Side Streets ~ Neighborhood people and issues

Archive for April, 2009

GARBAGE drama

April 29th, 2009, 3:37 pm by

UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE

The roll-off container is gone from Mikado Drive. The landlords and Bestway have settled their dispute and the container was picked up Wednesday afternoon.

Landlord Don Houger says he agreed to pay half the $361 tab because he added to the roll-off container load with trash he hauled out of the house.

Houger said the tenant ruined carpets, punched holes in walls, left rotting food in the refrigerator and caused considerable damage in the house before she left.

“Bestway was real nice about it,” Houger said. “We got it all settled. It’s all taken care of.”

Now he said it’s time to get to work repairing the damage.

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The folks at Bestway Disposal seemingly lost their minds for a moment last week.

mikadobestway They had delivered a roll-off container to a house in Rockrimmon on Mikado Drive and the woman customer loaded it with garbage, tires, furniture and other trash.

She paid with a bad check and left in the middle of the night. Classy.

Bestway wanted its money and went after the landlords, Don and Jean Houger, for payment of the deadbeat tenant’s debt. They declined to pay so Bestway took its container and left.

Problem is, they left the trash in the driveway.

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A nice, big, stinking, leaking nasty pile of garbage. 

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Imagine how the neighbors felt when they saw the mess, knowing their children would be coming home from school and the abundant wildlife in the Rockrimmon neighborhood would be coming out at night to investigate.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Here’s a look at the neighborhood from www.FlashEarth.com:

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Bestway’s Phil Kiemel said the company had no choice but to dump and run.

“We did the logical thing,” Kiemel said.

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                Too bad Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator for Colorado Springs, didn’t agree with Kiemel’s logic. He said what Bestway did was a crime punished by a $500 fine and 90 days in jail.

Before the day was over, Bestway had a crew of five, a new roll-off container and a truck on the scene, cleaning up the mess.

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 In these photos, supplied by Bestway, crews clean the driveway before replacing the roll-off container and the trash. 

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 Sounds like a happy ending, right? Not yet.

The neighbors are stuck looking at the roll-off container which now is full of trash because the Hougers have filled it with garbage they hauled out of their rental house.

The Hougers agree they should pay part of the bill, since they added to its load. But they are balking at paying the full bill saying they aren’t responsible for the tenant’s debts.

Meanwhile, neighbors live with the mess. And they say it’s an example of the dangers of having rental properties in the neighborhood. They doubt the Hougers — who have numerous rental properties in the city — would stand for the mess if they had to live with it.

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DEVELOP OR PRESERVE?

April 26th, 2009, 10:04 pm by

Folks in the Ralwes Open Space Neighborhood want the Colorado Springs City Council to decide if the policy to encourage ”infill” development has any limits.

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At Tuesday’s council meeting, they will ask the council to reject plans for the Horizon View subdivision. They argue the projec tis incompatible with the neighborhood, which sits along Mesa Road between Fillmore and Uintah streets.

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 kristinehembre 

Kristine Hembre, left, an allergy doctor, bought the five-acre property in 2006 and made plans, through her Elle Development Co., to tear down the existing house and replace it with five new houses on a modern cul de sac with a paved street, curbs and gutters, sidewalks and sewers.

 

 

Such amenities are unusual along that stretch of Mesa, where residents take pride in the rural feel of things. They don’t have curbs, gutters and sidewalks or paved driveways or even city sewer service. Here’s a look at the area from www.FlashEarth.com:

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Rawles residents boast that they have preserved their area so well that Springs founder Gen William Jackson Palmer might still recognize it, a century after his death. According to legend, Palmer rode Mesa to get from his Glen Eyrie castle to Colorado Springs.

 rawleshistoricphotoBelow is a page submitted by one of the neighbors:

 

So they are fighting the project on the basis that large homes on 20,000-square-foot lots would be incompatible with the surrounding rural feel of the neighborhood.

 Here’s a look at preliminary blueprints filed with the city:

rawlesblueprint

The Colorado Springs Planning Commission gave the plan unanimous approval because it meets zoning and other requirements. And planners reason that it is exactly the kind of project the City Council wanted to encourage when it established a policy to encourage “infill” development.

The idea is for developers to look for vacant  land within established neighborhoods where houses or apartments can be built, rather than automatically building new subdivisions farther and farther out on the eastern edge of the city.

 But Rawles neighborhood leaders said the council should care about preserving the character of older neighborhoods.

You can read the entire file and see more blueprints here.

Here’s a closer look from FlashEarth at the property:

 rawlesflash21

 

The Rawles Open Space is a 7.6-acre tract named for the former owners of the property. It was deeded to the Palmer Land Trust to preserve it. Another 19-acre tract nearby also is owned by the Trust, which works to secure conservation easements to preserve undeveloped land. Read about the Palmer Land Trust.

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DANGEROUS DITCH – not playground

April 22nd, 2009, 5:55 pm by

 Concrete drainage ditches criss-cross ditchcity2 Colorado Springs.  They replace meandering streams and allow developers to squeeze a few extra houses into subdivisions.

To many, they are ugly scars, poor substitutes for natural streams and dry creekbeds.

But children and teens love them. They like to ride their bikes and skateboards in the ditches. They play in the box culverts. Hide in them. Drink and smoke and carouse in them. Die in them.

On June 21, 2005, two Springs teens were swept into a concrete culvert by a flash flood and they drowned. Ever since, the city has campaigned to keep kids out of ditches. Above in the logo they created for an educational Web site:

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The city put up warning signs at creek crossings, ran public service announcements at movie theaters and created a computer game about ditch safety on its Web site. In addition, it has teaching aides for schools and coupons to businesses that offer safe alternatives to playing in ditches.

Apparently, kids in Old Farm neighborhood in the northeast part of the city near Doherty High School, haven’t gotten the message.

They use the ditches to reach a vacant lot behind rows of homes. They party in the triangular lot, smoke, drink, shoot fireworks, shoot paintball and pellet guns, paint graffiti.

Here’s a look at the Oro Blanco ditch and the vacant lot from www.FlashEarth.com.

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Here’s a look at the gate where kids access the ditch. The original steel gate was destroyed by a drunk driver and the city replaced it with a wooden gate. However, vandals broke out slats to get in.

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                                                                          Here’s another look.

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                                            Neighbors have photographed much of the activity in the ditch. Notice the graffiti on the sides of the ditch where the kids are running.

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                  Very young kids, below, are mixing with teens in the ditch and vacant lot, scaring some neighbors.

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                                                                                                            Ken Sampley, who manages the city’s Stormwater Enterprise, promised to get his crews to quickly fix the gate. He also intends to ask police to patrol the area and evict any kids found trespassing on the ditch and vacant lot.

Take a look at the city’s flood safety efforts at the Stormwater Enterprise Web site.

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PIT BULLS — a next-door nightmare?

April 17th, 2009, 5:34 pm by

 Want to start a fight? Suggest that pit bull-type dogs are dangerous and should be banned. Folks who love the dogs will trumpet all their outstanding characteristics and, probably, accuse you of animal racism.

Diane Elmore, who lives in an unincorporated neighborhood just east of Colorado Springs, never looked down on pit bulls. Until last August when Susan Polston moved in with her 8-year-old son and two pit bulls, Achilles, below, and Asia.

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Soon, Elmore said she and her family were afraid to use their backyard because of the dogs lunging at them through a fence. They didn’t even feel it was safe to let their 12-year-old mixed breed dog, Moonbear, below, out in the yard alone.
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Then, in October, Achilles confirmed their fears when it jumped over the fence and attacked Moonbear. Elmore’s 16-year-old son, Matthew, witnessed the attack and managed to free his pet, which suffered cuts to the ears and neck.

An animal control officer from the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region investigated, found probable cause to cite Polston for a misdemeanor charge of owning a dangerous animal and impounded Achilles.

Trial is set May 21. In the meantime, Achilles has been stuck at the animal shelter, which charges Polston $10 a day kennel fees. Polston has spent more than $2,100 in fees, spent $1,500 on an attorney and is angry that her dog does not get exercise while stuck at the shelter.

Elmore is upset at the prospect Achilles might be returning to the neighborhood. Especially after a second incident involver her and Asia, Polston’s female pit bull. Elmore said Asia tried to jump the fence and attack her, a couple weeks after Achilles bit Moonbear.

Ever since, things have been tense between the neighbors. Here’s a look at the neighborhood, south of Springs Ranch, from www.FlashEarth.com.

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 Wes Metzler, president of the humane society, said it’s unlikely a judge will order Achilles destroyed since the attack ended with relatively minor injuries to Moonbear, below.

Moonbear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But he said a judge likely will order Polston to build a secure enclosure to prevent Achilles or Asia from getting out by jumping, climbing or digging.

And he’s surprised how long it has taken for the case to reach trial. He said Polston could have petitioned the court to allow her to move Achilles, below, to a private boarding kennel where the dog could have daily exercise.

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Achilles, the pit bull, relaxes at home. He has been locked in a kennel at the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region since attacking a neighbor dog, Moonbear, last October.

 
 
 
 
 
 

As for the debate about pit bull-type dogs and whether they are safe, here are a few things to consider . . .

In January 2009, the Pentagon banned from Army housing all dog breeds it deemed “aggressive or potentially aggressive” pit-bull types such as American staffordshire terriers and bull terriers, as well as rottweilers, doberman pinschers, chows, wolf  hybrids and any others that display a dominant or aggressive behavior.

The Pentagon memo, dated Jan. 5, 2009, exempted those dogs already living on Army bases. If a soldier with a banned dog transfers bases, however, it would be subject to the ban. The Air Force also has enacted a breed-selective policy and the Navy is expected to do the same.

Consider statistics gathered by the Centers for Disease Control. According to the CDC, between 1979 and 1996, 279 people in the U.S. were killed by dogs. Of these, 60 were killed by pit bulls. Rottweilers were second most-deadly with 29.

In a 2000 study, the CDC reported at least 25 breeds of dogs were involved in 238 human dog bite-related deaths during the previous 20 years. Pit bull-type dogs and Rottweilers were involved in more than half of
these deaths.

Many nations have breed-specific laws banning the import, sale or breeding of certain types of dogs, such as pit bulls, according to Dogsbite.org, a group dedicated to reducing serious dog attacks by creating laws.

According to information on the group’s Web site,  250 U.S. cities have some sort of ban on pit bull-type dogs.

In addition, some states are considering tougher restrictions on them and debating whether to require their owners to carry extra insurance on them. That’s because many insurance companies will no longer insure homeowners who keep the dogs.

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WALK-A-THONS: helping one step at a time

April 15th, 2009, 4:25 pm by

        !! UPDATE  !!  UPDATE  !!   UPDATE  !!  UPDATE  !!

The Second Annual Alpine Autism Awareness 5K

Walk/Run set for Saturday April 18th has been

rescheduled due to weather. 

 The new date will be SUNDAY MAY 3rd, 2009

Join them on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009* at America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  There are still many ways to participate! 


- Register to walk or run for only $10.00 (Families $20.00)
- Collect pledges on you own by creating your personal website
- Sponsor someone who is already registered (it’s easy and safe to donate on line)
- Volunteer, we have many opportunities to help organize the event        
- Become a corporate sponsor

  • Event day Registration begins at 9 a.m.
  • Walk/Run starts at 10 a.m.

www.alpineautismcenter.org

www.firstgiving.com/aaccs

 

If you have any questions contact 719-955-3767

Tony Ruvalcaba

7875 Deer Hill Grove

Colorado Springs, CO 80919

719-955-3767

alpineautismcenter@stfrancis.org

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Spring means showers and flowers and walk-a-thons!

Soon as the weathers starts turning warm — and in Colorado Springs that’s never a sure bet — folks start planning charity fundraisers involving walking and running.

One of the first of the season is the Autism Awareness Month 5K Walk/Run scheduled the morning of April 18 at America the Beautiful Park downtown.

autism5k

Unlike national walk-a-thon events, such as the Autism Speaks event scheduled in May, many local events keep all proceeds in the community.

 That’s the case with the April 18 walk-a-thon. All proceeds will go to fund operations and staff at the Alpine Autism Center near the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in the Mount St. Francis convent/nursing home complex in Peregrine.

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Fundraisers tied to athletic events such as walk-a-thons and races are big opportunities to generate donations, according to the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council of New York, which tracks the events.

The council says the top 30 walkathons/races generated $1.76 billion with the biggest being the American Cancer Society event Relay for Life, which brought in $430 million.

It far outpaced the competition. Next on the list was the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society which brought in $125.5 million with its Team in Training event.

Third was the March for Babies event, formerly WalkAmerica, which brought in $115 million for the March of Dimes.

The walk-a-thon events have their roots in the March of Dimes, according to the organization’s Web site:

 In 1950, parents in Pheonix organized a door-to-door campaign to raise money to  fight polio. “Turn on your porch light, fight polio tonight.” The group raised more than $45,000. That event evolved into the annual Mothers March campaign. Last year, 600,000 volunteers raised $19 million, the Web site said. 

Even the March for Babies evolved from the organization’s WalkAmerica, which started in 1970 and has raised more than $1.7 billion over the years holding events in 1,100 communities.

For a complete list of the top 30 fundraising walk-a-thon/races, check out this link at the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council. Burrow deeper for a spreadsheet that shows each event’s growth over the past two years.

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BUILDING RESURRECTED as church

April 10th, 2009, 7:23 pm by

renclayanna

In 2001, Clayanna Killing (above in a 2004 photo) sparked a ruckus in Mountain Shadows when she paid $325,000 for 22 acres at the end of Fieldstone Road and announced plans to build a 14,000-square-foot school building on property.

It would be home to her Renaissance Academy, which she founded in 1993 as a private school that offered a ”gifted education” to preschool through eighth-graders.

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The building would sit on five acres at the mouth of property, known for years as the Hole in the Wall Ranch.

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The name was a reference to the keyhole in a hogback rock formation — an extension of the Garden of the Gods uplift – where wildlife and people passed back and forth into what is now the Pike National Forest.

Neighbors howled at the idea of a school at the end of Fieldstone Road, a dead-end cul de sac popular among hikers and drug dealers. They rallied, raised $10,000 to hire an attorney and vigorously fought it.

They said it was dangerous to build a school in a rockfall zone at risk to landslides and flooding.

They deemed it a mistake to build a school in a spot with limited access for emergency vehicles in the event of a wildfire or other catastrophe. See it in the FlashEarth.com image below.

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And they feared traffic morning and evening as parents rushed to get their children to and from the academy at the same time their own children were walking to nearby Chipeta Elementary School.

Despite their efforts, they failed to stop the project and the $2.4 million school was built, opening in the fall of 2005. Some of the neighbors’ fears became a reality when lines of cars, morning and evening, blocked their streets and made it difficult to come and go. Even to get out of their driveways.

Then, Renaissance Academy declared bankruptcy in October 2008 and abruptly closed. The property was left to rot and quickly became a haunt of drug dealers and others up to no good, neighbors say.

So they were thrilled when the building was leased to St. George’s Anglican Church. No more daily gridlock. And the church has been diligent about cramming as many cars of worshipers on the property, leaving few to spill into the neighborhood.

renstgeo

 

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THEY’RE COMING! Listers going door-to-door

April 8th, 2009, 5:46 pm by

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Next year, 2010, is a big one for the U.S. Census Bureau as the agency sets out to count 310 million Americans and 145 million households.

Work, in fact, is well underway to lay the foundation for the big count. On April 9,  250 “listers” were launched across the Pikes Peak region to begin the process of locating every house in the area on a digital map, using Global Positioning System satellite navigation technology.

You may see them in your neighborhood any day. Recognize them by their Census I.D. badges, their handheld computer/GPS devices and tote bags emblazoned with U.S. Census Bureau logos. Here is a photo of a lister supplied by the Census Bureau.

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The computer/GPS device will allow the federal government to pinpoint the location of every house in the nation. Here’s a closer look in a Census Bureau photo.

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The address canvassing will take a couple months, wrapping up in June. Then the Census bureau will begin hiring enumerators to collect more detailed information once the official 2010 Census questionnaires are mailed next spring.

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Here is a link if you are interested in applying for a job.

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WETLAND or secret government conspiracy?

April 3rd, 2009, 7:04 pm by

Neighborhood gossip erupted into a nasty chain of e-mails recently in a good example of what can happen with neighbors don’t talk and simply spread half-truths and make faulty assumptions.

In this case, the gossip started spreading because El Paso County  didn’t aggressively inform residents of the Woodlake subdivision in northern part of the county about plans to build a wetland on a greenbelt it owns among the neighborhood’s 400 or so 5-acre ranchettes. See the FlashEarth.com image below.

The tempest bubbled up after crews began building a nearly one-acre wetland in the 92-acre greenbelt that surrounds the Kiowa Creek drainage.

Three Woodlake residents saw the work and assumed one of their neighbors, Tim Stickel, must be involved. Stickel works for the El Paso County parks department. The wetland was near his house. And he was responsible for convincing Woodlake residents in 2004 to give the greenbelt to the county in his role then as president of the Woodlake Property Owners Association.

Ah ha! Gotcha!

In a series of e-mails, the three accused Stickel of a conflict of interest. They alleged county officials of being complicit. And they tried to scare neighbors by suggesting the crews were building a pond that would drain the wells they rely on for drinking water. Worse, the pond would cause an epidemic of West Nile virus. Worse yet, their children would drown in the pond.

Except for one thing. They were wrong. It was all just neighborhood gossip.

Tom Wolken, who runs county parks, said Stickel was not inovlved in the project. The wetland was created as a favor to the Colorado Department of Transportation, which had ruined a wetland near Baptist Road and Interstate 25 during a construction project. It needed to replace the wetland it ruined and the county offered a piece of its greenbelt.

And they weren’t building a pond. Sure, there was heavy equipment brought in and tons of earth moved. But crews were digging to install a culvert that would act as a sponge and absorb seepage from the ground to feed the wetland. Native grasses, willow trees and vegetation were to be planted. There would be no pond and no wells drilled to tap the aquifer to feed the wetland, Wolken said.

Finally, the idea of a conflict of interest was false, Wolken said. Stickel had not hidden his employment from his neighbors. He had not gained anything personally from the transfer of ownership. And the whole thing had gone to a vote of the neighbors who agreed to give the greenbelt away because the association didn’t have the money to pay for liability insurance and noxious weed control.

In fact, it wasn’t the first time the property had been swapped between the neighborhood and the county. For some reason, the same thing happened 20 years ago. No one seems to want it.

Neighbors Reta League and Darryle Pfauntsch defend the e-mails they wrote and the wild conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios they had suggested.

 League said she feared her well might be compromised. And the sight of heavy equipment was shocking without explanation from the county, she said. She just wanted answers.

Pfaunstch defended things his strong suggestion that Stickel was guilty of a conflict. Pfaunstch said he doesn’t like Stickel and remains angry he lost the argument in 2004 to give away the greenbelt. But Pfaunstch insists he was not indulging his personal dislike of Stickel and trying to get him fired.

“I have no regrets,” Pfauntsch said.

Bottom line: the county should have done more than erect a couple of small signs announcing a wetland. If it had communicated better with its neighbors, it could have avoided dealing with a flurry of snarky e-mails and innuendo.

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DEERFIELD HILLS — headed for revitalization

April 1st, 2009, 3:42 pm by

Deerfield Hills is a modest neighborhood in a triangle bounded by South Academy Boulevard, Drennan Road and Hancock Expressway on the southeastern edge of Colorado Springs.

The area has struggled for years with gangs, crime and property deterioration. It is one of the poorest neighborhoodsin Colorado Springs, based on a variety of demographic data available at ZipSkinny.com and City-Data.com.

But it has its champions, led by longtime resident Doug Jones, shown here in a 2004 Gazette file photo.

Jones has rallied his neighbors to clean up Deerfield Hills, to establish a Neighborhood Watch program and drive the criminals out of the area. Jones was instrumental in lobbying the City Council to build a “sprayground“ at the Deerfield Hills Community Center  after a city swimming pool there was closed.

In the 2007 Gazette photo, above, Amanda Schult played in the sprayground at the Deerfield Hills Community Center.

Now, Jones’ work is paying off again for Deerfield Hills. At its March 24 meeting, the City Council designated Deerfield Hills as a Neighborhood Strategy Area, which qualifies it for federal Community Development Block Grants.

There is strict criteria an area must meet to become a ore than half of its residents are designated as low- to moderate-income.

The City Council must approve a neighborhood once the financial need is certified. Only then can a neighborhood set goals and priorities and develop an improvement plan — a process that can take months.

Don Sides, who manages the block grant capital improvement program, puts the neighborhood into the mix for available grant funds — usually $600,000 to $800,000 each year. The designation is lucrative to a neighborhood. Here is a look at how three outgoing NSAs benefited over the years:

• Hillside, just southeast of downtown, won the coveted designation and has received $5.2 million in capital improvement grants over the years for infrastructure and $1 million for housing rehabilitation projects.
• Knob Hill, near Union Boulevard and Platte Avenue east of downtown, has received $1.4 million in capital improvement grants plus $2.8 million for housing rehab.
• Mesa Springs, west of Interstate 25 and south of Fillmore Street, has received $1.2 million in capital improvement grants and $1 million in housing rehab.

Click here to read a Powerpoint presentation Sides created regarding the strategy areas.

For more Information regarding designated neighborhood strategy areas please contact Valorie Jordan, manager of the city’s Housing and Community Development program. Her number is 385-5336.

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