A retired Army officer who has spent two years on Palmer Lake’s board, and cast its lone dissent on some of its biggest decisions, is asking voters to make him mayor. Atis Jurka’s campaign rests on the idea that residents should be heard before decisions are made and able to see how their money is […]
Tag: Transparency & Records
Posted inGovernment
Monument Town Council, September 21, 2026: 7 Brew Approved, Police Fees Rewritten
Monument’s council approved a drive-thru coffee stand it had sent back two weeks earlier, cut most of the police records fees it adopted in August before those fees take effect, moved the town’s employee health benefits to a public-entity trust, and hired a new water attorney to begin replacing one who has represented the town […]
Posted inGovernment
Colorado Springs Will Decide Project Taurus a Week After Its Election
Colorado Springs postponed Project Taurus to April 13, 2027, a week after its election. The approval rests on which of two old approvals counts as the original.
Posted inGovernment
Vertex Consulting Files Its Rezonings With the Department It Came From
Craig Dossey ran El Paso County’s planning department and Nina Ruiz was his planning manager. Their firm has eight rezoning files open at the county, two of them before the Board on September 24.
Posted inGovernment
Monument Town Council, September 8, 2026: An E-Bike Ordinance Ordered, a Drive-Thru Sent Back, a Plan Nobody Could Find
Monument’s council ordered a draft e-bike and e-moto ordinance carrying a $250 fine for parents, sent a Jackson Creek Parkway drive-thru back over its driveways, and approved a shop building that the site’s own well had already shrunk.
Posted inOpinion
An Open Letter to Chair Carrie Geitner
Letter to the editor: Marti Zehr-Breedlove writes to El Paso County commission chair Carrie Geitner about how residents who spent months preparing for the P261, P262 and Buc-ee’s hearings were addressed from the dais.
Posted inOpinion
If Evidence Matters, Let the Public Present It
Opinion: El Paso County’s chair says the board’s job is to evaluate evidence. An El Paso County resident asks why the public is being given less time — and fewer tools — to present it as the Buc-ee’s appeal approaches.
Posted inOpinion
The BOCC Hearing Story Isn’t the Vote, It’s the Community
Opinion: When the county cut their speaking time at the last minute, dozens of Tri-Lakes residents rewrote their testimony over lunch and showed what civic engagement looks like at its best.
Posted inGovernment
What Monument’s license-plate cameras capture, keep and share
Six Flock license-plate cameras watch Monument’s roads, reading nearly every passing plate. What they capture, how long the data is kept, who can see it, where they are, and how the town got them.
Posted inGovernment
A Town Without Guardrails
Palmer Lake has spent a year showing what becomes of a small town when the ordinary machinery of self-government goes missing — an ethics code, a permanent administrator, a clean line between the police and the town’s payroll, and minutes that match the recording. Local watchdog groups have published a heavily documented dossier arguing that an elected trustee is being run out of office by improper means; the town’s own record and the region’s reporting fill in the rest. The striking thing is not who is right. It is how little now works in Palmer Lake to decide it.