2027 on Dissolving Its Fire Department — the district’s terms and the 8.4-mill figure · In Palmer Lake, Outdoor Watering Is Now One Hour a Week, by Bucket — the Stage 1 emergency · Buc-ee’s Opponents Take the County’s Decision to Court — the Sept. 24 lawsuit.

The forum: Palmer Lake Candidate Forum, October 4, 2026, the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce’s recording, 1 hour 58 minutes · Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce.

Town and county: Town of Palmer Lake · Monument Fire District · El Paso County Board of County Commissioners.

Methodology

This account is built from the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce’s recording of the forum, which runs 1 hour 58 minutes and was posted to the chamber’s YouTube channel on Oct. 6. The recording carries no captions, so the Independent made its own transcript with artificial intelligence, running two automatic speech-recognition models, the large and small versions of OpenAI’s Whisper, over the audio and comparing the results. Those transcripts are generated by machine rather than written by a person. Machine transcription misrenders names, garbles figures and carries no speaker labels, so speakers were identified from the moderator’s calls, the seating order and the video, which shows most of the panel. For the three candidates seated off camera, Bass, Burton and Stern, the Independent checked the handoffs between speakers against the video and compared the voice in each disputed passage with the same candidates’ other answers. Words appear in quotation marks only where both transcripts agree; elsewhere answers are paraphrased. Names are spelled as they appear on the certified ballot. The full machine transcript appears above, under the closing statements, with its limits stated at its head.

Figures in this article are the candidates’ own unless they are attributed to the Independent’s earlier reporting, and they were not independently checked. Answers are listed in alphabetical order, with the candidates for mayor first, rather than in the order the candidates spoke. The Independent’s reporting process uses AI tools that can make mistakes; if we have gotten something wrong, we will correct it via the Independent’s corrections page. No candidate was contacted for this article.

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Articles bylined Staff are reported and written by The Monument Independent newsroom and edited by Michael Christensen, the editor. They are held to the same standards as every article the Independent...

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