Meet Bob Robella. He’s the guy on the bicycle with the two dogs running beside him.

He’s riding onto the sidewalk outside the Village Seven home he bought in 2006.

Only problem, the Village Seven Homeowners Association has covenants requiring the dogs stay leashed. Same as city ordinance. The HOA also doesn’t allow folks to breed dogs in their homes. Guess what . . . Robella breeds dogs.

As you can imagine, Robella doesn’t like the HOA or the covenants much. So he has refused to abide by them, or gladly pay his HOA dues, for that matter.

The covenants give the HOA board authority to determine what colors can be painted on homes and fences in the neighborhood. Robella doesn’t care much for that rule, either. So he painted his fence the color he liked. You can see it in the photo.

All this conflict led to the courtroom. Robella lost and was ordered to pay $2,400. But he kept fighting.

For example, he refused to pay dues saying he didn’t own the house anymore. He gave it to a woman in Florida. And he refused to reveal her location so they couldn’t charge her for dues. He claimed harassment when the HOA persisted in in pursuing him for past dues and fines.

He sued the HOA and its president for raising dues and other allegations, including damage to his fence from HOA water sprinklers

Earlier this year, Robella agreed to pay $12,000 to settle the $30,000 bill the HOA was seeking in a lawsuit in 4th Judicial District Court. He also agreed to re-stain his fence and abide by covenants regarding dog breeding, leashes and the rest.

But before the paperwork was finished, Robella reportedly reneged. He disputes what was hammered out in mediation and refused to sign the settlement.

Here’s a look at the settlement document’s signature page. A court clerk signed for Robella, who is labeled a “Disobedient Party” in the notation.

Robella claimed his attorney exceeded his authority in negotiations during binding arbitration. He even sued the HOA again in small claims court.

But there’s hope the dispute may end someday. Robella’s house is listed for sale. Here it is on the real estate agent’s web site:

Here’s a column I wrote in 2009 about Robella and his feud with Village Seven. And here’s a link to the accompanying blog.

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VILLAGE SEVEN FEUD DRAGS ON AND ON is a post from: Side Streets

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The most consistent complaint I’ve heard over the years from neighborhoods is about barking dogs.

Dog poop is a close second.

But barking dogs top the list. My Sept. 26 column is about barking dogs and one neighbor’s reaction to it. In this case, the dog owners are deaf and didn’t realize the frustration it caused neighbors.

It’s also a lesson about how to deal with barking dogs. The fellow most upset by the barking,  Rainer Steinbauer, never approached the dog owners about his issue. He didn’t even know their names. I suggested a knock on their door might have solved the problem before it escalated into hurt feelings all around.

But I also wanted to raise awareness to the issue.

Did you know it is illegal to allow chronic barking in Colorado Springs and in El Paso County? 

Folks with dogs often say “dogs are going to bark” as if there’s nothing they can do about it. They typically describe complainers at hyper-sensitive.

Victims often get very frustrated. Some of the nastiest neighborhood feuds I’ve seen over the years center on barking dogs.

In fact, the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region gets upwards of 2,000 complaint calls a year about barking dogs.

Experts have all sorts of advice to stop the barking. Some attribute chronic barking to boredom. They say the cure is more human interaction, toys or a companion dog.

Some advocate barking collars, which administer an electric shock each time an animal barks. There are variations of the collar that allow the owner to administer a shock by remote control, as well.

The marketplace also offers anti-barking devices that sense barking and emit an ultrasonic noise in response. Dogs hate the noise and the theory is that they will associate barking with pain and stop.

A few recommend “debarking” surgery to remove a dog’s vocal cords. The Humane Society and other experts, however, denounce the surgery because it robs the animal of its voice.

But it’s best not to ignore a barking dog complaint. They can lead to summons, covenant violations, lawsuits and even violence.

Informal complaints will bring the Humane Society to your door. Formal complaints will initiate deeper agency involvement. 

A victim who has witnesses and videotape of a chronic barking dog can land you in court.

NEIGHBORS OBLIVIOUS TO BARKING . . . THEY ARE DEAF is a post from: Side Streets

Indians are returning to their ancient holy land in the Garden of the Gods on Saturday for their first traditional powwow there in 32 years.

They were run out of the park in 1978 by the city after their annual cultural celebration attracted large crowds and caused trampled grass, damaged plants and noise, the city said.

Worse, the city claimed neighbors were upset at the drumming during the powwow.

The Indians, whose presence in the garden is traced back 3,400 years, were told to find a new home for their annual, day-long events.

In subsequent years, they were relegated to rodeo grounds, community centers and gymnasiums — barred from the place they consider their spiritual hub.

They’ve spent more time protesting in the Garden than celebrating their culture, dancing and praying in gratitude.

In the 1990s, Indians became upset about the commercial exploitation of the Garden. Some objected to Indians who danced for tourists. Others were upset at Indian trinkets and souvenirs sold in the park.

Then came the controversy over construction of a new visitors center.

A group of about 60 Indians returned to the park in 1997 for a World Peace Day event. They prayed. Danced. Drummed. No problem. But the powwows didn’t return.

Until now.

 On Saturday, the Colorado Springs Indian Center is sponsoring a powwow that is expected to draw a large crowd to the Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site in the park.

It starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m.

It will feature traditional dancers, craft vendors, fried bread.

And drums.

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INDIANS RETURNING TO GARDEN OF THE GODS is a post from: Side Streets

Folks in Black Forest are proud of the unique, unincorporated community north of Colorado Springs where they live. It’s 100 square miles of hills, Ponderosa pines and meadows.

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Some are so proud the Black Forest History Committee put together a DVD, booklet and map of the Forest and its history.

I found it fascinating. Of course, it starts with Gen. William Jackson Palmer, the entrepreneur who came here after the Civil War, built Colorado Springs, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and just about everything else around.

Of course, his growing town and railroad needed lumber so, in 1870, he bought 43,000 acres in the Forest and started chopping down trees. Soon, there were 16 sawmills turning pines in railroad ties and construction materials.

Before they were through, the original forest was wiped out.

When the loggers left, pioneers remained and started building their community.

That’s where the DVD really gets interesting. When it starts talking about the people who stayed and the changes the area went through before it became one big suburb.

For example, it tells about Oliver Shoup, a sawmill executive who ended up governor of Colorado. A main east-west road is named in his honor.

There’s a story of the black, tufted-ear Abert squirrels seen commonly in the forest.

Did you know fox were raised in the Forest, until a U.S. trade agreement with Russia flooded the market with cheap furs and the industry collapsed? The exotic fox raised here were simply turned loose. They mated and produced some of the odd-color fox now seen in the region.

You’ll also learn about the people who settled in Black Forest and helped make it the place it is today such as beloved teacher Edith Wolford.

And then there are the photos, like those on this page. There is a story behind each.

The DVDs are $15. If you want to buy the one, contact Tery Stokka, of the history committee, at 495-0895 or email him at tstokka@juno.com. Proceeds support the committee and the Black Forest Community Center.

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TAKE A HISTORICAL TOUR OF BLACK FOREST is a post from: Side Streets

The U.S. Census Bureau says most of the head-counting is done.

Now, Pikes Peak-area goverments hope to start counting the tax dollars that will flow our way thanks to the above-average response of folks in El Paso County and Colorado Springs.

About 74 percent of all households in the county responded to 2010 Census forms, exceeding the national average of 72 percent. Officials say that will translate into more federal tax dollars finding their way back to the region.

El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark said each person counted is worth $900, roughly, in tax revenue.

The Census — conducted every 10 years since 1790 – helps federal lawmakers determine how to distribute $400 billion in federal funding each year. (Whether or not is SHOULD spend all that money is another matter.)

 I’ll simply note the funding pays for things like:

• Hospitals
• Schools
• Senior centers
• Roads, bridges and other public-works projects
• Emergency services

Then there’s the issue of representation in Congress. Seats in the U.S. House follow population. That’s another big reason it’s important to get a full and accurate count. Ditto the Colorado General Assembly. You don’t get your fair share of state representatives if you don’t stand up and be counted.

Some of the preliminary numbers are fascinating. You can slice and dice them by logging on to the Census Bureau’s American FactFinder  and searching by a variety of ways.

Here’s  a column I wrote in April 2009 and a previous blog I wrote about it.

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STAND, BE COUNTED, CASH THE CHECK is a post from: Side Streets

Did this little squirrel, with the plastic bag wrapped around his neck, actually trigger a war in the Lexington Park Townhomes in northern Colorado Springs neighborhood of Briargate?

Resident Constance Rohrer says it did.

Actually, it was her decision to take in the squirrel, feed it and cut the bag off it’s neck, that led to harassment, fines and even felony theft allegations, Rohrer said.

Are you scratching your head like I was?

Seems Rohrer nursed the squirrel back to health and released it in her 96-unit townhome complex. But one of her neighbors alerted the homeowners association about a rogue squirrel. The HOA hired a trapper who came out to catch the squirrel. Rohrer intervened, ordering the trapper to leave.

Here’s a look at the complex from Google Earth.

Here’s it’s web site:

These are photos from the web site.

Rohrer says the rescue incited the wrath of her homeowners association board and led to harassment, hundreds of dollars in fines, and even allegations of felony theft lodged against her with police.
So I contacted the president of the Lexington Park Townhomes HOA figuring I’d clear it up and move on.

But Chad Farris, the HOA president, declined to talk to me. Ordered me not to use his name. Wanted me to meet him “in a public place with my attorney present.”

Hmm. Maybe the squirrel lady isn’t nuts, after all.

I talked to others at the 96-unit complex at Lexington Drive and Union Boulevard in Briargate. Especially persuasive was previous HOA president John Chestnut.

“It’s a power thing,” Chestnut said. “I’ve been here 10 years. I was on the board 6 years. We never had any trouble with the board.
“Now, a lot of people are upset. It’s not just how they are treating Constance. It’s how they are running the board. Treating everybody.”
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SOMETHING IS SQUIRRELLY AT LEXINGTON PARK TOWNHOMES is a post from: Side Streets

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Is there a stigma attached to the Westside Community Center now that it is operated by northside megachurch Woodmen Valley Chapel?

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Eric Phillips, a former property manager in Colorado Springs, says there is.

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And he doesn’t want three other community centers turned over to churches to suffer the same fate.

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Instead, Phillips wants the city to give control of the centers in Meadows Park, Hillside and Deerfield Hills to his fledgling nonprofit organization: Community Partnership Project.

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Here’s a look at its web site and a few photos it has posted.

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It’s a choice the City Council will face in coming weeks.

Another church-based group has a plan to rescue Meadows Park from closure in 2011.

 And the group believes the same concept could apply to Hillside and Deerfield Hills.

 The plan offered by Scott Lovaas, a pastor at Broadmoor Community Church, is patterned after the Woodmen Valley Chapel concept. But it’s different.

Instead of just one church taking over a center, Lovaas said he has recruited a dozen churches located near Meadows Park to contribute money, volunteers and ideas to run the center.

Unlike Phillips, who has only a shell web site and no specific plans for programs or funding, Lovaas has a 35-page Master Plan proposal for City Council detailing seven areas of focus for programs at Meadows Park from 2011 to 2013.

And perhaps more important, Lovaas said he has pledges of cash, volunteers and grants of about $125,000 for the center. His group will approach the City Council next week to ask for $75,000 to bring the total operating budget to $200,000.

Brian Kates, the city’s Meadows Park manager, said Lovaas is offering the city a bargain. Historically, it has subsidized about 90 percent of the community centers’ budgets. The $75,000 figure represents a subsidy of just 37 percent, Kates said.

Lovaas plans to use existing city staff to oversee the various projects his group intends to offer at the center from day care and after-school programs to hot lunch programs, health and wellness clinics, medical screening and even crime prevention classes.

Phillips said the city staff has done a poor job engaging the community centers into neighborhoods.

“People don’t know what these centers are or what they offer,” Phillips said.

 He said his staff, when hired, will emphasize “community revitalization.” And he said his plan is to charge a membership fee, perhaps $20 a year, for use of the centers.

Phillips said Community Partnership Project has a fundraising reception scheduled Sept. 22 at the El Paso Club downtown and plans to approach the City Council with its proposal on Sept. 27.

Here’s a previous column I wrote about the community centers and a blog.

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WHO IS BEST CHOICE TO RUN COMMUNITY CENTERS? is a post from: Side Streets

Before moving here in 1994, I’d always lived in very urban neighborhoods in cities to the east. I was shocked to see all the wildlife that lives among the neighborhoods of Colorado Springs.

For 13 years, we’ve lived next to an open space in Rockrimmon and have a front-row seat for watching deer, coyote (I spotted this one on Christmas morning 2007), bobcat, fox.  I’m still hoping to see a rare mountain lion.

What I enjoy the most is seeing the bears. Typically, they emerge from the open space at night and trigger our security lights.

This cinammon black bear has been a regular visitor to our backyard for years. Usually, she has a cub or two following behind her.

I’ve always considered it a privilege to live so close to nature. I never considered calling the Division of Wildlife when the bears came and knocked down the neighbors’ birdfeeders or tossed open trash cans. I just shrugg it off.

I didn’t consider calling DOW after a bobcat raided my kids’ rabbit hutch and attacked my dog. I was upset but shrugged if off as the price of living among wild animals.

Last fall, I was lucky enough to watch the old, cinammon bear turn on one of her cubs, a young adult, and angrily chase him up a tree.

He had been following her and I believe she was tired of him competing with her for food and let him know it. The confrontation was dramatic and the young adult was unhappy.

Luckily, he ran up a tree just off our bedroom and we were eye-to-eye. He huffed and barked at us from the branches.

 This spring, she showed as usual with three new cubs, foraging at night mostly. The young adult came around, too. But he avoided her and made his rounds in the daytime.

We’ve spotted him in the mornings, crossing the street or digging in a neighbor’s trash which had been set at the curb for pickup.

I met  him twice this summer. The first time, I had opened my garage in the early morning to load luggage into my car for a trip. He happened to wander into the garage while I was inside the house getting our bags.

I came out and he was trying to open a refrigerator deep inside my garage in a mud room. We were both startled. I ran back inside and pounded on the walls to chase him out of the garage.

I met him again a few weeks ago. Earlier in the day, he came right up to one neighbor, chasing her into her house. He walked up the stairs to her front door before sauntering off. He was not scared of her.

That evening, he came in my garage while I was unloading groceries. He got the fridge in my mud room open and drained a gallon of juice. Then he went after a plastic trash can full of dog food.

He would not leave no matter how much I yelled at him, or threw brooms and other objects. He just glared at me and ate dog food. Finally, I ran to my car and blasted the horn until he retreated.

He came back a few minutes later, even jumped on a small wooden fence and huffed at me as I swept up the dog food. He scared me.

So I think I understand how those folks felt last week when they were confronted in their homes by bears. It’s sad six died in three days. I wish there was another solution.

 But I’m convinced this young adult is not afraid of humans and has identified houses as a source of food. He’s dangerous, in my book. Especially to my 11-year-old son.

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THEY SHOOT BEARS, DON’T THEY? is a post from: Side Streets

 At the corner of Briargate Parkway and Union Boulevard sits 108 acres of rolling prairie meadow . It’s mostly grasses and a few trees. The south fork of Pine Creek meanders through it.

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For 20 years, it has been envisioned as a community park with pavilions, sports fields, courts and other amenities.

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It was billed as a place where people from the region would gather, as compared to neighborhood parks designed to serve a limited area.

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But for now, and the forseeable future, it will remain a field — a place for joggers, for watching birds and other wildlife, for dogs to run.

Cathy Post, librarian at the Academy International Elementary School, is flanked by the undeveloped 108-acre Venezia Park. Post has worked since 1991 to get the park developed.

And it will remain a huge  disappointment to people like Cathy Post, a librarian at Academy International Elementary School, who moved to the surrounding neighborhood 12 years ago thinking her family would enjoy the huge park.

She even got her students involved in the planning process. They wrote letters, drew pictures and even attended a City Council meeting to urge approval of the park. When it finally given the go-ahead, she raced back to school and made an announcement over the PA system to celebrate. Her students, she said, were so happy.

The park was so close to becoming a reality it started showing up on maps as “John Venezia Park” — named for the developer of the area. But it’s just a field.

Plans are impressive. They call for 30 acres to be developed and the remaining 78 or so to be left as open space to protect habitat for the endangered Preble’s meadow jumping mouse. Here’s a look at the blueprints.

The city was poised to begin construction in 2008. It’s first plan was to use $1.7 million to launch work on the infrastructure – electrical, plumbing, curbs and gutter.

 The money was a combination of $700,000 from the Trails, Open Space and Parks tax and $1 million from a fund created by fees developers pay in lieu of building neighborhood parks, says Sarah Bryarly of the cityparks department.

Rather than build it in phases, the city decided to use a funding mechanism called “Certificates of Participation.” They are sold to investors and paid off over several years, like bonds.

But before the COPs could be sold, the nation’s economy crashed and financing evaporated.

Now, no money exists for new parks. The city’s sales tax revenues have collapsed, forcing City Council to slash the parks department budget, along with others.

But not everyone is ready to give up. Cathy is determined to keep hope alive for Venezia Park. 

She is attending meeting and lobbying for officials to find money, somewhere, to get the park built.

Prospects for the park are not good.

Bryarly said construction could start immediately if money was available.

But Kurt Schroeder, a parks department official, said even if the city could find $9.5 million to build it, there’s no money for ongoing maintenance.

His agency’s budget has been slashed by 80 percent and it’s not likely to be restored anytime soon. Absent a windfall, Venezia will remain on the shelf.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to add facilities if we don’t have maintenance money,” Schroeder said.

Here’s a link to the city’s community parks web site for more information.

And here’s a Feb. 26, 2007 column I wrote on the park.

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NEIGHBORS TRYING TO KEEP HOPE ALIVE FOR VENEZIA PARK is a post from: Side Streets