All Episodes

January 15, 2025 13 mins
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Additional correction slash apology.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I offered one yesterday already, but when I was talking
about a lawsuit that I saw that was filed against
the town or city of the town, I guess of
Palmer Lake, for their process of annexing trying to annex
some land near I twenty five.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
To build up BUCkies.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I characterized the groups that were involved as left leaning groups,
and some of them surely are, but one of them
surely isn't, and that's Integrity Matters, And those folks got
in touch with me and said that's really not a
correct characterization, So I apologize for that.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
And in any.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Case, I thought, then, given all the work they're doing
to deal with this issue, an issue that is of
great importance to people who live let's say, you know
in that Palmer Lake Monument, that area kind of between
i'll passive count need going down towards Colorado Springs. It's

(01:02):
a big deal. The BUCkies thing is a big deal.
It's been a big deal in northern Colorado as well.
So joining us to talk about their challenge to Palmer
Lakes annexation plan is Kat Gail, who is chief legal
counsel of Integrity Matters that website if you want to
check it out.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Integrity Matters coos.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Like Colorado Springs dot org integritymatterscs dot org.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
All right, with that long introduction, Kat, welcome to Kaway.
It's good to have you here.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Good morning, Ross, It's good to be here. What's important
about the lawsuit is it's not a lawsuit against BUCkies.
We are a watchdog group against government overreach and trying
to make sure that governments remember that they represent the people,
not as the case has been here in Alpaso County,
the developers and in the state of Colorado as a whole.

(01:55):
Another thing that Integrity Matters is doing the last state
legislative session pass.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
A horrible unconstitutional law.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
It was House Bill eleven oh seven, where somehow they've
come up with it's okay that if a citizens group
sues the government and loses, the citizens group has to
pay the government's legal fees.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Well, we already pay their legal fees. That's what our
taxes do.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
But if the citizens group happens to win in these
land used decisions, the government does not have to pay
the citizens group legal fees.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
But that's not.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
All if the developers sue the government, because their rezoning
or their plan has been turned down and loses. The
developer does not have to pay the legal fees. So
here we have a situation there are three groups. There's
the government, there's the citizens, there's the developer. The only
ones that have to pay someone else's legal fees are

(02:49):
the citizens, the only ones who have nothing to gain
from a development, which we believe is against the First Amendment,
the right to petition government. It's grievances, and it's against process.
There's supposed to be equity and abiding by the rule
of law. So that brings us to what we're Let.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Me just let me just ask you a question.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Here, are you challenging that in court that specific thing.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
That we're suing the governor and the Attorney General of
the State of Colorado in federal court.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Okay, so that's a different lawsuit from.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
A different lawsuits.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
But I'm just trying to give you the gist of
what we do as Integrity Matters. We are a watchdog
group for citizens' rights. So we're about the Constitution, We're
about the rule of law.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm kind of a legal
nerd and I care about constitutional law a lot, and
I read a lot of appellate law.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
In Supreme court cases and all this stuff. So I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
The if you the case that you filed about legal
fees is not itself because of the kind of case,
it's not itself subject to that provision.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
That provision about paying the legal fees is for certain
types of lawsuits.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
In other words, if you sue the state over that
stuff and loser, are.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
You going to owe the state's legal fees or not?
Because it's the wrong kind of cause, No, we're not, okay.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
The type of case it is is the legislator pushed
through with a lobbyist who pretended he was all about
affordable housing, but actually he's the lead council for various
contractors and developers and that's where he makes his money when.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
He's not lobbying.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
They claimed that the reason for the shortage of affordable housing,
which is something we can go into at another time,
is because there are so many of these lawsuits of
citizens groups against the government when they're doing developments.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
So we believe.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
That the citizens have property rights too. We have property rights.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
So that we can evacuate from our houses in case
of a wildfire without burning up in our cars.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
We believe that we have a right to have water
in our wells that's not contaminated. We believe that citizen's
property rights are equal to, if not superior to, a
developer who has rights to make a profit, but not
at the expense of the people who live around the area.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, it's interesting, and we'll have to talk about this
in more detail when you get closer to that actual lawsuit,
because I'm very interested in it.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
I do have.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Sympathy for the fact. It's an absolute fact that the
cost of.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Developing property these days is driven up frequently, sometimes by
concerned local citizens, but also sometimes by just radical environmental
groups who are against the development of everything and will
soon to stop everything.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
And it is a legitimate government.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Interest to try to slow them down and try to
dissuade them from frivolous lawsuits.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Let's say, well, we.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Already have laws to prevent frivolous lawsuits, so this law,
we believe is just trying to chill or prevent the
citizens from suing the government in the case of bad
decisions and housing developments. But let's roll back to Palmer
plam BUCkies is certainly not a housing development.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
And just so you know, I love BUCkies.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
I love the sugar pcans, but on top of a
hill that's seven three hundred and fifty two feet high,
when the one in Loveland already where I guess it's
in Johnston because Johnstown incorporated that land that's right around
five thousand feet, So the difference of two thousand, three
hundred feet is significant. But again it's not about the BUCkies.

(06:36):
It's about the government process. And in Palmer Lake, what
we have so far not the annexation, but the hearing
that they shut the people out of was the hearing
for the eligibility for annexation.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
So it's step one.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
So, among other things, one of the board of trustees
told the concerned citizens.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
Don't worry. It will be the new board that's voting
on this.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, we had the old board voting on it, saying
it was old business. We also had the police at
the town hall enforcing the capacity limit that the fire
chief had stated that the room is at capacity. If
you look at the pictures, you'll see the room was
far below capacity. And basically they had all of the

(07:24):
citizens pushed outside assuring them don't worry.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
There will be no vote.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
And it was bitterly cold December twelfth at night in
palmer Lake. But we had the old board voting on this,
when if you consider the process of development, eligibility for
development is step one.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
But when the mayor was.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Criticized for having the old board voting on this, she said,
oh no, no, it was old business. The only way
it possibly could have been old business, since if they
had discussed this in executive session, which this is not
the thing. You just 'cus an executive session, executive session
as lawsuits to maintain componentiality. Instead, this should be something

(08:08):
that the people who are concerned, the citizens of Palmer Lake,
business owners in Palmer Lake, and people in the surrounding
area who are going to be affected by hardscaping twenty
five acres so the water can get into their wells,
by the traffic, by wildfire evacuation problems.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Let me follow up on a couple of things here.
Let me follow up on a couple of things. So well,
I just want to sort of dumb this down for
myself and just put this in plain English. Are you
saying that concerned citizens went to a meeting of the
town council and we're told you don't need to stick
around because we're not going to vote on this, and

(08:45):
then they did vote on it. Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (08:48):
Correct? And that's only one of the many, many examples.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
All right, but that one seems very They had.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
To show driver's licenses to see if they were residents
of Palmer Lake. And one of the plaintiffs in our
suit is a business owner on Palmer Lake, but she
lives in Monuments, so her driver's license obviously didn't show
Palmer Lake.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
She was made to stand outside.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Somehow Darcy Shooning, who does not want a business in
palmer Lake and as a resident of Monument, was allowed
in it.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
But that's not all we have. The Mayor of Palmer Lake.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Has been brutal on social media, attacking anybody who questions
her about this process and attacking Integrity Matters on the
official and that's what's key here. If it's her private page,
she could do whatever she wants. But on the official
glant have an Arm Mayor of palmer Lake page, she

(09:41):
has banned our founder Dana Dugan from commenting or even
seeing the page. She has banned Integrity Matters from commenting.
She has taken down our posts. So luckily we screenshot
some of the posts that we had, so I was
able to comment as an individual. I haven't been blocked

(10:02):
yet and was able to repost the questions that integrity
matters was acting and asking about the process. But we
also have Plant Havnar, the mayor of Falmer Lake. Again,
this is in her official capacity. She is what's called
a lead on next door, which is another social media
source just to get the word out in the area,

(10:24):
and she has been threatening people's jobs. She has been
taking down posts, and she has been flagging posts to
be taken down, which we believe is an abuse of
her position as a lead. We are reaching out to
nextdoor to ask whether they believe it's appropriate when you
actually have a government official working as a lead and

(10:45):
therefore taking down the public's comments.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
All right about her work. Yeah, that's that's pretty remarkable stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
I don't want to do too much more right now
because only a modest percentage of my listeners are going.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
To be affected by this.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
But I want to get the story in front of
people so that they're aware of it, and then you
and I can You and I can keep in touch
as this thing progresses. I obviously don't have the mayor's
side of the story at this point, but based on
your description, that sure doesn't sound like reasonable or acceptable
behavior by an elected official. Before I let you go,
just one question to follow up on something you mentioned earlier.

(11:22):
You were talking about the altitude of the Northern Colorado one,
and then you said the altitude of this one, if
it's built, will be half a mile higher. Roughly, why
does that matter?

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Anybody who drives Monument Hill crossing the Palmer Divide in
the winter knows why that matters. There are always recks,
and you can't have a long line of traffic increasing
the load there by eight to twenty thousand vehicles a day,
or the estimates we've heard from various sources.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
The local news.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Stations camp out on Monument Hill where their cameras the
snowstorm is. Just before Thanksgiving they caught a semi truck
point sideways that closed the road for four hours. So,
of all the places to build a BUCkies, that is
not it, in my opinion, apropos of nothing. I grew
up in Loveland love BUCkies. They should put it south

(12:17):
down by Fort Parson between Fountain, Colorado and Pueblo Colorado
is open space and it's a lot lower elevation, and
then you can get the people who are coming up
from Texas. You can get the people in Pueblo, and
you can get all the people in the military who
can go in for their risk it on the table
and then roasted nuts and the cleanest bathrooms in the world.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Very very interesting. All Right, we're gonna We're gonna definitely
keep in touch. Kat Gail as chief legal counsel at
Integrity Matters. The website is Integrity Matters COS like Colorado
Springs integritymatterscos dot org and there's a link right at
the top of the page that says BUCkies Annexation. Thanks
thanks for your time, and also please do keep in

(13:00):
touch with me regarding your lawsuit against the state. About
the other issue we talked about. I'm very interested in
that as well.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Okay, that's on Housetill eleven oh seven if you want
to look it up.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
All right, thank you for your time.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Okay, thank you, Kat, Kat Gail from Integrity Matters

The Ross Kaminsky Show News

Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.