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LORAX SOCIETY CARRIES ON WORK OF SPRINGS FOUNDER

April 29th, 2012, 11:12 am by

On Friday, I witnessed the birth of Colorado Springs’ own Lorax society.

OK. That’s not its actual name. And there were no truffula trees. Or brown Bar-ba-loots.

But this group would make Dr. Seuss proud.

It’s the new non-profit Palmer Tree Coalition and its mission is to protect and preserve the urban forest created by our own Lorax — Springs founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer.

Colorado Springs in the 1870s

When Palmer arrived in the Pikes Peak region in 1869, it was treeless prairie.

In the years after Palmer’s men drove the first stake to create Colorado Springs in 1871, his town company planted 10,000 trees, which ultimately led to neighborhoods today shaded under canopies of mature elms, oaks, ash and maple trees.

But the recent climate and economy have not been kind to Springs-area trees. Drought stressed the region’s trees, leaving them vulnerable to disease and beetle infestations, which decimated our urban forest.

In the past decade, thousands of trees died or were destroyed. Then the economy cratered, prompting city officials to reduce the parks budget to a stump.

“We are a friends group created to support the city forestry department,” said Nancy Strong, of the coalition. “We are encouraging people to plant and care for trees. We’re hoping to raise some funds and support city forestry and keep our urban forest thriving.”

Colorado Springs founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer encouraged pioneers to plant trees around the city after its founding in 1871.

It was only appropriate the group held its first fundraising effort on Friday. It was Arbor Day.

The group met in a park in the Middle Shooks Run neighborhood and celebrated the day by honoring 41 Columbia Elementary School students who wrote and illustrated essays about trees. Prizes of books and seedlings were distributed.

And there was a tree planting event, of course.

Finally, several coalition members sold several dozen trees for planting. Proceeds will help fund the coalition.

The trees were a variety of hackberry, catalpa and Kentucky coffee trees. Most were balled and bugged in burlap for planting along city streets.

The event kicked off what the coalition hopes will be an ongoing effort to sell trees. Anyone interested in learning more can email PalmerTreeCoalition@gmail.com or call 520-7679 for details..

“We’re trying to carry on the legacy of Gen. Palmer,” said Barbara Bates, one of the coalition members.

“We need trees,” she said. “Trees are so important to making this a human-friendly environment.”

Ever wonder what the Springs would look like without Gen. Lorax, I mean Palmer and his tree-planting vision?

Drive south toward Pueblo and imagine your house. Surrounded by dirt.

Nothing to provide shade. Nothing to stop the wind. To protect birds.

And no truffula fruits for the brown Bar-ba-loots.

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HOA TOO CHICKEN TO OVERRULE COVENANTS AND ALLOW PETS

April 1st, 2012, 11:30 am by

Vidia Hurdowar loves animals, but the 9-year-old girl suffers from allergies and can’t have a typical pet such as a cat or dog.

So her folks found an animal she could keep and love without getting sick: chickens.

For two years, Vidia has raised four feathered friends: Summerset, Marene, Reddy and Island.

They eat from her hand and lay eggs that she shares with neighbors.

“I feel like they are my friends,” said Vidia, an honors student in 4th grade at Scott Elementary School.

“They let me hold them and pet them,” Vidia told me. She also described how they run the yard of her home near Austin Bluffs Parkway and Stetson Hills Boulevard in northeast Colorado Springs.

“I feed them and give them straw for their nests,” she said.

And she writes about them daily in her diary.

But now she’s contemplating life without her pets.

While city codes allow chickens, but not roosters, the covenants of the Heights at Templeton Homeowners Association don’t permit farm animals.

Doesn’t matter if they are pets, like Vidia’s chickens.

Doesn’t matter if their clucks are far more quiet than neighborhood dogs.

Someone complained and the HOA board has no choice, said Bob Hauptman, the president of the board.

“The problem is, the covenants are very definite,” Hauptman said, expressing sympathy for Vidia and her chickens. “They clearly state no farm animals.”

Hauptman said there was no problem until a neighbor saw the chickens and complained to the board.

“It’s one of those things,” he said. “We feel for them. Nobody knew they were there until they let them out.”

When the chickens were small, they stayed in a shed.

Then Vidia’s dad built a nice coop for them and fenced the yard so they could run around freely.

Pow! That newfound freedom led to the neighbor complaint and now an order from the HOA to evict the chickens.

“We didn’t realize we were breaking the covenants,” said Maya Hurdowar, mother of Vidia. “City regulations say you can have chickens. We didn’t know it was against HOA rules. We wrote them. But they said they are allowed to be stricter than the city law.

“We wrote them and asked them for a variance, for my daughter’s sake. These are her pets.”

The variance was not granted. On a 2-1 vote, the HOA board voted to enforce the covenants.

Hauptman said it’s better the chickens are going peacefully than the way another neighbors’ chickens disappeared.

“They coyotes got them,” he said. “One night they wiped out the chickens.”

Maybe there’s a place nearby where Vidia’s chickens would be welcome. And she could come visit them. Any takers?

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IT’S OK IF TRASH BINS REMIND YOU OF NEIGHBORHOOD

March 4th, 2012, 11:30 am by

Sandy Hill offers a dog treat to Uriah as his owner, Scott Cooper, and neighbor Dennis Moore look on. Neighbor Mary Polomus watches from her porch.

It’s not every day you win a large rolling trash bin in a raffle.

So what was Sandy Hill’s reaction when she learned recently she’d be getting a free 10-yard dumper courtesy a home and garden show contest?

“I immediately thought of our Neighborhood Watch,” Sandy said. “Several years ago we got a 20-yard Dumpster. We talked about doing it again. But money’s been tight.”

Sandy’s luck is being shared with the 14 or so other families on tiny Bandelier Drive in the modest Pikes Peak Park neighborhood east of Prospect Lake.

Sandy’s reaction — thinking of her neighbors — is exactly the reflex leaders of Neighborhood Watch are trying to develop across Colorado Springs.

Bandelier Street is a textbook example because one of its residents is Dennis Moore, who has dedicated his retirement to serving as the Colorado Springs Police Department‘s top Neighborhood Watch volunteer.

He helps recruit and train block captains for the program and spreads the gospel of Neighborhood Watch with classes and programs across the city.

Sandy said Dennis has converted everyone on Bandelier to the benefits of Neighborhood Watch.

“We’ve got a good group,” she said. “We watch out for each other.”

Neighborhood Watch has enriched her life with its quarterly meetings and annual barbecue.

“When we meet, it’s like family,” Sandy said. “When I go out of town, I tell those around me. They pick up my mail and keep an eye on things. It’s a great neighborhood.”

Bandelier didn’t need a formal Neighobrhood Watch program when Mary Polomus and her husband moved in to their little home in 1961.

“We had a nice neighborhood,” Mary said, sitting on her porch Thursday as Scott Cooper of Bin There Dump That lowered the trash dumper into her yard. She volunteered her home in the middle of the block to host the bin.

“Back then, there were 40 children in this block,” she said, waving at the tidy little homes, many built in the late 1950s with a couple bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms and a single-car garage.

Sandy Hill and Dennis Moore begin filling the 10-yard rolling trash bin.

“We raised six children in this house,” Mary said.

“The women would stand in the street in the mornings with our coffee and decide what we were going to do that day.”

She smiled at the memory.

“We left our doors unlocked and we left our keys in the car,” she said. “Those days are gone.”

Although neighbors are friendly, there are no morning sidewalk coffee klatches.

And Mary’s glad to have a new group in the neighborhood to lean on.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know what I’d do without my neighbors,” she said. “The neighborhood is slowly coming back and Neighborhood Watch is helping.”

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The Crime Prevention Website lists classes.  Below is a list of some of the current classes and location that are scheduled.

March 5th, 6:30-7:30 P.M., Active Shooter for Citizens at the Sand Creek Division

March 8th, 6-8 P.M., Home Safety at the Falcon Division

March 15th, 6 P.M., Responsible Firearm Ownership at the Gold Hill Division

March 22nd, 7 P.M., Home Security at the Stetson Hills Division

Dennis R. Moore

Neighborhood Watch Coordinator

Sand Creek Division

Colorado Springs Police Department

4125 Center Park Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80916

719-444-7206

MOOREDE@ci.colospgs.co.us

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ARE ALLEYS THE NEW MAIN STREET?

March 2nd, 2012, 1:08 pm by

The alley south of Bijou Street, between Cascade Avenue and Tejon Street.

 

An artist's rendering of how the alley might look as a pedestrian space.

Ever consider the appearance of your alley?

Or its functionality?

Or what it could be other than a place for garbage cans and delivery trucks?

Me, neither.

But some folks do think about stuff like that and they are re-imagining what alleys of downtown Colorado Springs could be.

Inspired by a couple of artists/gallery owners, a local architectural firm is working with the Downtown Partnership and others to see if it can create a new urban space from an alley.

Art lovers outside the S.P.Q.R. and Modbo galleries on Thursday night. Owners Lauren and Brett Andrus have used the alley for a wedding reception and concerts and hope to make it more pedestrian friendly.The entrances to the side-by-side galleries S.P.Q.R. and Modbo in the alley off Bijou Street.

I’m intrigued by the idea.

The entrances to the side-by-side galleries S.P.Q.R. and Modbo in the alley off Bijou Street.

“We try to look around downtown and see what we are missing,” said Ron Butlin, executive director of Downtown Partnership.

“Are there under-utilized spaces in downtown? In my opinion, there are. We have wall space where murals could go. We have parks that are under-utilized.

“And we have alleys. These are clearly spaces not being utilized for anything other than service.”

Actually, artists Lauren and Brett Andrus have begun already. They own the Modbo and S.P.Q.R. art galleries located in an alley off Bijou Street.

They have held a wedding reception in the alley and concerts, Butlin said.

“It’s really an exciting idea,” he said.

Others are doing it, too. Fort Collins and Pasadena, Calif., are a couple places reinventing their alleyways as public spaces, he said.

I can see some of you shaking your heads.

Not convinced?

KB&A Architects has produced this artist's rendering of how the alley might look.

Then attend Monday’s open house at HB&A Architects, which has been brainstorming ideas for the Modbo/S.P.Q.R. alley between Cascade Avenue and Tejon Street in the two blocks between Platte Avenue and Kiowa Street.

It’s not such a radical idea. I’ve done business in alleys. It’s not what you’re thinking, either! I used to go to a cobbler in the alley. It reminded me of Chicago, the Billy Goat Tavern and Lower Wacker Drive.

L&H Jewelery operates across the alley from Modbo. I even ducked in a trendy alley bar once, called 15C, until the cigar smoke drove me out. (Guess I’m not hip.)

The backs of the buildings are as interesting as the Tejon Street facades. It’s a cool, urban space if you overlook the rolling trash dumpers and transients.

Looking at HB&As drawings, I can envision how a few changes — strands of twinkling lights, interesting planters and benches and stone pavers — can transform the alley into an exciting urban pedestrian space.

“If we dress up the space in those back areas, we’d have a wonderful area to congregate,” said Andrea Barker of HB&A, 102 E. Moreno Ave. “This is an interesting space. It’s gritty and edgy.”

And if Colorado Springs wants to attract young urbanites, these are the kinds of things we need to explore. I’m an alley kinda guy. I say give it a shot.

Collage of photos from Fort Collins and its alleyscape.

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WARNING: ‘DIVERGING DIAMOND’ TO JOIN DRIVER VOCABULARY

February 24th, 2012, 11:30 am by

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Ever danced the Hokey Pokey at a wedding reception?

You know . . . Put your left foot in, put your left foot out. Shake it all about.

Good. Then you’ll be ready for what Colorado Springs traffic engineers have in store when they rebuild the Interstate 25 interchange at Fillmore Street.

The reconfigured interchange, as planned, will introduce a whole new dance step for drivers and it’s not unlike the Hokey Pokey silliness.

The plans call for construction of a “diverging diamond” interchange.

This graphic shows traffic flow in a "diverging diamond" interchange. Traffic on the Fillmore Street Bridge would follow a similar pattern as shown here.

Interstate 25 and Fillmore Street as seen from GoogleEarth. Under the Diverging Diamond configuration, the interchange would be simplified because Chestnut Street will be realligned to the west and no longer intersecting with the southbound I-25 exit-entrance ramps.

Not a familiar driving term?

Don’t feel bad.

Most of the world’s driver are immune to it.

But just as the once-obscure “round-about” has become more common in our driving vocabulary (as in “these freaking round-abouts drive me freaking crazy”), so, too, will “diverging diamond.”

Soon, actually, if the city lands a $10 million federal grant to pay for a makeover of the interchange, says Kathleen Krager, senior city traffic engineer.

Rebuilding the interchange is too expensive. so the old bridge will remain. But that’s about all that will stay the same.

Ty Pennington of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

What Krager described to me sounds like an extreme makeover. All that will be missing is the annoying guy with the spiked hair, soul patch and megaphone.

There will be, I fear, plenty of people shouting “Move that bus!” because the diverging diamond looks pretty confusing.

Here’s how it will work.

Motorists on Fillmore will criss-cross each other, just as they approach the bridge over I-25.

The manuever will look just like my kids’ electric slot car race track where the cars duck back and forth across the tracks. (Of course, this usually creates spectacular slot-car crashes.)

There will be traffic signals preventing spectacular crashes on Fillmore.

Hopefully.

This is a screen-capture from an animated fly-through created by Fisher Associates, a New York engineering firm.

For example, westbound traffic on Fillmore will cross onto the far left lanes, or south side, of the bridge. In other words, traffic will be traveling on the wrong side of the bridge.

Same for the eastbound cars. They will shift onto the north lanes to cross the bridge.

Krager said the beauty (huh?) of the diverging diamond is that it creates no-wait exits onto the interstate.

Westbound drivers, for example, will leave a traffic signal, move to the wrong side of the bridge and have a smooth left turn onto southbound I-25 before the traffic crosses back onto the normal side of the road.

“It removes the left turns that cause conflict,” Krager said. “Everything becomes right turns.”

This link takes you to an animated flyover that explains the diverging diamond.

Click here to see another more rudimentary animated interchange.

The diverging diamond is debated on this Minnesota website and includes actual video of a diverging diamond in action.

Like I said, it’s just like doing the Hokey Pokey where turn yourself around.

That’s what it’s all about.
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ACCUSED KILLER IN 1997 VALENTINE’S DAY SLAYINGS SPEAKS OUT

February 12th, 2012, 11:30 am by

                                             UPDATE . . . UPDATE . . . UPDATE

Gary Flakes, who was convicted of being an accessory to the grisly shotgun slayings of Scott Hawrysiak and Andy Westbay on Valentine’s Day 1997, has ended years of silence about his role in the thrill-killings.

Flakes was 16 when he confessed in 1997 to driving up along the boys, who were walking home after an evening of video games at a friends’ house. Flakes stopped, letting Jeron Grant get out the car with a 12-gauge shotgun to kill the boys.

Flakes, now 31, commented after reading my Feb. 13 Side Streets column about the killings.

In an email to my Side Streets blog, Flakes wrote:

I accept the reactions for my actions. The families of Scott and Andy have more right to Justice than anyone.This is the constitution in which we have been created by the Creator. I pray that there is healing and forgivness.

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Following is the blog as originally posted Feb. 13, 2012:

LAST OF THREE MUSKETEERS IS LOYAL FOREVER

Scott Hawrysiak, William Fortune and Andy Westbay, on the bed, were known to their families as the Three Musketeers.

William Fortune doesn’t much look forward to Valentine’s Day.

He’ll tell his girlfriend he loves her and all. But Feb. 14 doesn’t represent love and romance to William.

To him, it’s a terribly sad day. It represents the end of the Three Musketeers.

Fifteen years ago, late on Valentine’s Day 1997, his buddies _ 13-year-old Andy Westbay and 15-year-old Scott Hawrysiak _ were gunned down as they walked home from playing video games with a friend.

William was supposed to be with them. They did everything together. Their folks even called them the Three Musketeers.

Andy Westbay and Scott Hawrysiak

All for one.

“They were my two best friends,” William said last week. “I can’t think about Valentine’s Day as a day of love. I associate it with the deaths of my two best friends.

“It’s a day of mourning.”

And a day to wonder what might have been.

William knows that if his mother hadn’t been too sick to take him that night, he’d have been walking with Andy and Scott when Jeron Grant 17, and Gary Flakes, 16, drove up to them on Canoe Creek Drive in Cheyenne Meadows.

Andy Westbay and Scott Hawrysiak were shotgunned to death near the mailboxes on the right as they walked home along Canoe Creek Drive late on Feb. 14, 1997.

According to Flakes’ confession to police, he was driving Grant to their homes on Fort Carson when they saw Andy and Scott.

Grant told Flakes he wanted to kill someone “to get something off my chest.” He grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun out of the backseat, got out, said a few words to the boys and opened fire.

The first blast hit Andy in the neck. Scott ran as the shotgun erupted two more times, hitting Scott in the back of the head.

About 600 people attended the funeral for Andy Westbay and Scott Hawrysiak and they were buried together. This was the scene Feb. 20, 1997, at First Baptist Church of Securty.

The killers drove off leaving Andy and Scott to die.

The killings caused outrage in Colorado Springs. Candle-light vigils were held for the boys. And the funeral at the First Baptist Church in Security drew an estimated 600 people. Many followed to attend graveside services as well.

Here’s an excerpt from the Feb. 21, 1997, Gazette:

“Hundreds of people huddled close in a bitter, driving snow Thursday at Evergreen Cemetery to say goodbye to lifelong buddies Scott Paul Hawrysiak, 15, and Andrew Michael Westbay, 13, brutally slain last Friday night by three shotgun blasts.

 

Jerome Grant in a 1995 photo when he was a high school freshman in El Paso, Texas.

“Andy’s uncle, Michael Westbay, acted as a surrogate dad while Andy’s father did a recent year’s tour in Korea for the Army. He told mourners:

 “It was only last week that I had the opportunity to hug both boys and tell them that I loved them. This week, next week or in the weeks to follow, I will not have that opportunity. This was not just a loss for two families. This was a loss for the entire community. I hope, as time heals, their love will not be forgotten. They touched many in life and many more lives in death. These boys will not be forgotten.”

But neither was convicted of first-degree murder. Jurors, instead, convicted them of the lesser charge of accessory to murder.

Grant was freed on parole in 2008. But a year later he was caught with crack cocaine and sent back to prison for six years.

Flakes went to a halfway house in 2010, was paroled in 2011 and is free now.

Gary Flakes, 16, from a 1997 Fountain-Fort Carson yearbook photo.

He volunteers for Colorado Juvenile Defenders Coalition’s effort to stop prosecution of juveniles as adults.

Flakes also testified before state lawmakers last spring about the evils of solitary confinement.

Such activity rankles William, now 29, a college graduate and personal trainer who twice went to Iraq as a civilian contractor.

The last Musketeer has never forgotten his pals.

“I think about them everyday,” said William, who has tattoos with Andy’s and Scott’s  initials on his arms, each with a star.

“They are my nautical stars for guidance,” he said. “I go to their graves every time I come home.”

William Fortune, 29

He’s glad Grant is back in prison. And he’s angry Flakes seems to protray himself as a victim in some way of unfair treatment.

“They ruthlessly murdered two kids,” William said, still loyal to his friends. “They should never be free.”

One for all. Forever.

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William Fortune has the initials of Andy Westbay and Scott Hawrysiak tattooed on his arms and thinks about his friends every day.

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Jeron Grant is back in prison for a drug conviction after his parole in 2008.

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Gary Flakes volunteers for the Colorado Juvenile Defenders Coalition working to stop juveniles from being tried as adults and housed in adult prisons.

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RUSTIC HILLS GOT TIRED OF BEING TRASHY

January 25th, 2012, 11:13 am by

Rustic Hills is doing something I think is a no-brainer for every neighborhood.

In fact, I can’t understand why it hasn’t spread citywide. It’s so simple, it’s brilliant.

What makes Rustic Hills a bunch of Einsteins?

The Rustic Hills Improvement Association, its voluntary neighborhood association, signed a three-year contract to have its 205 property owners’ garbage collected once a week by a single trash company at a significant discount to each.

No longer must they listen to two or three trucks a day roaring around the neighborhood.

They don’t have to worry as much about the safety of kids playing outside.

Nor must they see garbage cans sitting around, day after day, getting knocked over by animals.

Did I mention they are getting this service at a discount upwards of $45 a month for some?

“It’s working out real well,” said Rick Hoover, president of the RHIA. “It saves people a lot of money.”

Hoover said the RHIA board had tried for years to organize a consolidated trash service.

But the board couldn’t find a company willing to deal with its unique situation.

Rustic Hills, on Colorado Springs’ east side, is different than most with its large lots — an acre or two each, mostly — built largely along on gravel roads to accommodate 40 properties with horses and barns.

Of course, houses with horses means trash with manure in it. A lot of companies don’t want harvest road apples.

So the RHIA board had to find a flexible company and convince homeowners to be flexible, as well. Many didn’t want to give up their favorite trash hauler.

It’s important to note this is not one of those homeowners associations with mandatory covenants and dues allowing board members to dictate to residents.

Rustic Hills’ board had to be neighborly and convince folks to try the service.

Of the 160 homes along gravel roads, all but 15 or so have agreed to participate in the new consolidated trash service from Waste Connections.

Hoover hopes to get the rest signed up in a few months, along with the 45 homeowners who live on Constitution Avenue.

 The lure? The $15 monthly fee that buys weekly garbage and bi-weekly single-stream recycling, with a per-pound reward program.

Most save enough each month to pay RHIA’s whopping annual dues of $25!

“We’re really proud of ourselves,” Hoover said. “It saves people a lot of money and it’s going to help our roads.”

It’s working well for Waste Connections, said Bobby Baker, its HOA rep.

“This was a test case for us,” Baker said. “We have a couple other neighborhoods we’re looking to do it with.”

Hoover said he’d like to see RHIA’s program spread:

“Perhaps this will be a new trend across the city.”

Maybe. Are there any more Einsteins out there?

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R.I.P. DESSIE AND C. ROB ON YOUR TAYLOR’S ACRE IN THE SKY

December 25th, 2011, 11:30 am by

The sayings on the side of the Taylor's Acre barn just off of Fillmore Street near Templeton Gap have been catching eyes since 1972 when they first one was painted. That tradition continues on even though Dessie Taylor, 82, here with one her donkeys Applejuice, finds it harder and harder to get around. "I love this place. I'll be here until they haul me away," said Taylor. She and her husband C. Bob bought their home in 1960 and lived there together until he died in 1996.

For decades, Taylor’s Acre was a special corner of Colorado Springs near Fillmore Street and Templeton Gap Road.

It was a tiny farm surrounded by the city. A place roosters crowed, drowned out by the roar of traffic to nearby fast-food joints, pawn shops and medical office buildings. A place where passers-by were greeted by donkeys Twinkle Star and Applejuice and words of inspiration painted on a barn.

Applesauce enjoyed treats from neighbors who regularly visited the pasture at Fillmore Street and Templeton Gap Road.

It was, to be precise, C. Bob and Dessie Taylor’s acre. It’s where they bought an old stone ranch house in 1960 and made it their home, raised their four boys and two daughters and where the kids raised hell with dance and pool parties.

It was a place of refuge, too, when cancer struck Dessie in 1971, when tragedy claimed daughter Dessie Bob in 1980 and then cancer took her beloved C. Bob in 1996 after 56 years of marriage.

I met Dessie in August 2002, sitting  under her cottonless cottonwood tree. The matriarch of the Taylor clan was 82 then and melancholy.

This was the view of Taylor's Acre looking east from the front sidewalk. In 2002, I found Dessie sitting under a tree. The family painted murals on the barn, visible behind the trees. Plans call for a medical building to be built where the barn sits. The house will make way for a parking lot.

I was curious about the big sign on the barn which declared: “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” Quickly I discovered the barn was just one of many signs that punctuated Dessie’s life.

As I walked to the gate, I was greeted by a small “Taylor’s Acre” sign.

Then “No Trespassing.”

And “Absolutely no city inspectors.”

Finally: “No Bibles.”

They were no-nonsense directives. Kind of like Dessie.

I asked about the barn and learned it was painted each summer with a new musing, proverb or exhortation.

The first went up in 1972 after Dessie survived a brain tumor even though doctors had given her just weeks to live. The clan threw a party and painted the barn: “We are proud to be Americans.”

The tradition was born.

Each year, the barn’s message changed, kind of the way the spider saved Wilbur the pig in “Charlotte’s Web.”

But we all know how the classic childrens’ book ended . . . Charlotte died.

Now, Taylor’s Acre is dying, as well.

These are blueprints for a medical building to replace Taylor's Acre.

Twinkle Star died years ago. In 2009, Dessie died too. She’d spent years of loneliness rattling around on her acre, longing for C. Bob and her children, now scattered.

Applejuice went to live on a farm in Fountain and the farmhouse was cleaned out of all her figurines with the words of love she gave C. Bob. Gone, too, are her ceramic turtles, C. Bob’s treasured rock collection and all the family photos.

There’s little to remind anyone of all the life that occurred on Taylor’s Acre.

Soon, nothing will be left. The property is for sale and plans call for a medical office building. (Here’s a link to the application filed with the city’s Land Use Review office.)

The little acre Dessie and C. Bob created and fought to preserve when city annexation came in 1980 soon will disappear. Like them.

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It makes the barn’s final painting so appropriate.

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It’s painted in a sunset  and inscribed: “Vaya con Dios.”

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Go with God, indeed.

The final mural on the Taylor's Acre barn reads "Vaya con Dios"

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MAYBE COLORADO SPRINGS ISN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL

December 21st, 2011, 11:27 am by

xx

A couple months ago, I was surprised to read in the Quality of Life survey that fewer than 50 percent of Colorado Springs residents surveyed feel “very safe” walking their neighborhoods at night.

This is the Springs, not Oakland, I snorted.

Well a headline last week on Forbes.com gives comfort to all those scared-y cats: Colorado Springs is the eighth safest U.S. city!

I’ve always thought the Springs was a great, safe place to live. But I didn’t think the Pikes Peak region ranked among the elite safe cities in the nation.

So I looked at Forbes’ criteria. It started with metropolitan areas of 250,000 or more and looked at the FBI’s crime data for 2010. Forbes then ranked each city’s rate of violent crime — murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — per 100,000 residents. (There are some big omissions because Chicago and other cities did not submit complete reports to the FBI.)

From the 72 metro areas with complete FBI reports, Forbes then factored in traffic-fatality data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Forbes averaged it all out and, POOF, the Springs metro area of El Paso and Teller counties ranked eighth.

According to the FBI report, the Pikes Peak region area had 462 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2010. That’s based on a  population of 626,259.

By comparison, if you pull Oakland out of the San Francisco Bay Area metro report, it had 1,532 violent crimes per 100,000, based on a population of 409,723.

That is far higher than even Detroit, which ranked No. 1 on Forbes’ “Most Dangerous Cities” list in October. Detroit had 1,111 violent crimes per 100,000.

Pueblo, with 156,522 residents, had a rate of 585 violent crimes per 100,000. (Chalk up one more reason to be glad you don’t live in Pueblo!)

While I was not surprised at our relatively low violent crime rate, I was shocked by our ranking as a safe place to drive. The  Springs’ car fatality rating was 11th overall.

Based on what I see each day from behind my windshield and bicycle handlebars, I’d have guessed our streets were much more dangerous to drive.

Not so, says Forbes and the highway safety folks.

Our region had just 43 traffic fatalities in 2010. That’s up from 33 in 2006 but it’s still far fewer than the rest of the nation.

Consider Pueblo’s rate of 11.91 per 100,000 residents is nearly double the El Paso County rate of 6.54. (See earlier snarky comment about living in Pueblo.)

Forbes explained that its safest cities shared several characteristics: wealth, civic involvement, heavily used public spaces like parks, shopping districts and museums, and a strong tax based that invests in public safety and police.

It’s easy to find things to criticize and the Springs has its share of problems.

But maybe it isn’t such a bad place after all. Ya think?

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JUNK CARS MAY BE ART IN TEXAS, BUT NOT IN COLORADO SPRINGS

December 7th, 2011, 1:47 pm by

Colorado Redneck Stonehenge at Copperhead Road Honkey Tonk and Saloon

Hey art lovers, you are going to love this one.

Colorado Springs city officials say three junk cars, erected to create a gateway arch at the Copperhead Road Honkey Tonk and Saloon, are just that . . . junk and must come down.

The saloon owner argues the cars are redneck sculpture and should be left alone. In fact, Copperhead wants to expand its display with an assortment of “art” sure to infuriate neighbors near its two-acre property at Academy Boulevard and Rebecca Lane.

Copperhead Road owner Marie Richard argues these trucks evoke a Texas ranch and pay homage to hard-working ranch families.

To read the saloon’s application for a variance to land-use rules, you might believe Copperhead is an art museum, not a saloon featuring barely dressed waitresses and a dancehall.

Those junk cars, the saloon owner says, are pure Americana — sculpture that “pays tribute to the blue collar working American.”

(Dang, I’m getting all misty eyed. How can neighbors be so unpatriotic?)

Anyway, Copperhead wants to keep its “Colorado Redneck Stonehenge,” comparing it to the famous “Cadillac Ranch” in Texas. (I’m guessing police like the arch, too. It’s a good landmark for officers racing to break up the latest brawl.)

Copperhead also wants to keep its neon palm trees. (Because nothing says Texas like neon palm trees.) And it wants to keep its vintage truck which “depicts the life on a Texas ranch.” (Where six lanes of traffic roar past in the heart of a community of more than 622,000.)

Does anything say "Texas" like neon palm trees?

Copperhead hopes to add a towering fiberglass sculpture most will recognize as the “Muffler Man” wearing a cowboy hat, plus a rooster.

See more photos on my blog.

A “mega truck display” with three 1940s flatbed trucks standing on end atop huge poles would “represent the hard working farm and ranch families.” (I’m guessing after they wrecked their trucks up against the silo.)

Owner Marie Richard declined to talk to me about the application, which is under review by city planners.

But in her application, she defended the displays as creating “a popular destination for tourists and locals.” She noted she has spent $1.7 million renovating the property since buying it for $475,000 in 2009.

She compared her junk cars to a statue of champion cowboy Casey Tibbs on a bucking bronc outside the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, among other displays.

City planner Steve Tuck said the city opposes the plan for 10 junk vehicles.

“The vehicles are considered junk,” Tuck said. “Under our definitions, what they are proposing qualifies as operating a junk yard.”

Tuck said he recommends the Planning Commission allow the palm trees.

He’s unsure about the rooster. And the Muffler Man, er Cowboy, may exceed height rules.

“It’s been a lively conversation point in the neighborhood,” Tuck said. “Folks are concerned about the appearance of the cars and what it does to the neighborhood.”

Come on, Steve. Don’t try to understand ‘em. Just rope, throw, and brand ‘em.

I can’t wait for the hearing, likely in January.

Yee haw!

Three huge poles await flatbed trucks to be erected vertically as a way to pay tribute to Texas farm families, according to Copperhead Road's application for a city variance.

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