Residents are writing to El Paso County by the dozen to oppose the proposed travel plaza on Monument Hill. The county is logging every message—and stamping each one “not part of the official record.”
Since Buc-ee’s asked the county in June to classify its planned 74,000-square-foot travel plaza as a “convenience store,” the public has answered in volume. The file for the administrative determination—county case ADM264—now holds three batches of resident correspondence running to nearly 600 pages. In the tranches the county has posted so far, this newspaper counted more than 80 individual residents; of the messages that stated a position, not one argued in favor of the project.
The writers ask for one of two things: that the planning director decline to classify the travel center as a convenience store, or that she refer the question to the elected Board of County Commissioners, where it would face a public hearing. Many wrote directly to the director, Meggan Herington; several copied the local television stations—KOAA, KKTV and KRDO—and some cited Governor Jared Polis, who urged the company to reconsider last September. Their complaints are the familiar ones: water and the Denver Basin aquifers, traffic at the Interstate 25 interchange, light pollution beside the Greenland wildlife corridor, noise, property values, and whether a plaza of this size can honestly be called a convenience store at all.
For all that, none of it counts—at least not formally. Every batch of comments in the county’s file carries the same notice: the documents “are not part of the official record for Project ADM264,” and have been included “for reference purposes only” and “should not be considered as formal submissions or evidence within the project’s official record.”
That stamp is not an oversight; it is the nature of the process. An administrative determination has no comment period, and the Land Development Code does not require the director to weigh public input before she decides. So the objections are collected, acknowledged, and set to one side.
- Planner of the Day: [email protected] — cite file ADM264
- Executive Director Meggan Herington: [email protected]
- Your county commissioners: through Citizen Connect
- The case file: ask that your materials be added to ADM264 in the county portal
On July 1st the director issued her ruling — and it was a non-determination. After reviewing the code, its definitions and 26 past approvals, the county found it “cannot determine” whether the project is a “convenience store,” or is similar enough to an allowed C-1 use, to qualify. It is neither an approval nor a denial. The only party that may appeal is Buc-ee’s, the property owner, which has 30 days to take the question to the Board of County Commissioners; the residents who wrote in still have no standing to appeal.
What, then, can the eighty do? Two things, as this newspaper has noted before. Their letters can press the director to send the question to the commissioners—the only door to a public hearing. And, should the determination go Buc-ee’s way, that same correspondence can help build the record for a challenge in District Court. For now, it sits in the file, marked for reference only.
Sources
- El Paso County EDARP, file ADM264 — status, events and documents (accessed July 1, 2026): epcdevplanreview.com
- ADM264 project file, “Documents Received” batches (May and June 2026), El Paso County Planning & Community Development — public correspondence, each stamped “not part of the official record… for reference purposes only.” (This newspaper’s review of the posted batches: more than 80 residents; none in support.)
- The Monument Independent, “Buc-ee’s tries the back door” (June 23, 2026).
