Cindy Fowler, seen in 2010 and 2010 file photos. She died Feb. 29, 2012, at age 53 following a four-year battle with cancer. She was lauded for her extensive community service in Colorado Springs.

As we sit poised to start a new year, let’s not forget some of the folks we lost in 2012 after contributing much to Colorado Springs.

This is not a definitive list. Many good people died in the past 12 months. But these folks are at the top of my list for a variety of reasons: Cindy Fowler, Bob Armendariz, Bud Shepard and Jim Hall.

I was acquainted with Cindy and Bob and knew Bud and Jim only by reputation.

Where do I even start explaining all the ways Cindy Fowler contributed to the community?

She was one of those special people who always seemed to put others first.

For example,  Cindy was a 25-year Newborn Hope volunteer. Heck, they even named an award after her: the Cindy Fowler Award of Hope.

She died Feb. 29 at age 53 and eulogies described her life and contribution to Colorado Springs with words like “dedicated service” and “loving and caring spirit” and “superior community service.”

Cindy raised thousands of dollars for women facing breast cancer and to fight premature infant deaths. She was active in so many groups it makes me think she worked eight days a week.

Bob Armendariz died May 2, 2012, at age 69, and was remembered as an advocate for Hispanic people and causes. He was founder and publisher of Hispania News, which celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 5.

Bob Armendariz was a different type of community leader. From his work as public information officer at Fort Carson to becoming a reporter/photographer at KKTV, as founder of Hispania News and his leadership of the Colorado Springs Press Association, Bob was an advocate for Hispanic causes and gave voice to veterans, farmers, immigrants and minority groups.

He died May 2 at age 69, just short of the 25th anniversary of Hispania News, which he first distributed during an annual Cinco de Mayo celebration in 1987.

Mourners praised Bob as an early leader of the Colorado Springs Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and advocate for minority-owned businesses to get an equal opportunity to compete for contracts in  the public and private sectors.

Bud Shepard was a Colorado Springs native who started building homes in 1950 then became an innovative developer who created Village Seven with homes, parks, schools and shopping centers. He died July 31, 2012, at age 82.

Bud Shepard, who died July 31 at age 82, had a very tangible impact on Colorado Springs as a native who started building homes in 1950 and then emerged as a leading developer.

In the late 1960s, Bud and his brother, Bruce, pioneered the idea of large, master-planned communities in the region when they created the Village Seven neighborhood on the city’s northeast corner. Instead of just tracts of homes, Village Seven was designed as an entire community with parks and schools and shopping districts — a revolutionary concept in Colorado Springs of the late 1960s.

What I liked most about the project is the whimsical names they gave the streets in Village Seven such as Teeter Totter Circle, Seesaw Lane and Nonchalant Circle.

Finally, there’s Jim Hall, who died Nov. 1 at age 70 after a life that mirrored so many others.

Hall came to Colorado Springs via military service and returned to build a business, create a family and shape the community in many ways.

Hall arrived in 1959, stationed at the old Ent Air Force Base, now the U.S. Olympic Training Center. After a distinguished career, he left the Air Force and returned to the Springs. He taught water skiing at The Broadmoor hotel and skiing at Ski Broadmoor, and lived in Ivywild.

During that time, he met a guest at the resort, Nechie, whom he married in 1967. Three years later they started PRACO, which they built into a major statewide public relations and advertising agency.

Like the others, Hall served on community boards. He was not as high-profile in the public’s eye, perhaps. but community leaders praised his behind-the-scenes contributions, problem-solving and creativity.

I sure wish all four were still with us. But we’re lucky we had them for as long as we did.

SEVERAL WHO PASSED IN 2012 MADE BIG IMPACT ON COLORADO SPRINGS is a post from: Side Streets

There’s a lot to see in the holiday village created by Barbara and George Millholland and on display at the Liberty Heights retirement community.

Looking for an Irving Berlin, old-fashioned Christmas experience far removed from the digital age?

Maybe you should take a ride to the Liberty Heights retirement center on the far north end of Colorado Springs and check out the holiday village erected in the lobby.

It’s one of those often-overlooked gestures by folks who simply want to share a little joy of the season.

What Barbara and George Millholland have set up at Liberty Heights is their life’s collection of lighted, hand-painted ceramic buildings.

On three eight-foot tables they’ve created a little village meant to inspire a nostalgic winter wonderland.

There’s a train that runs in a circle around part of the village. And a little snow-covered hill with sledders who go round-and-round down the hill.

A carousel plays music and the Ferris wheel emits crowd noise.

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical when it was suggested I should see if for myself. But I’m glad I did. It was something you’d typically see in a Macy’s window.

I wondered why Barbara and George had taken the time to haul it out and put it on display.

“We just do it as a gift of love,” Barbara told me.  “We thought it would be something everyone could enjoy — the people who live there, their children and their grandchildren who come to visit.”

It’s also open for viewing by the public until Jan. 7. Just pull up to the security gate during business hours on weekdays and tell them why you are there. They will buzz you in.

It’s the second year they’ve shared their holiday village with the Liberty Heights residents and it’s been warmly received by the 175 folks who live there, said Amanda Schwilch, marketing director at the center.

“It’s a big part of our Christmas tradition already,” Schwilch said.

Comments on a visitor’s registry echo that feeling.

“Awesome” said one guest. “Wow” said another. “Reminds me of my childhood” wrote yet another.

Barbara said she sees the joy it brings residents.

“It captivates them,” she said. “They come back again and again to see it. And some of the men come down to play with the train. They are excited it’s there.”

The village represents 37 years of collecting by the Millhollands, over the course of their marriage.

“We started with three pieces and now we have hundreds,” George said.

Residents of Liberty Heights enjoy the train that runs near the lake.

Until recently, the holiday village was only displayed in the Millhollands’ home.

Their own children and grandchildren played with it each Christmas, rearranging the houses and running the train. But the past few years they had a problem.

“It got too big,” she said. “It outgrew our space.”

There’s plenty of room at Liberty Heights, 12105 Ambassador Drive, just east of Voyager Parkway off Ramtron Drive.

I watched residents wander by admiring it and clearly they love it. And that’s the whole point.

“It’s all about love,” Barbara said.

And that is what the season is all about. Right?

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NOSTALGIC WINTER WONDERLAND IS ‘GIFT OF LOVE’ is a post from: Side Streets

                                                                           UPDATE — UPDATE —- UPDATE

In 2009, I introduced Side Streets readers to Ron Pace under a headline: “Pace is loose!”

In the column, I reported that a judge had described him as loud, profane and even annoying.

But the judge had sided with Pace in his battle over neighborhood covenants and assorted other issues with the Woodmen Hills Metro District, which has been a mess for years with its seemingly constant bickering, infighting, recalls and failed efforts to expand powers and fees.

At the time, Pace declared he was sick of the fighting. The disabled vet vowed to sell his house on the sixth fairway of the Antlers Creek Golf Course in unincorporated Falcon, northeast of Colorado Springs, and move.

I figured it would be the end of the story.

As usual, I was wrong.

Pace, 48, never did sell.

Instead, he stayed and remained a vocal critic of Woodmen Hills officials. He fought them over the way they enforce rules, conduct district business and more.

He probably should have moved. If so, he’d have saved thousands.

Pace and his wife are facing about $5,000 in legal fees  after he lost a fight over a restraining order filed against him in 2011 by a homeowners association manager who felt threatened by him.

But that’s only the half of it.

Pace and his wife again are preparing to go to court  in February over a $50 parking violation issued by the Filing 11 HOA that has ballooned to $4,600.

“My truck was parked on the side of my house like I’ve parked it since 2006,” Pace said. “They said it was eight to 18 inches past the front corner of our house and that’s not allowed.”

Seems outrageous to think any HOA would fine someone over such a petty infraction.

On Monday, Jan. 14, 2013, I heard from a Woodmen Hills Filing 11 HOA official who explained the HOA board’s side of the story.

Chris Galloway, vice president of the HOA, said the property manager noted the parking violation during a semi-monthly enforcement survey of the neighborhood.

Galloway said Pace was not singled out and easily could have remedied the violation without any fine.

“The first time we send a courtesy letter saying please take care of this,” Galloway said. “Then we send a warning letter. Finally, we send a third letter which is a fine ranging from $25 to $50.”

So how did it reach $4,600?

Galloway said Pace declined to deal with the HOA management company after his restraining order defeat. Instead, he called the HOA’s attorney directly.

“They warned him he’d incur attorneys fees personally,” Galloway said. “He circumvented the system.”

Of course, Pace sees it as a vendatta and, when we spoke in December, he declared: “This is retaliation.” Typically, he barked it, punctuated with profanity.

It’s this type of gruffness that has made some people who manage Woodmen Hills and serve on its board scared of Pace. They feel threatened by him. And he is prone to making veiled threats.

In his defense, some HOAs get out of control. Power-hungry board members sometimes punish people they don’t like and, as the judge in 2009 said, Pace isn’t always very likeable.

Once this latest mess is resolved, he has vowed again to leave.

“As soon as my kid graduates in the spring, I’m outta here,” he said. “I’ll be happy to leave.”

For everyone’s sake, I hope so.

Life is too short to spend it worried whether your truck is parked 18 inches too far from the house.

Follow this link to my Nov. 18, 2009, column about Ron Pace and Woodmen Hills.

To read an associated blog post about that column, click here.

For more information about Woodmen Hills, read this blog.

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HOA’S $50 PARKING FINE BALLOONS INTO THOUSANDS is a post from: Side Streets

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If you volunteer on an homeowners association board, you better create a new email account, quickly, for HOA business only.

And be prepared to operate with greater accountability to your fellow homeowners.

A new state law taking effect Jan. 1, 2013 mandates new levels of transparency fromf HOA officers while its takes steps to protect the privacy of the 2 million Coloradans living in HOAs, or covenant-protected communities.

How much does the law change life in an HOA?

Consider those neighborly directories of names, phone numbers and email addresses of residents that are published by many HOAs. They can no longer be routinely distributed.

“Those kinds of directories now require written consent of the owners before they can be distributed,” said Lenard Rioth, longtime HOA attorney. “The new law requires personal identification and account information, including the telephone numbers and email addresses of owners, must be kept private.”

However the privacy protections in the bill, passed by the 2012 General Assembly, do not apply to board members. They are required to publish their own email addresses.  And they must be prepared to release all emails related to HOA business and decisions.

“My recommendation to all board members is that they get separate email addresses from their personal email accounts,” Rioth said. “If they use their personal email accounts for HOA business and there’s ever litigation, they may be forced by a judge to produce all their personal emails from their family and friends.”

The new law was contained in House Bill 1237, written by Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver,  and the Community Associations Institute, an HOA management industry group.

It was a response to all the complaints about a lack of HOA board transparency, as reported by the HOA Information Officer last year.

It specifies which documents – covenants, bylaws, financial statements, board decisions — must be maintained, for how long and how quickly they must be produced by the state’s 8,000 HOAs. And it bars HOAs from demanding the purpose of an owner’s document request.

It lets boards meet and vote via the Internet. But online chats and votes must be documented and available for owner inspection.

And it declares as private HOA records of covenant violation actions.

“In the past, if an HOA cites an owner for say a barking dog violation, that owner will demand to see all the covenant violations actions for barking dogs in the last 30 years,” Rioth said. “They want to argue they are victims of selective enforcement action. This will prevent that selective enforcement defense.”

Now, get your email accounts set up and get written consent before you send out those directories!

Follow this link to the Colorado General Assembly’s final draft of House Bill 1237.

To read the Colorado Home Owners Association Law blog about the new law, click here.

This link takes you to a cheat sheet on the new law with all the details written by the Denver law firm Winzenburg, Leff, Purvis & Payne.

Click here to reach the Homeowners Association registry and complaint website. It is part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies, or DORA, in its Division of Real Estate.

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HOA BOARDS WILL SHARE DOCUMENTS, EMAILS, MORE is a post from: Side Streets

Dr. Ingrid Carlson, a pediatric eye surgeon, recently went to Grenada with a team of three nurses and an anesthesiologist. They treated 114 patients, including performing 12 surgeries.

Last December, Dr. Ingrid Carlson was in the Caribbean scuba diving and staying at a nice resort when she saw a newspaper photo of a child sitting on Santa’s knee.

The photo caught Carlson’s attention for a couple reasons. Santa was in flip flops and shorts. And then there was the face of the child.

“He had woefully crossed eyes,” Carlson said.

The condition jumped out at Carlson, who is a pediatric eye surgeon at Mountain View Family Eye Care in Colorado Springs.

When she asked at her resort about how the child might get help for his eyes, Carlson was disappointed at the response.

“They told me ‘If you are sick and rich, you fly to Miami for treatment. Otherwise, you just suffer.’ None of them have doctors,” Carlson said.

As soon as she returned home, Carlson started doing some research.

“I learned there are no pediatric ophthalmologists between Miami and Venezuela,” she said. “I thought maybe I could volunteer my services.”

Again she was disappointed to learn that humanitarian groups such as Doctors Without Borders were not an option for her to offer her professional services in the Caribbean. Flying a 747 jumbo jet with an on-board hospital and living quarters just isn’t an option in the islands.

“They need that in a ship that could go island to island,” she said.

In addition, many humanitarian medical aid groups demand year-long volunteer commitments, which Carlson was unable to make.

She also became frustrated when she contacted medical facilities and schools in the Caribbean offering her services. She discovered the medical schools there do not conduct routine patient care as schools in the states do.

“I got a lot of rejection letters,” Carlson said.

Then she discovered a willing partner through St. George’s University in Grenada, a tiny island nation of 110,000 mostly poor people in the far southeast Caribbean Sea with an economy dependent on tourism and its spice crops.

After months of searching, Carlson connected with Dr. Orazio Giliberti in New Jersey, an ophthalmologist who organizes humanitarian trips to Grenada. He had no pediatricians in his group and Carlson agreed to volunteer.

“Little did I know what I was getting myself into,” she said with a laugh.

It wouldn’t be as simple as showing up in Grenada and working a few days in a hospital or clinic. Carlson had to assemble a team of three nurses and an anesthesiologist to take with her as well as everything she might need for treatment and surgeries.

Dr. Ingrid Carlson, a pediatric eye surgeon, performs an eye exam in Grenada on a 10-year-old patient with crossed eyes.

The list of supplies was long and expensive and she asked medical suppliers for donations to help. She put together a slide presentation of the children she’d be treating with their crossed eyes, glaucoma, cataracts and assorted other issues.

“The need is pretty great,” she said.

Dr. Ingrid Carlson, a pediatric eye surgeon, performs an eye exam in Grenada on a 10-year-old patient with crossed eyes.

Soon, donations of sutures, eye drops, instruments, surgical drapes  — nearly two dozen different supplies — were pledged. Carlson also needed to secure credentials to practice medicine in Grenada and a stack of other paperwork.

It took six months to get everything shipped and paperwork completed.

Two days after Thanksgiving, the team flew to Grenada, landing late at night. At 7 a.m., her phone rang and Carlson hustled down to the clinic with her team to begin seeing patients.

“There was a line of people down the street,” she said.

Seems word had gotten out that a pediatric eye doctor was on the island and the residents didn’t want to wait.

They saw 114 patients and performed 12 surgeries before the team returned Dec. 6.

“The days were intense,” she said, describing conditions and procedures that would never be tolerated in the U.S.

But she said many of these folks live in dirt-floored, tin-roofed shacks and they were just happy to have a doctor available.

Several patients stand out in her mind. One is a 10-year-old boy, Kemon, whose father works as a caretaker for an elderly woman living on a former sugar plantation.

“Kemon was a really shy boy who was picked on and bullied mercilessly at school because he had these funny looking crossed eyes,” Carlson said.

A 10-year-old boy, Kemon, suffered “woefully crossed eyes” and was bullied and teased at school in Grenada. Dr. Ingrid Carlson performed surgery to correct his vision during a humanitarian visit recently.

After the surgery, she said he brimmed with a newfound confidence.

Then there was Prisca, a little girl whose mother spent all their family’s money to pay for a boat ride to Grenada to get treatment for her eyes.

“The surgery was a great success,” Carlson said. “But then we learned Prisca and her mother had no way to get home. They’d spent all their money and would be living on the streets in Grenada. The poverty there is so severe.”

The medical team paid for their boat ride home.

In looking at photos of the trip and hearing Carlson’s stories, I wondered if she’d go back.

In fact, she’s already committed to return next November. But she’s not content with just spending a week a year seeing patients.

“I’d like to go back and teach,” she said. “I’d like to see Grenada get better educated so they can help themselves.”

And she also sees the need for a mercy ship that could cruise the islands providing medical care.

She called it a life-changing experience and mentioned feelings of guilt that the need is so great and she only saw a few dozen children. But she said she was comforted by a proverb about a boy who returns a stranded starfish to the sea.

“I feel bad that I couldn’t help everybody,” she said, “But maybe Kemon is that one starfish.”

Click here to watch a slide show of Dr. Carlson in Grenada.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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POVERTY, NEED DRAWS EYE SURGEON TO ISLAND is a post from: Side Streets

Richard and Alisha Cuevas bought this home new in 2005. They may lose it in foreclosure after a dispute with the Northgate Highlands Homeowners Association left them facing $15,000 legal bill and $10,000 in unpaid dues, fines and other fees.

For the third straight Christmas season, Richard and Alisha Cuevas are living away from their Colorado Springs home.

Even worse, because Richard has had to chase jobs around the country, they live apart. He’s in Texas while she and their three kids are anchored in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, their home sits empty in the Northgate Highlands neighborhood on the far north end of Colorado Springs. They say it’s uninhabitable due to construction defects that caused a mold infestation. They are suing the builder, Lennar Colorado, to fix it.

But the main reason the family is gone is because they lost a war with the homeowners association and were hit with fines so steep that Richard Cuevas, 49, had to come out of retirement as an airplane mechanic and find work to cover the bills.

Cuevas said he and his wife intended to raise their children and spend the rest of their lives in the home, which was new when they bought it in 2005. But it hasn’t worked out that way.

His story is a warning to anyone thinking covenants aren’t binding or those threats of daily fines and attorneys fees can’t be enforced and collected.

Richard Cuevas alleges construction defects are causing his house and others to sink. He said windows leak and mold has made the house uninhabitable. He is suing builder Lennar Colorado, which denies the claims but declined comment due to the litigation.

After Cuevas missed an October 2006 deadline to complete the landscaping, the HOA got its attorney involved. The situation escalated and got personal. Besides his alleged construction defects, Cuevas was enduring drainage issues due to natural contours of the neighborhood compounded by the way neighbors graded their yards.

By 2009, Cuevas’ yard remained the only one in the neighborhood with unfinished landscaping as Cuevas tried to force the HOA to intervene with the builder and against his neighbors.

He wanted new windows installed like other neighbors had received. He wanted mold removed from the walls. He insisted the house is sinking and needs its foundation reinforced. Again, he is convinced several neighbors had similar repairs done for free by the builder.

And because he blamed the HOA for not taking up his cause with Lennar, he still refused to complete the landscaping.

“My builder has repaired many homes in the neighborhood but will not do mine,” Cuevas said. “They take care of the HOA board members, but not me.”

Cuevas alleges selective enforcement of covenants by the HOA. He alleges conspiracies. He sees racism by white HOA officials against him, due to his Mexican heritage.

Richard Cuevas alleges poor design and changes to the natural contours made by neighbors grading their yards led to chronic flooding in his yard. He wanted the Northgate Highlands Homeowners Association to intervene and refused to complete his landscaping until his issues were resolved.

The HOA president did not return my calls seeking comment. But I pushed Cuevas to explain why he refused to finish the landscaping, incurring the wrath of the HOA.

Aren’t construction defects an issue between him and Lennar, not the HOA, I asked? The association only polices landscaping and parking and paint colors, right? It’s not a consumer affairs agency, I suggested.

“If everyone in the neighborhood is experiencing the same problems, why won’t the HOA help them out?” he said. “Isn’t that what the HOA is for?”

So years of angry email exchanges and confrontations led Northgate Highlands HOA to sue. And it won an injunction against Cuevas in 2010 and was awarded $15,000 in attorneys fees.

This is a recent statement from the Northgate Highlands Homeowners Association to Richard and Alisha Cuevas detailed the dues, late fees and interested owed on top of the $15,000 in attorneys fees the HOA won in a court case against the family.

The family was given another year to finish the landscaping but it never happened. The HOA put a lien on his house and garnished his wages, collecting about $9,000 to date.

But he still owes thousands more — plus another $10,000 in delinquent HOA dues, daily fines and interest.

And the family is facing foreclosure on the home.

All because Cuevas decided to defy the HOA over the landscaping issue.

The family had a brief reunion last week as their lawsuit against Lennar was argued in a four-day trial in district court. Cuevas brought in experts who testified the house lacked proper flashing and caulking and other defects they said caused mold that was making the family sick.

Lennar brought in its own experts and denied any construction defects.

The case is in the hands of a judge and it could be weeks before a ruling is issued. But that won’t settle the case. I fully expect appeals by either side that loses.

And, meanwhile, Cuevas is back in Texas and his family in New Mexico. He often flies to visit them but hates the living arrangements.

I asked Cuevas if the fight was worth it. Does he wish he’d simply completed the landscaping and focused on his complaint with the builder?

“I did the right thing,” he said. “I pulled my family out. They were all getting sick.”

How it all ends depends on how the lawsuit with Lennar ends. If it ever ends.

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HOA LANDSCAPE DISPUTE COULD COST FAMILY ITS HOME is a post from: Side Streets

The intersection of South Tejon Street, West Cheyenne Boulevard, Cascade and Ramona avenues in Ivywild neighborhood south of downtown Colorado Springs is slated for a $1.5 million roundabout.

In most neighborhoods, installation of a roundabout at a busy intersection might spark some complaints by motorists unfamiliar with the configuration. Or it might be ignored.

Not in Ivywild, a working-class neighborhood south of downtown struggling to renew its homes and businesses against an onslaught of homeless who drift through from flophouse motels and low-rent apartments along South Nevada Avenue.

Folks in Ivywild are generally welcoming, even anticipating and celebrating a proposed $1.5 million roundabout — actually more of an oblong-about — planned for the goofy five-point intersection of Tejon Street, Cheyenne Boulevard, Cascade and Ramona avenues.

They don’t seem worried about some harmonic convergence of texting teens, truckers and bicyclists causing a traffic disaster.

Instead, they have visions of the roundabout helping improve Ivywild’s image.

The existing intersection is visible, left, on FlashEarth.com. An engineer’s conceptual drawing of the roundabout is on the right.

This is an early engineer’s concept for a smaller, more circular roundabout in Ivywild.

Some see it as a way to build on the momentum they expect once Mike Bristol of the Bristol Brewery and Joseph Coleman of the Blue Star restaurant complete their transformation of the Ivywild School into a hip new destination for beer- and food-lovers.

Others even envision it as a bit of a destination if they can turn it into a centerpiece for a major work of art.

Everyone will get a chance to see the plan and comment on it at a city-sponsored open house scheduled 5-8 p.m., Tuesday, at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church, 1626 S. Tejon St.

But I talked to folks in the neighborhood and most gave positive reviews.

Martin Harper, a certified public accountant whose office is in Ivywild, studies two engineer’s concepts for a roundabout at the intersection just outside his window. Harper welcomes the roundabout.

“I think it’s a good plan,” said Martin Harper, a certified public accountant whose business sits at the southeast corner of Cascade and Ramona. He has a perfect view of the intersection out his office window.

“There’s a lot of honking out there,” Harper said. “It’s a confusing intersection.”

Folks driving south on Tejon can turn hard right onto Cascade or make a sweeping right turn up Cheyenne or a soft left onto Cascade or a hard left onto Ramona.

That’s too many choices for folks chatting on cellphones, juggling Big Macs and fries and driving with their knees. Trust me. It’s so bad I spilled my Diet Coke!

Others in the neighborhood echoed Harper’s optimism about the oblongabout.

“I’m excited,” said Ethan Beute, an Ivywild activist. “My primary concern is whether or not our drivers are sufficiently comfortable executing a clean roundabout at a five-way intersection.”

Officials are confident motorists will adapt, just as engineers have gotten better at designing them.

“We have 64 or 65 roundabouts now,” said city engineer Mike Chaves. “Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about them, studied them and made modifications and built better ones.”

An early roundabout was built along Lake Avenue and it was not ideal, Chaves said. It was too small to accommodate some of the truck traffic that uses Lake to reach The Broadmoor hotel and resort.

“The Lake Avenue roundabout was a learning experience,” Chaves said. “From it we created design criteria. They have to be a certain size. If they are too small, they don’t work.”

The proposed Ivywild roundabout would be fairly long, eating into a corner of Harper’s property, cutting off a couple private driveways and biting off the end of a U-Haul Co. parking lot that sticks into the intersection.

The late artist Starr Kempf created amazing stainless steel wind sculptures that decorate his former home in Cheyenne Canon. Some Ivywild residents have wondered if the family might consider allowing one of them to become a centerpiece of the proposed roundabout.

Chaves said computer models predict it will accommodate heavy traffic flows without problem. And he likes it because it will eliminate traffic signals and cars sitting idle at red lights, a fact that qualified the project for $1.3 million in federal clean air grants. The city is contributing about $200,000.

The project, expected to begin next summer and take eight months to complete, will result in new sidewalks, curbs and gutters all around, filling in significant gaps in the existing infrastructure.

And Harper said neighbors are talking about ways to make the roundabout a focal point of Ivywild.

Some have even suggested approaching the family of the late sculptor Starr Kempf to inquire about acquiring one of his spectacular wind sculptures and erecting in the center.

“It’s just an idea,” Harper said. “I think it would look great.”

Certainly it would look better than the spiderweb of electric wires, power poles and the dozen or so traffic signals that now clutter the intersection.

Mike Bristol of Bristol Brewing and Joseph Coleman of Blue Star restaurant are transforming the closed Ivywild Elementary School into a hip place to enjoy beer and food.

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OBLONG-ABOUT WELCOMED IN IVYWILD is a post from: Side Streets

David Fein is on a mission to supply a free Christmas tree, lights and ornaments to anyone who can’t afford one. He and his wife, Michelle, started the Christmas Tree Project in 2010.

Sometimes, you accidentally discover a way to help the community.

Even better, you find you just can’t stop.

Best of all, your good deed spreads.

That’s the case with David and Michelle Fein and their Christmas Tree Project.

In 2010, the couple decided to replace their artificial Christmas tree so they offered on Craigslist to give away their old tree.

Bang!

“In an incredibly short period of time we got 20 responses,” David told me. “There was a soldier coming back from Afghanistan who didn’t have money for a tree. Single moms who were out of work. Wounded vets. A boys home. People who were sick.”

So David and Michelle gave their tree to a family with a 1-year-old daughter. Then they thought about all the others who responded in need of a tree.

Michelle decided to use a $20 gift from her boss to buy another tree to give to the group home for boys.

Then they told their friend about the response and about their idea to buy a tree for everyone who responded.

A little publicity in The Gazette helped spread the word and before they were done, the couple had given away 300 trees.

“The town responded incredibly,” said David, who owns ValuSource, a business software design company.

In 2011, they gave away another 300 trees.

They are at it again this year with an even broader approach that has led to trees being distributed in Los Angeles, Florida, Tennessee and other places the Feins never dreamed.

Dr. Julia Rohleder adjusts a bow on a tree she is storing for the Christmas Tree Project. She has opened her Downtown Dentist office, at 105 N. Tejon St., as a collection point for donations of trees, lights and ornaments. Her office is open during weekday business hours.

They’ve done it with word of mouth by mentioning the project to friends and business acquaintances. For example, David told his dentist, Dr. Julia Rohleder, about it and she volunteered her Downtown Dentist office, 105 N. Tejon St., as a collection point for trees, ornaments and gift donations.

“I just think it’s a neat idea,” Julia told me. “One of the things everybody remembers about being a kid is their Christmas tree and ornaments. I have ornaments from when I was a kid. And it seems sad to me that someone might miss out on that memory.”

So she mentioned the project and her participation on Facebook and spread the word.

In addition, the Feins found a volunteer in Ireland to build the project a website, www.TheChristmasTreeProject.org. As a result, the requests for trees are coming from places far beyond Colorado Springs.

“A single mom in Los Angeles with an autistic son wanted a tree,” David said. “So I called the Los Angeles Rotary Club and told them I needed an elf.”

After describing his situation, the Hollywood Rotary Club promised to get a tree, ornaments and decorations and deliver them to the woman.

“I’ve got thousands of clients around the country,” David said. “I’ll try anyone I can. I’ll cold-call churches. Or Rotary Clubs. Or whatever. And people just respond.”

Going national was never in the plan. But that’s OK because the project wasn’t really planned. It just happened. And the Feins are happy and proud that it did.

“It’s totally unbelievable,” David said. “People are dropping off trees. Others offer to deliver them. We do whatever it takes. Our mission is: Where-ever a tree needs to be delivered, we’ll try to get it there.”

The Feins deal in artificial and live trees, thanks to donations from tree farmers. They gather ornaments and lights and decorations. And they distribute candy canes and presents. Whatever they have to distribute.

Besides hundreds of trees, the project has given away 700 ornaments, 1,000 candy canes and more than a mile of lights.

But they aren’t done. Julia Rohleder is inviting drop-offs at her office during business hours. In fact, the storage area her dental office has plenty of room for trees.

And the Feins are accepting donations at space made available by his landlord at 4575 Galley Road, Suite 200E, between Academy and Powers boulevards.

David said the project has changed the couple’s life.

“These are people who are hurting,” he said. “It’s heart-wrenching when they can’t provide a Christmas tree for their kids. It hurts.

“That tree represents hope, love, caring and community.”

As for the response of friends and strangers alike, David is blown away:

“It’s just miraculous.”

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CHRISTMAS ISN’T THE SAME WITHOUT A TREE is a post from: Side Streets

Lorraine Crocker has spent most of her century in Colorado Springs with a smile on her face. She celebrates her 100th birthday on Dec. 12. She was born in a rented bungalow near Penrose Hospital on the edge of town in 1912 and has lived all but a few years of her life here. MICHAEL CIAGLO/THE GAZETTE

This photo of Colorado Springs in 1912 looks north on Nevada Avenue with horse-drawn carriage on right and cars parked in front of stores at left. Signs visible include Strang’s Garage and the G.W. Blake Auto Co. Photo identified on back as Nevada Avenue, looking north from Pikes Peak Avenue. Courtesy Pikes Peak Library District.

Lorraine Crocker recalls as a child running to the railroad tracks to wave at the passing troop trains bringing soldiers home from war.

Those would be Doughboys returning from World War I and she was a six-year-old girl.

She also recalls, a few years later, seeing revolutionary flying machines.

“We were really excited to go see the first airplanes to come to Colorado Springs,” she said with a chuckle.

This lithograph of downtown Colorado Springs in 1912 looks west at the Antlers Hotel with a street scene of Pikes Peak Avenue featuring pedestrians, a street car, horse-drawn carriages, and automobiles. Pikes Peak is visible in the background.
Copyright by Pikes Peak Library District.

“Everyone loaded into the car to go see them.”

In fact, Mrs. Crocker is full of memories of an amazing 100 years.

Even more amazing to me is that she spent those years almost exclusively in Colorado Springs.

She lived a handful of childhood years in Eagle.

And she spent three years in Denver when her company transferred her.

Lorraine Crocker has vivid memories of her century spent mostly in Colorado Springs including the arrival of the first airplanes, the town’s response to the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and other events. She has lived in the Inn at Garden Plaza retirement home since 2005. MICHAEL CIAGLO/THE GAZETTE

One question I ask most everyone I interview is: “Where you from?” I don’t meet many natives. So it was a treat to meet Mrs. Crocker and listen to her describe the Colorado Springs of her youth as she prepares to celebrate her 100th birthday on Dec. 12.

Ute Indians make their way down Ute Pass just beyond the western edge of Colorado Springs in 1912. Courtesy Pikes Peak Library District.

Imagine, when she was born, Ute Indians regularly traveled back and forth through the region on horseback .

I was thrilled to find she has a clear memory from the Great Depression to the attack on Pearl Harbor and World War II to the invention of television, space exploration and the age of computers.

“I was born in a house on Cascade Avenue,” she said, describing a modest rented bungalow a couple doors north of the Glockner Tuberculosis Sanatorium, which opened in 1890 and evolved into Penrose Hospital.

Age hasn’t slowed Lorraine Crocker too much. In this 2003 photo, she posed with other members of the Woman’s Club of Colorado Springs and then-President Dick Celeste of Colorado College. The club was donating a house to the school to establish a scholarship for young women. Mrs. Crocker is at the far right end of the front row. She joined the club in 1971 upon her retirement after a 40-year career at Mountain Bell Telephone.

And she was born in the house, not the hospital. The same house where they shoveled coal in a window to the basement and used it in a stove that heated the place.

“We didn’t have furnaces,” she said. “And we didn’t have a refrigerator. We had an ice box.”

As in, they used blocks of ice to keep food cold inside the box.

And she didn’t often get new shoes.

“We put cardboard in our shoes to keep the gravel out,” she said. “Then we got glue-on soles to keep it out.”

She doesn’t tell you these things seeking sympathy.

They are all just matter-of-fact memories of life.

“We didn’t really notice when the Great Depression hit,” she said. “We just ambled along. We were poor, but we had a lot of company.”

I met her last week at the Inn at Garden Plaza retirement center where she moved in 2005 after selling her  home on Mesa Road.

While Mrs. Crocker is turning 100, don’t get the idea that she is slowing down. She gets around just fine without a walker or cane, still does her own income taxes, enjoys playing Rummikub with other residents of the center and even took water aerobics classes recently.

Lorraine Crocker made headlines in the Gazette-Telegraph on Sept. 15, 1971, when she retired from Mountain Bell Telephone Co. after a 40-year career. In fact, she regularly made the newspaper as a frequent public speaker on behalf of the phone company.

Her apartment is filled with photos of the important people in her life including her mother, Ethyl Essick, who worked in a print shop, tended a big garden and raised chickens while struggling to raise three children after her husband disappeared.

Mrs. Crocker repaid her by sacrificing her own dreams in a show of heroic devotion.

After graduating from Colorado Springs High School — we know it today as Palmer High  — Mrs. Crocker and her mother drove to Greeley to enroll in college.

“On the drive home, a truck forced us off the highway,” she said. “My mother was seriously hurt. I gave up my dream of going to college. I had to get money to pay the hospital bills.”

She recalls it without a trace of resentment or self-pity.

It was 1930 and she found a job as a switchboard operator at the local telephone company.

But Mrs. Crocker gave her mother more than financial support. They lived together for 15 years or so until she was fully recovered from her injuries.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Crocker dedicated herself to her career as a telephone operator.

She recalls working on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in a devastating sneak attack.

“When people got the word, we lit up like a Christmas tree,” she said. “Everyone in town had to call somebody.”

In those days, telephone operators physically connected calls by plugging and unplugging wires in jacks on a switchboard. It was a crazy day, she said.

For decades, phone calls were connected manually by operators at a switchboard who plugged phone lines into banks of phone jacks. This photo shows a Bell Telephone system switchboard circa 1941-45. Lorraine Crocker began working as an operator in 1930 and recalls a crush of calls made on Dec. 7, 1941, after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

She spent the war years working as an operator and relaxing at area square dances. And that’s what she was doing in 1946 at the USO when she met Sgt. Merrill Crocker, a celestial navigator in the Army Air Force.

“I met him the day he got to town,” she said. “He was at the dance hall, sitting all by himself. One of the girls said ‘Let’s invite him over.’ And that was the start of it.”

They were married later that year and remained so until he died in 1990.

Together, they ran a west-side restaurant, MerriLaine for 18 years until the telephone company promoted her and sent her to Denver in 1964.

After she retired from Mountain Bell in 1971 after 40 years, they travelled extensively, visiting 49 states.

“We got within 10 miles of Maine,” she said. “But I couldn’t convince my husband to drive there.”

While she fondly recalls the Colorado Springs of her youth when she “knew everyone in town” and could walk or ride her bike anywhere without fear, she doesn’t long for the good old days.

And though Mrs. Crocker doesn’t have a computer, she is not put off by technology.

“I had one for a year or so before I moved here,” she said. “I kind of wish I still had one.”

But the old operator doesn’t have a cellular phone or electronic gadgets that surf the Internet, take and transmit photos and video and make phone calls.

“It took a wild imagination to come up with things like that,” she said, marveling at all the advancements she’s witnessed.

Mrs. Crocker doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about getting old, but sometimes it hits her just how long she has lived.

Lorraine Crocker attended the first class of South Junior High in 1924 and felt bad when Colorado Springs School District 11 officials declared it too old to remain open and closed it in 1982 as part of an Urban Renewal project. Courtesy Pikes Peak Library District.

“I was in the first class to go through South Junior High,” she said, of the school south of downtown. It closed in 1982 as part of an urban renewal project. “You can imagine how I felt when they said that building was too old to be any good and closed it.”

Mrs. Crocker concedes there were painful episodes in her life.

“I’ve lost a lot of wonderful people,” she said, reeling off the names of her husband, mother, brother and sister. “Everyone is gone.”

Her only real regret, it seems, is that she never had children.

“I wish I’d had a couple of children,” she said wistfully. “That would have been a wonderful addition to my life. Since I didn’t, I accepted it. And I’ve had a lot of good friends along the way I’ve enjoyed.”

Again, she focuses on the positive.

“I am pretty well satisfied with my life,” she said. “I want to live as long as I keep enjoying life.”

I asked her advice for achieving longevity.

“My advice is to keep enjoying life and behaving yourself,” she said. Then she smiled and added: “Mostly.”

Happy birthday, Mrs. Crocker. And I hope you enjoy many more.

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CELEBRATING MRS. CROCKER’S CENTURY IN COLORADO SPRINGS is a post from: Side Streets