By Michael Christensen, Monument Independent
The Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 on Thursday to allow a 74,000-square-foot travel center at Interstate 25 and County Line Road. The motion that carried never found the project to be a convenience store. It found it similar enough to other things the district allows — and that distinction governs everything that follows.
The agenda item was called twenty minutes and forty-three seconds into Thursday’s meeting and disposed of eight hours, twenty minutes and thirty-four seconds later. In between, El Paso County’s five commissioners heard from their own planning director, from a consultant for Buc-ee’s EPCO, LLC, and from something close to a hundred and sixty residents who had come to say no. Two people spoke in favor. Four had registered to.
The Board then answered a single question of classification and, in the same motion, closed what may prove to be the last public hearing this project receives. . . . (read the rest)