After a heated and vitriolic 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 will stand until after an annexation election on the land can likely be held.
The board moved the zoning hearing on the land where a Buc-ee’s would be placed until February 5, well after a proposed election on annexation of the land by voters.
In September, the town voted to put a Buc-ee's land annexation, and all other future 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.
Buc-ee's is still moving forward with the proposed annexation into Palmer Lake of a plot of land in unincorporated El Paso County, however.
The agenda had planned for a zoning recommendation to be made 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 vote.
After shouting, accusations, vulgar comments, and multiple points of order, the zoning issue was tabled, and the public hearing part of the meeting was scheduled for a later date, as the board in a 4-3 vote to delay the zoning hearing adjourned.
The board of trustees now has to approve what the ballot language will be 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 Gale is a Tri-Lakes resident and chief legal counsel at Integrity Matters, a group that opposed the Buc-ee's annexation. 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,” Gale said. “That's not the point. The voters need the information.”
Beth Harris, who was recently elected to replace one of the recalled trustees, voted against postponing the annexation hearing and discussion. She said without zoning the land before it goes to an annexation vote 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.
Mark Waller is a Palmer Lake resident and a consultant for Buc-ee's. He said it is unbelievable what opponents of Buc-ee’s wanted.
“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.
