Updated Friday, October 3, 2025, 3:15 p.m.
After a heated town hall meeting, the Palmer Lake board of trustees voted 4-3 Thursday night to postpone a zoning hearing on the land where a proposed Buc-ee’s would stand until after an annexation election can likely be held.
The board moved the zoning hearing until February 5, well after a proposed election on annexation is likely to occur.
In September, the town voted to put a Buc-ee's land annexation, and all other future possible land annexations, to a townwide vote. In that same election, voters removed two town trustees from office who were viewed as favorable to the project.
Just a week prior, the town's planning commission, an appointed group charged with making recommendations on land use and other planning issues, narrowly voted to recommend against the Buc-ee's project.
Still, Buc-ee's is moving forward with its proposed annexation of the land off I-25 at Monument Hill.
The agenda for Thursday's meeting had planned for a zoning recommendation and then public comment. A note on the agenda said that the applicant, Buc-ee's, had asked for the zoning issue to be shelved until the annexation was put to a vote.
After shouting, accusations, vulgar comments, and multiple points of order, the board tabled the zoning issue on a 4-3 vote and the public hearing part of the meeting was scheduled for a later date.
The board now has to approve the ballot language for the annexation election in an upcoming meeting, although no specific date was set.
Opponents of the Buc-ee's project said the vote on the annexation of the land before it's zoned is putting the cart before the horse.
Kat Gayle is chief legal counsel at Integrity Matters, a group that's challenging the town on the processes it's undertaken. She said sending the annexation to a vote, without all the zoning information on how the land could be used, could be against Colorado state law.
“What you proposed tonight is to give the voters the right to vote on a blank slate. What could go in there? People always say a strip club or a liquor store,” Gayle said. “That's not the point. The voters need the information.”
Beth Harris, who was elected to replace one of the recalled trustees, voted against postponing the annexation hearing and discussion. She said sending the land to an annexation vote before its zoned didn't make sense.
“It seems to me it stands to reason that we would have that rezoning piece as a point of information, that decision, as a point of data, for the voters to consider before they have their election,” Harris said.
The town's attorney, Scott Krob, said Buc-ee's would reimburse the town for the cost of the annexation election.
In a meeting last month when the board officially adopted the new ordinance requiring annexations go to a popular vote, he also advised trustees that the ordinance that passed on September 9 did not specify when in the annexation process the election should take place. His interpretation of the measure was to have the election at the end of the process, including potential rezoning, "because it's really only at that point that the electorate would know this is what we're voting on."
Many of the residents said they felt blindsided by the meeting, telling KRCC they thought the meeting would be about zoning, not a new special election.
After the board voted to push back the zoning discussion until after the election, they abruptly adjourned. This was met with even more yelling and accusations from the crowd.
Mark Waller is a Palmer Lake resident and a consultant for Buc-ee's. He called the opponents' complaints "unbelievable."
“The opponents run a ballot initiative that says we're going to have all annexations go to a vote of the people. That ballot initiative passes. Now, they don't want to honor what the people of Palmer Lake said,” Waller said.
He also commented on how tensions reached a new high, in this series of escalating meetings.
“I'm embarrassed to be a Palmer Lake resident,” Waller said.
During the meeting, newly appointed trustee Roger Moseley jumped from his chair and accused Krob, the town attorney, of withholding information from the board. Members of the public repeatedly yelled at some of the trustees and applauded others, while the police repeatedly threatened to kick people out.
Charlie Ihlenfeld, chair of the planning commission, attended the meeting in Buc-ee's branded clothing.
It's unclear when the annexation election will be, and what the language will be on the proposed ballot. But at Thursday's meeting, Krob said it was a poorly written initiative, and he recommended the election should come before any zoning conversation.
"My recommendation is that in order to comply with the initiative that was passed by the electorate that you need to have the election and then you can proceed after you've gotten that direction from the body that's been appointed to do that," he said. "And that to do otherwise would expose the town to substantial legal risk."
Many residents said they would like to have another recall effort for some of the trustees. They also told KRCC that they would like to recall the mayor, Dennis Stern.
Stern was among those who initially faced a recall, but as he resigned and was appointed mayor, that effort became moot.
