Rarely, it seems, are there graceful losers when Homeowners Association go to war. Some board members who can’t accept their defeat and scratch and claw trying to remain in power.

We were witness to that Tuesday in 4th Judicial District Court.

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 Judge Larry Schwartz presided as ousted Crystal Park community HOA board members desparately tried to retain their seats on the board.

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It’s kind of sad, really.

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The community had just voted to flush the board by an overwhelming majority. A recall group collected 187 votes to oust the six board members. Just 20 voted to retain the board.

But there they were in court, their attorney trying to argue all the reasons they should remain on the volunteer board.

In the words of the late Hunter Thompson, it was all a lot of “niggling gibberish.”

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Schwartz didn’t want to rehash all the battles that led to the recall effort. I’ve written about some of the issues that divide the 220 homeowners on 2,000  wooded, mountainside acres.

Folks in the lower park — many are older, longer-tenured residents — object to spending by the previous board to create a volunteer fire department.

The department was pushes mostly by residents in the upper reaches of the park. Many of them have lived in the park a shorter amount of time.

But Schwartz didn’t want to hear all the history.

He was there to determine if the recall election was legal. Did residents have “cause” for a recall? Did they follow the law in gathering proxies? Was their request for a special board meeting valid? Was their use of an independent account to certify the results proper?

His answer? Yes, yes and yes. The people have spoken. The vote is legit. The old board is out and the new, interim board, is in. Only until elections can be held to find permanent replacements at the regular annual meeting this fall.

Check out my earlier blog on this topic. And here’s a link to the recall group’s blog.

Now, on to the Woodmoor Improvement Association.

Woodmoor Improvement Association

Woodmoor is one of the largest HOA communities in Colorado.

I first wrote about the WIA and its board power struggles in January 2009. At that time, five board members had resigned in the prior months.

 I talked to three previoius WIA board presidents who took turns criticizing the current board and its president, George McFadden. They called him “King George.”

Things got so bad in Woodmoor that a group of dissidents organized a coup this past January. A slate of three candidates ran against a slate of McFadden allies. The dissidents won by a huge margin. They joined three sitting board members to oust McFadden from the presidency. Next they got busy undoing many of his policies. Here’s my blog from that episode.

In the months after the election, McFadden and his two remaining board allies, Larry Goad and Mari Robbins, went missing in action.

They just didn’t show up for board meetings. So, in May, the board bounced them out and in June replacements were elected.

Funny thing is, McFadden, Goad and Rollins are angry. They say their ouster was illegal.

They wrote an “open letter” to the residents of Woodmoor protesting their removal. They even called on the new WIA president Chuck Maher to resign. Here’s the letter from the July edition of Our Community News.

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I had a hard time reconciling in my mind how the three could be “faithful board members” when they never even show up. So I tried to call McFadden to ask him about the seeming contradiction.

As in the past, he declined to talk to me.

But he sent me a letter in which he explains his position:

HOA LOSERS GO DOWN KICKING AND SCREAMING is a post from: Side Streets

In 2004, I met Jean Raubolt. In 1982, she bought a new house on Silent Rain Drive in a neighborhood sandwiched between Mountain Shadows and what is now Peregrine on the city’s northwest edge.

She was unhappy with the condition of the neighborhood. She believed it was deteriorating and hurting her property values.

She wanted to form a neighborhood association to police the area and enforce covenants and city codes for appearance, noise and overall quality of life.

Raubolt was unable to rally neighbors to join her. So she became a one-woman army dedicated to reporting and filing complaints for every code violation she could find.

She was known to walk the neighborhood, pen and pad in hand, writing down violations she then reported to Colorado Springs Police, or the Code Enforcement agency, or the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region.

Neighbors told me they hid from Raubolt, avoiding using their front yards or porches to avoid her wrath. Some told me they moved to escape her harassment.

Then came Bridget Weyer, who moved in next door in February 2007.

Soon, she was the subject of complaints about her dog, her daughter’s drumming, right in a 2008 photo, and music at a barbecue she hosted.

Here’s a link to a previous column and a blog I wrote about the conflict.

Weyer ended up in court three times over Raubolt’s complaints. Two were dismissed but the third stuck and she was fined $70. Weyer considered moving until the complaints suddenly stopped.

Raubolt died last August. Weyer said it’s sad, but the neighborhood is all “peace and tranquility” ever since.

It’s a different story on North Foote Avenue where neighbors have been dealing with a condemned house since 1998.

They had grown hopeful, recently, that the house was finally going to be repaired and occupied. The work started after a column I wrote in April. The owner, Ruth “Fire” Hendricks had come to me, begging me to write about how the city had wrongly condemned the place. Alternately angry and tearful, she told me how her hateful neighbors wouldn’t help.

Of course, the city and neighbors told a much different story. City Code Enforcement Administrator Ken Lewis said Hendricks as refusing to cooperate with his officers. He said they had tried for years to help her.

In fact, Lewis said his officers had volunteers and materials lined up to start work on the place, if she would only cooperate.

Hendricks was enraged by my column. But in a short time a contractor began work on the house and the roof was replaced. A large trash container was brought to the house and some of the moldy junk inside was pitched until Hendricks intervened.

Then everything stopped. Hendricks died May 15, leaving the house in limbo. (One of her daughters, Julia Groves, angrily claimed the stress from my column killed her.)

Neighbors are glad its collapsing roof has been repaired and broken windows fixed. But they fear it could sit even longer as probate court sorts out Hendricks’ estate. Here’s a link to my earlier blog on the house.

Lewis said the city will stay on the case and, if necessary, will make any urgent repairs and mow weeds, bill the estate and even lien the property if necessary.

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EVEN DEATH DOESN’T END SOME NEIGHBORHOOD DISPUTES is a post from: Side Streets

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Folks across Colorado Springs are complaining that properties in their neighborhoods are hotels masquerading as single-family homes.

I’ve heard the complaints from upscale areas like the Broadmoor and the Old North End to gated communities including  Cedar Heights and Kissing Camels.

And the complaints echo from more modest neighborhoods, too, like the Westside and Mountain Shadows.

They all ask the same question: how can it be legal to convert a single-family home  into a hotel?

Specifically they are talking about folks who rent their properties as vacation rental homes.

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Turns out dozens of people have discovered they can make serious cash — upwards of $4,000 a week at peak weeks — by renting their houses to vacationers.

Experts estimate there are 60 to 80 vacation home rental properties in the Springs. Cruise the web sites created to put renters in homes and you might think the number is far higher.

Vacation Rentals By Owner is a popular one. Another is VacationRentals.com. Folks can advertise their places and search for a house to rent on these sites and others.

Prices, according to a casual survey, seem to run in the $200 per day range.

Prices peak during Air Force Academy graduation week each spring and during popular summer months. In addition, owners can ask a premium when the Springs is host to big youth sports tournaments and festivals.

A city Vacation Home Rental Task Force was convened in the fall of 2009 but it produced nothing in terms of new rules to govern the practice as many other cities do.

 Manitou Springs, for example, requires folks who want to rent their homes on a daily or weekly basis to vacationers to apply for a conditional use permit. It goes through the planning commission and City Council. If approved, they must get a business license and pay sales and lodging taxes. Leases of 30 days or longer are exempt.

The task force did discover that many homeowners are not registered with the city or paying sales taxes, as required.

And many appear to be in violation of a city code that prohibits more than five unrelated adults from living in the same home.

Dick Anderwald, the chief city planner, said he may reconvene the task force if enough complaints surface. His planner, Larry Larsen, is researching the issue and taking complaints at llarsen@springsgov.com.

The only formal complaint this summer came from Cedar Heights where the Community Association president Lani Henneman asked about city codes. She said neighbors are upset about a house owned by Joanne Pearring being used exclusively as a vacation rental property.

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Henneman said Pearring advertises the house as “Manitou Villa” and it is available to groups of 18-20 for $400 to $500 a night or $2,000 to $3,300 a week.

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 She recently rented the house to a baseball team in town for a tournament, Henneman said.

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Pearring hung up on me when I tried to ask her about her house and business. Here’s a look from www.GoogleEarth.com.

Henneman said neighbors have complained about loud, late parties at the house. It has been blamed for traffic problems at the security gate. Guests have been seen feeding wildlife. And throwing rocks at deer.

She said Pearring, who lives in nearby Crystal Park and owns several other vacational rental houses, has “destroyed the whole purpose of a gated community” by introducing streams of strangers.

 But the homeowners association can’t do anything about it because covenants governing life in Cedar Heights never contamplated the issue.

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IS IT A HOME OR A HOTEL? is a post from: Side Streets

If you think you are fooling your neighbors about something going on at your home, forget about it.

Neighbors always seem to know what’s going on next door or down the street.

There are no secrets.

The Shooks Run neighborhood is a good example.

Folks there are convinced someone is selling drugs from a rental property near East Bijou Street and North Corona Street. It has a parade of people, day and night, seven days a week, neighbors say.

Men and women, young and old, drop by for quick visits. For months they stopped at recreational vehicles parked at the house. Now they visit the garage.

We are not specifying the exact house because we could not reach the owner, nor could we prove that any illegal activity is going on.

Here is a look at the area from FlashEarth:

We checked with Colorado Springs officials and found the house is well-known to them.

Code enforcement administrator Ken Lewis said the city has a list of complaints dating to 2005.

In 2008, his officers condemned an upstairs apartment in the duplex. Officers found unsanitary conditions and evicted a man, woman and two children from the apartment, as well as two pit bulls.

After I observed the house for myself, I became convinced something strange is going on.

I saw a steady flow of foot traffic, bicyclists and motorists coming and going. Even teenagers from nearby Palmer High School. What I saw matched what neighbors told me.

They also report bizarre behavior, such as naked men making late-night visits to the house. And some have found what they believe was drugs outside the house.

Here’s what I saw. The photo below  shows one of a parade of people who walked, biked and drove up to the RVs, made quick visits and left.

(I have digitally obscured the person’s clothing.)

Note the way blankets and tarps are roped across the RV to obscure it.

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One fellow was in a hurry. He drove up, parked the wrong way, hopped out and was on his way in a jiffy.

(His license plate and other identifying marks have been erased, digitally, as well.)

A sign on the door of one RV had a sign: School of Professional Psychology. Hmmm

Neighbors tell me they’ve picked up drug paraphernalia and baggies with white substances they believed were some sort of illegal drugs.

One neighbor said a man visiting the RV stripped naked and tried to break into her house late one night.

The last photo, below, shows  a fellow who was not too happy to see me taking photos. After I shot this frame, he broke into a sprint toward me, yelling something I can’t repeat. Suffice to say he wasn’t wishing me a nice day.

Since I called Colorado Springs Code Enforcement, both RVs have been moved away. But neighbors say drugs are still be sold from the garage on the property.

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The neighbors aren’t fooled is a post from: Side Streets

It took three years, but the furor over the Great Wall of Cascade Avenue appears to be over and it has been lowered to comply with Colorado Springs building codes!

Disgruntled residents of homeowners associations, or HOAs, will soon have a state agency to turn to for help.

And the battle for control of the Crystal Park HOA rages on, even after a special meeting appeared to result in a recall vote ousting six board members.

First, the wall.

The wall around the Old North End home of Holger and Sally Christiansen has been lowered in response to a judge's order. The city granted the couple permission to let their decorative columns, called pilasters, exceed the maximum wall height of 6 feet. The chainlink gates appear to be temporary in this July 14, 2010, photo.

It’s been three years since a furor erupted in the Old North End Neighborhood, north of Colorado College, over Holger and Sally Christiansen‘s wall.

In July 2007, neighbors started complaining to the neighborhood association and the city. Public meetings were held. Hearings. Eventually, the dispute led to lawsuits filed by the city and the couple.

The Christiansens lost and were ordered to lower the wall to achieve compliance with city codes limiting it to a maximum 6 feet in height.

They complied. But they received one favor from the city. They were allowed to leave their decorative columns, called finials. They exceed the maximum by about a foot.

The three-year battle over the wall built by Holger and Sally Christiansen around their Old North End Neighborhood home seems to be over. The wall has been lowered, at a judge's order, to comply with city building codes which set a maximum height of 6 feet. This is a July 14, 2010, photo.

Here’s a link to an earlier story on the wall.

And this link will take you to prior blogs on the subject.

The HOA Information and Resource Center will open Jan. 1, 2011, thanks to action by the Colorado General Assembly.

Here’s a link to previous columns about the center.

And this link will take you to blog postings.

Lastly, Crystal Park remains in a furor over its HOA board of directors.

After months of campaining, dissidents in the private, gated community succeeded in gathering sufficient votes to oust the board.

They claimed 184 votes to recall the board. They needed 181 votes for a majority of the 360 members of the community above Manitou Springs.

Not so fast, said the existing board. It deemed the meeting and vote illegal.

I’m guessing this puppy ends up in court where only the attorneys will be the winners.

Here’s a link to an earlier column on Crystal Park.

Read my related blog post at this link.

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UPDATES . . . HOT UPDATES HERE! is a post from: Side Streets