According to exhibits submitted with a lawsuit, the mayor called people who opposed the project “terrorists,” “unfortunate looking creatures” and “f-ing losers.”
PALMER LAKE, Colo. — The mayor of Palmer Lake quit on Wednesday while facing a possible recall election, as the community debates the annexation of land to build a mega gas station on Monument Hill.
Text messages in a lawsuit show that the fight got heated, especially as now-former Mayor Glant Havenar called people who opposed the Buc-ee’s project “terrorists.”
For months, talks about plans to put the massive beaver-branded gas station and convenience store off Interstate 25 between Denver and Colorado Springs had sparked division in the town. Now, they’ve bucked Havenar out of office, months after she was reelected as mayor in November.
“It’s small-town politics. It’s not the gas station that’s bringing her behavior to light,” former Colorado GOP staffer Darcy Schoening said.
Schoening doesn’t live in Palmer Lake, where the Buc-ee’s was proposed. She lives in nearby Monument.
“I’m 100% in favor of Buc-ee’s,” Schoening said. “Palmer Lake needs the tax revenue. It’s a great project. The anti-growth mentality is not going to win in the Tri-Lakes area.”
Schoening said she was working with Havenar to try to push the project through.
“I was best friends with the mayor,” Schoening added.
Emphasis on the word “was.”
Enter the group Integrity Matters, an El Paso County nonprofit with a hodgepodge of interests from politics to opposing certain developments in the area.
Integrity Matters filed a lawsuit against the town earlier this year, alleging Havenar and the Board of Trustees intentionally silenced constituents who showed up at public hearings to fight it. The group is also leading recall efforts for three of the town trustees.
“We were really concerned with open meetings laws violation,” Kat Gayle, legal counsel for Integrity Matters, said. “We started in the whole annexation game because the procedure itself was flawed.”
This week, their lawsuit got a Texas-sized beaver nugget worth of energy.
Schoening and Havenar’s relationship soured, and Schoening decided to post screenshots of her text messages with Havenar in a large Signal group chat. The chat, according to Schoening, consisted of Republicans from across Colorado.
“I ousted her because it was the right thing to do,” Schoening said.
Those messages are now in an amended Integrity Matters complaint, which, according to the complaint, show Havenar called people who opposed the Buc-ee’s project “terrorists,” “unfortunate looking creatures,” “f-ing losers,” a “cow,” and “trash.”
The messages posted by Schoening also allegedly show Havenar creating fake social media accounts to interact with members of the public and influence public opinion. Further messages show the former mayor pondered creating a fake Grindr account for a person. Grindr is a dating app primarily used by gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer men.
“I’m not the mayor, and the public has a right to know who their mayor is,” Schoening said. “This is real life. This is politics, you know, you want to say awful things about people, you want to do awful things? Well, your chickens are going to come home to roost, and her chickens are coming home.”
The complaint with the messages was filed on Monday. The mayor resigned on Wednesday.
“I was shocked that the division between Darcy and Glant had gotten so strong that Darcy would say, ‘OK, what they’re saying is true.’ I was also ecstatic because we could finally prove what we had alleged,” Gayle said.
Integrity Matters believes the messages also prove Havenar was breaking open meetings laws, discussing the contents of executive sessions, and already knowing the outcomes of votes before they took place.
“Governments can make bad decisions as long as they follow the law to get there,” Gayle said. “When you have an open meetings law like Colorado does, all interested parties deserve a chance to speak. It’s the First Amendment.”
Schoening acknowledges she partook in some of the messaging, but said publishing the text messages was the right thing to do.
“I knew 100% she was breaking the law. I mean, there’s even messages of me telling her you’re breaking the law,” Schoening told 9NEWS.
Havenar didn’t respond to 9NEWS’ request for an interview. She told KRDO in Colorado Springs that she resigned because of the division in the town over the Buc-ee’s, and what she called harassment that came with it.
Like three other trustees, Havenar was also facing the threat of a possible recall election. But she was just reelected in November, and Colorado law states a petition can’t be circulated for a non-general assembly member until they have served for six months.
“Well, now they don’t have to do that,” Schoening said.
Meanwhile, the Buc-ee’s project is still alive. Before Havenar resigned, the town trustees voted 6-1 to approve the eligibility of the plan to annex the land for the gas station.
Buc-ee’s had initially withdrawn its annexation request in Palmer Lake, but planned to resubmit.