Folks in the Boulder Crescent neighborhood accept the fact that they live next to the Marian House Soup Kitchen, which serves upwards of 800 homeless and poor people every day.

And they applaud Catholic Charities of Colorado Springs for all they do on behalf of the needy.

They also applaud Catholic Charities for engaging in months of mediation with the neighborhood when it launched plans to raise $7.2 million to rebuild the soup kitchen, creating a kitchen and dining hall and build a new human-service center. Below is an early architect’s drawing of the new complex.

Catholic Charities and the neighbors negotiated the position and size of the buildings on the 1.3-acre lot along Bijou Street near Cascade Avenue. And the non-profit group agreed to things like installing the signs in the photo above stressing the importance of protecting the neighborhood.

It also formed teams of volunteers to daily patrol the neighborhood and adjacent Monument Valley Park for trash brought in by its clients.

So neighbors were surprised to learn Catholic Charities had declared its campus a no-smoking zone and ordered smokers into to the park.

Suddenly, dozens of smokers were congregating in the neighborhood and the park each day.

Neighbors weren’t the only ones upset. Paul Butcher, director of Colorado Springs’ park, recreation and cultural services department, denounced the policy as unacceptable. Here is a look at the area prior to construction of the new soup kitchen.

Here is a look from FlashEarth.com at it after construction began:

The city and neighbors hope Catholic Charities will find a spot on the outer reaches of its parking lot where smokers can go instead of clogging the park, sidewalks and curbs around homes.

Catholic Charities’ executive director Jason Christensen vowed to work on a solution including lifting the ban and designating a location on-site for smokers.

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When the Colorado Springs City Council swings the budget ax Tuesday, the victims likely will include members of the city’s Community Development Department. 

The department’s city planners and land use enforcement officers are the face of City Hall in many neighborhoods. The planners and officers are the ones who field the calls whenever there is a question about what is being built in a vacant lot or a zoning complaint.

And the department has led the way in integrating neighborhood organizations into the development process, giving neighborhood leaders a seat at the table with the developers to discuss projects and issues. Here is a look at the department’s Web page, it’s mission and more.

Neighborhood activists credit the city’s three land-use inspectors with keeping many neighborhoods from becoming slums and worry what will happen when city planners are laid off. They credit the planner with elevating the stature of neighbors by encouraging participation based on this creed:

More heads will probably roll within the Colorado Springs Police Department’ Code Enforcement unit, led by Ken Lewis, the administrator, and staffed by 10 officers. Here is a look at the unit’s Web page:

Mission Statement

The Code Enforcement Unit is responsible for the inspection of publicly and privately owned residential buildings to assure that they meet the Minimum Housing Standards for the City of Colorado Springs and to ensure safe and sanitary living conditions for all residents within the city limits.

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— UPDATE — at the bottom — UPDATE — at the bottom — UPDATE —

Seems that life in the Shangri-La Mobile Home Park is anything but heaven on earth.

Shangri-La is a 12-acre mobile home park along the far north end of Cascade Avenue, among a cluster of parks in the bottoms along Monument Creek. Old-timers say it was a drive-in theater before being converted into a 129-space mobile home park in 1968.

At the center of the park is an old church building, which serves as the office, surrounded by nine rows of trailers.

It’s nothing fancy. Not like the newer park adjacent to the west off Sunflower Road. Check out the FlashEarth.com image below.

Last March, Shangri-La got a new owner, North Carolina transplant Dale Osborn, who paid $4.38 million to buy it.

Since taking over, Osborn has imposed harsh rules and used the threat of increased rent to intimidate and force compliance. Some experts say he may be violating Colorado law with some of his rules, such as a charging $25 per month for each pet a home owner has.

Here is an example of some of the new Shangri-La rules posted by Osborn:

Take a look at the park. There aren’t many places BUT the street for kids to play.

 A judge in Adams County has thrown out pet rent in parks that don’t provide any pet services and the American Mobilehome Association said the Adams County precendent applies elsewhere in Colorado.

 In response to Osborn’s rules, some residents are rallying their neighbors to unite in opposition, led by nine-year resident Debbie Fales. She started a petition demanding an end to the pet rents and already has 30 signatures. Fales also has invited Sherry Armstong, president of the American Mobilehome Association to speak to a rally in her home at 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21.

In addition, Fales and her allies are passing out copies of the Colorado Mobile Home Park Act passed 35 years ago to educate her neighbors about their rights. It’s a landlord-tenant law  that spells out the rights of park owners vs. mobile home owners vs. mobile home renters.

A great resource for information is at ColoradoLegalServices.org where low-income folks can find solutions to civil legal problems. Here’s a particularly interesting link  regarding mobile home parks.

Here’s some more interesting reading about mobile homes, parks and state regulations from a 1999 review done by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

— UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE —

Dale Osborn doesn’t feel his side of the story was represented. Here is a fax he sent me Thursday:

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Platte Avenue used to be a gateway to downtown Colorado Springs, back in the days when U.S. Highway 24 brought tourists driving from beautiful Kansas and points east.

Platte had sculpted medians planted with trees that grew into an arching green canopy framing Pikes Peak in the background.

Check out this historic post card from the parks and recreation page on the city’s Springsgov.com Web site.

Some medians remain but the feel of the neighborhood has changed. Today, the trees frame cars more than the mountains.

 Rather than a tourist gateway, Platte Avenue is more of a commuter raceway.

 In fact, from Union Boulevard to Hancock Avenue it is more like a demolition derby. Cars fly along at high speeds, often crashing into cars trying to turn. Here’s a map of the neighborhood from GoogleEarth:

Some concerned neighbors got together recently and decided they needed to act.

They were inspired by several recent developments. The city is looking at the high rate of wrecks on the stretch of Platte and thinking about ways to prevent them.

Neighbors like Nan Stilwagen and Kathy Farrell fear the solution means chopping down what’s left of the century-old trees (their numbers were decimated by the five-year drought that began in 2000 and then Dutch elm disease) so the street can be widened and a median with turn lanes installed.

Here’s a vew, looking west on a cloudy day, at how close the pavement is on the trees and their root systems.

Neighbors also fear that will mean more trucks as another group in the city works to redraw truck routes through Colorado Springs. Proposed new maps would eliminate existing east-west routes (see current map below) and leave Platte as the primary truck route.

So Stilwagen and Farrell and other neighbors met with the Council of Neighbors & Organizations for advice and decided to unite and organize to fight the onslaught against Platte.

Of course, these days “organizing” means more than just gathering signatures on a petition — which the organizers are doing. It also means building a Historic Platte Avenue Neighborhood Association web site. Here is a screen capture from the site.

As you can tell, this group means business.

For now, Stilwagen, Farrell and the others are focusing their organizational efforts on the stretch of Platte between Union and Hancock. If they manage to get enough signatures to be certified and recognized as an official neighborhood organization, they may expand.

But first thing is to start speaking up, en masse, on behalf of their neighborhood.

See them in action Tuesday, Feb. 17, at a couple of city meetings.

 One is the Citizens Transportation Advisory Board meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. in the City Administration Building, 30 S. Nevada Ave., as the truck route map is taken up.

Or catch them later that evening, 6-8 p.m., at the East Platte Avenue Safety Committee Open House as a 20-member committee of residents, city traffic engineers and consultants brainstorm ways to reduce the wreckage on Platte.

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READERS:

UPDATE at the bottom includes links to responses sent Thursday by George McFadden!

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ORIGINAL POST:

The Woodmoor Improvement Association has become more like the Woodmoor Infighting Association, according to a group of ex-presidents and ex-officers of the homeowners association.

In the last six months or so, five officers resigned from the nine-member board, which runs one of the largest homeowners associations in the state. Woodmoor has about 3,000 homes spread across 2,000 acres surrounding the Woodmoor Country Club golf course. It has 51 miles of roads, 130 acres of common space, a barn, ponds and trails.

The list of resignations includes: president Steve Malfatti, vice president/treasurer Terry Holmes, secretary Kevin Weese, forestry director Amy Smith and public safety director Jake Shirt (also the Monument chief of police.

Several described board meetings as exercises in petty bickering, power politics and personal attacks.

The board of the WIA presides over an annual budget exceeding $1.2 million. It has three full-time staff members who collect dues _ among the lowest in the region at $209 a year _ provide personal service and deal with complaints, covenant violations, architectural questions and coordinate the seven-member private security service which patrols around the clock.

Many Woodmoor residents and ex-board members highly value the staff, led by executive director Camilla Mottl, and the security service. They like having their homes regularly checked when they are on vacation and knowing an officer is a phone call away, supplementing the single El Paso County Sheriff’s patrol assigned to the region.

But they say the WIA board, led by president George McFadden, apparently wants to cut dues and reduce services by eliminating the staff and hiring a professional management company and security service to handle those duties.

McFadden wouldn’t return phone calls to Side Streets, but you can get an idea of what he thinks of his predecessors in past newsletters available on the Woodmoor Improvement Association Web site.

For example, read the president’s point of view in the January newsletter.

Former officers especially object of efforts to oust Mottl, led by resident Hilary Brendemuhl, whose husband, William, recently became vice president of the board and supervisor of Mottl.

In fact, Hilary Brendemuhl tried hard to get Side Streets to “expose” Mottl. In a series of emails and phone calls a year ago, she attacked Mottl.

Brendemuhl accused Mottl, in letters and phone conversations, of being “a habitual liar” who was guilty of “fraud” for falsifying her resume when she was hired in 2000. Brendemuhl also accused Mottl of irregularities in the handling of ballots at the WIA’s annual meeting and board elections and suggested she might sue Mottl in civil court.

Mottl refuses to discuss the allegations. She acknowledged her resume said she was a certified professional community manager when in fact her certification had lapsed. But she disclosed the error to the board during interviews and she was hired anyway.

– UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE –

Although George McFadden did not return phone calls over a two-week period, he found time to email my bosses and me a couple times Thursday, after the column and blog appeared.

You can read his thoughts, attacks and allegations at the following links. They include material in links I posted above with the original blog.

http://www.gazette.com/entertainment/year_47960___article.html/wia_employment.html

http://www.gazette.com/entertainment/board_47962___article.html/woodmoor_three.html

http://www.gazette.com/entertainment/woodmoor_47963___article.html/interest_specific.html

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Homeowners associations, or HOAs, are the subject of nationwide debate. Recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mike Peters weighed in on the subject, taking a satirical look through the eyes of his characters in the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm.

Mike Peters

Grimm

In the strips, which ran for two weeks ending Feb. 7, Grimm the dog was elected president of his HOA and began a reign of terror.

Peters said he hasn’t been the victim of a dictatorial HOA. But many of his friends have suffered under them. So he decided to poke fun at them, and illustrate what he sees as the problems.

Peters has won a long list of prestigious awards. Read about him at www.grimmy.com and see his strips.

Here, reprinted with his permission, are Peters’ HOA-themed strips as they ran in The Gazette and hundreds of newspapers nationwide.

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Stanley Jones and Barbara Barker like driving themselves around town. Like anybody else.

Only problem. They need smooth sidewalks as well as curb cuts with ramps and either crosswalks or underpasses to get where they are going in their wheelchairs.

 Stanley “Uncle Stan” Jones

From their apartments in southwest Colorado Springs, they found it near impossible to reach the retail corridor on 8th Street anchored by Wal-mart.

Jones recently moved to Tucson, but Barker lives in the Regency Tower Apartments , noted on the map by the “RTA” circle.

They are celebrating the city’s construction of a mile of sidewalk extending from Arcturus Drive north to Rio Grande Street. Half the new sidewalk is finished. The city is working to complete the northern half, which leads to a bus stop and underpass allowing folks in wheelchairs safe passage across 8th Street to Wal-mart, the Pikes Peak Greenway Trail and downtown. See details in the FlashEarth.com image below.

Some might question the need to celebrate a sidewalk. But it’s a big deal if you aren’t able to walk or drive where you need to go.

Here’s where the old sidewalk ends at a bus stop along the northern part of 8th Street:

Here is a close up of the rugged path. Try wheeling up or down this terrain.

The path parallels an equestrian riding area in Bear Creek Regional Park. Folks in wheelchairs probably feel like they are trying to hurdle obstacles like these wooden structures that horses jump. 

Here’s a look at the new sidewalk recently completed by Colorado Springs crews. In a few weeks, similar sidewalk will run the length of the mile from Arcturus to Rio Grande.

Here’s what the city had to say about the sidewalk:

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      Bob Robella is determined to take down the Village Seven Homeowners Association board of directors. Even if it means spending every dollar of his savings doing it.

      He’s tired of being told to keep his garage door closed, his trash cans out of sight, his dogs on leashes, his fence painted an approved color.

      Robella want you to believe the Village Seven HOA is run by a rogue board of directors out to abuse its 843 homeowners, especially retirees like himself.

     The HOA, however, says it is being harassed by Robella.

     They describe him as a bully and someone who doesn’t think rules apply to him: he moved into a covenant-controlled community, refuses to pay annual dues and ignores the rules.

      Now, a Colorado Springs judge believes Robella is being ”frivolous and vexatious” in his dealings with the HOA.  Frivolous and vexatious?

       OUCH!

    Robella alleges the board has illegally raised dues, selectively enforced covenants against him and is trying to take his home and run him out of the neighborhood.

    His war with the HOA includes a small claims lawsuit he filed against the board in February 2008 seeking payment of $350 he said it cost him to paint 100 feet of privacy fence a barn red color after it was bleached out by sprinklers watering neighborhood-owned green belt and common areas.

     The HOA countersued for $571 in back dues, fines, interest and administrative costs.  But the HOA offered to waive all the fines if Robella simply paid $96.30 in back dues and agreed to restain his fence an HOA-approved color. Robella agreed and settled the case in front of Magistrate Daniel Winegrad.

     Here’s the fence before and after Robella painted it:

     Sounds reasonable, right? Not to Robella, who responded by dropping off a “few” paint chips for the HOA to consider. A “few” as in 251 chips!

    As for settling the back dues, Robella sent the HOA a check for $155. He said it was his share of the back dues and his annual assessment. Only problem, the annual dues are $250. So he still owed another $191.

   And he informed the HOA he no longer was liable for fines or dues because he had transfered ownership to a friend in Florida. And he wouldn’t provide her address.

     Not surprisingly, the situation escalated. The HOA told Robella the rules prohibit breeding of dogs in the neighborhood — he raises Springer spaniels. And it cited him for walking his dogs off leash on Village Seven common areas.

     Here is Robella and his dogs:

     Then came warnings that covenants require garage doors to be down and trash cans kept out of view.

    Robella admits he is guilty of the rules violations and defends his actions. He claims he is victim of a conspiracy. He said his neighbors love his dogs. They don’t care if they run free on his Congenial Place cul de sac. And he will debate for hours whether HOA rules can prevent off-leash dogs on common space.

    So he was shocked to learn last week that he had lost his small claims court. In a big way. Read the decision of magistrate Winegrad and it’s obvious what he thought of Robella.

    “(Robella) has persuaded the court that (he) had no intention of complying with the agreement when he signed it,” Winegrad wrote. “He had engaged in a continuing pattern of frivolous and vexatious activities which have resulted in substantial expense to the (HOA) including the attorney fees which the (HOA) now seeks to recover.”

    As if to underscore his opinion, Winegrad then awarded Village Seven a total victory by ordering Robella to pay those fees, resulting in a judgment of $2,393 plus $23.99 in court costs.

    Robella is furious at the judge’s decision and insists he will appeal. And he will fight the counter suit filed by the HOA in district court. That suit has dramatically raised the stakes and the cost of settling for Robella.

    And it will make it virtually impossible to sell his house. The house is tagged with a “pending lawsuit” warning flag. He said real estate agents will steer clients clear of the house until the lawsuit is resolved.

    Stick around. This one is far from being resolved.

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