Laura Cavey vs Amelia Thomas vs Stu Butler: Who Is Running for Castle Rock Mayor, and What Each Would Do About Water and Growth

Castle Rock elects a mayor for the first time in four years this November, and for once it is a real contest: three candidates, no incumbent, and a town that has spent the last decade arguing about the two things a mayor can actually affect, water and growth. Every Castle Rock voter gets this race. Here are the three.

What the mayor actually does

Less than the title implies. Castle Rock runs on a council-manager system: the town manager runs the staff, and the mayor is one of seven votes, presides over meetings, and speaks for the town. What the office really controls is the agenda and the tone. On the two issues that dominate Castle Rock politics, the mayor's vote is one of seven, but the mayor's framing is what the other six respond to.

Laura Cavey

Cavey moved to Castle Rock 17 years ago, has served six years on council and is currently mayor pro tem. Professionally she is a solutions architect with a 25-year career supporting public safety agencies, which is the resume line the firefighters' union pointed to when it endorsed her unanimously. Her three priorities, in her order: public safety funding, water security, and preserving the town's character. "I listen, I do the homework and I vote for residents, not for whoever is loudest in the room," she told the News-Press. She wants written conduct standards for the council and more transparency, which reads as a comment on recent meetings, and she has pledged to take no developer money. On growth she uses the word "responsible"; on downtown, "preserve."

She is the continuity candidate, and she owns whatever voters think of the current council's record.

Stu Butler

Butler has lived in town more than 20 years, owns and manages a business, and has spent 13-plus years on the Downtown Development Authority, six of them as chair, plus eight on the Design Review Board. If you have an opinion about what downtown looks like, he has been in the room for most of the decisions. His priorities: safe streets, growth that follows the master plan with developers paying for the infrastructure they need, and "a strong future with honest funding." His pitch is that he is done climbing: "I'm not a career politician. I'm a neighbor who's shown up for two decades," and he says he has "no next campaign to protect." On downtown he wants the town to listen to invested property owners before changing policy, which is a DDA chair's view and voters can weigh it as such.

Amelia Thomas

Thomas grew up in Castle Rock and is raising her own family here, works in customer service, and her mother partly owns a downtown small business. She is running as the outsider: "I represent the people... a viewpoint not currently represented on the council," meaning younger families and the working end of the town's economy. Her priorities are smart, sustainable growth after what she calls the boom of the 2020s, access to parks, trails and recreation, and water conservation. Her governing idea is listening without political influence. She has the thinnest public record of the three, which is either the point or the problem depending on the voter.

"I'm not a career politician. I'm a neighbor who's shown up for two decades." Stu Butler

Where they differ

Not on water. All three say water security should govern growth decisions, which in Castle Rock is the price of admission. The differences are in emphasis and in who they answer to. Cavey's first word is public safety and she has the firefighters, plus, in a nonpartisan race, the pick of the county Republican Party's voter guide. Butler's is the master plan and he has two decades of downtown relationships. Thomas's is the people who cannot afford the town they grew up in, and she has no institutional backing at all.

The unspoken issue is Dawson Trails and the southern annexations, where the town has approved thousands of homes and a King Soopers on the south end. None of the three is running on stopping it, and each has said so in writing. Butler's site says he "does not support stopping growth, which is neither legal nor realistic," and that "entitled developments are already accounted for in that long term planning." Thomas: "I don't think the answer is to stop growth altogether. A full moratorium would only make an already tough housing market worse," adding that "this slower stretch is our opportunity to catch up, especially on our roads"; she also opposes a data center given the town's water constraints and an ordinance she says would make new schools "effectively impossible." Cavey points to Dawson Trails itself, where she says she "secured the recommendation that every home there be built with water-wise, xeriscaped front yards," and sets her standard as "no approval until the water is real, renewable, and accounted for." The differences are in the conditions, not the direction.

What to watch

Whether the race becomes a referendum on the current council, which helps Butler and Thomas. Whether the firefighters' endorsement moves votes in a town where public safety polls first. And turnout: in a presidential-off year, the older, longer-tenured voters who know Butler from the DDA are the likeliest to show up, and the younger voters Thomas is speaking to are the least.

Ballots mail October 2. If yours does not arrive, call the county elections office at 303-660-7444. More: every race and measure on your ballot. We do not endorse candidates. Campaigns can send corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.