Side Streets   Neighborhoods, people and issues

This map of Colorado Springs shows its racial/ethnic makeup in 2010 based on U.S. Census data. White neighborhoods are green, Hispanic are orange/red, black are purple and Asian are blue. Courtesy the Timoney Group.

In my mind, I have a visual map of Colorado Springs.

Maybe you do, too.

In my map, I see neighborhoods in colors.

For example, neighborhoods like the Broadmoor, Skyway, Peregrine and towns like Monument are white. Glaring, gotta-wear-shades white.

These maps from the Timoney Group show how the racial makeup of downtown Colorado Springs changed from 2000 to 2010.

Others, like my neighborhood in Rockrimmon, are more off-white. Predominantly white but not starched-and-pressed white.

That image probably is true for most of Colorado Springs, with exceptions.

Hillside and Deerfield Hills, in my mind, were black and Hispanic. Same for the Lowell School neighborhood, Mill Street, Stratton Meadows and the Widefield/Security areas.

Now, thanks to a cool website created by the folks at the Timoney Group in Denver, I have a new visual map of the area. And I’m surprised how different the reality is from the 20-year-old image in my mind.

Brian Timoney, a demographer and social analyst, plugged in U.S. Census data from 2000 and 2010 to allow viewers to easily see how cities along the Front Range changed in their racial and ethnic makeup during the decade.

Timoney said the website was helpful as Denver was redrawing its city council districts and trying to ensure minority neighborhoods were represented.

These maps from the Timoney Group show how the racial makeup of the Broadmoor neighborhood changed from 2000 to 2010.

“Oldtimers have a mental map that is often 20 to 30 years out of date,” Timoney said. “In Denver, many think of the Five Points neighborhood as predominantly black. But it hasn’t been for 25 years.”

Similar changes have occurred in Colorado Springs, if not on the same scale.

For instance, the Broadmoor remains solidly white. But from 2000 to 2010 the diversity of the neighborhood was slowly changing, as evident in Timoney’s maps.

More dramatic change is evident in the southeast part of Colorado Springs. Take Hillside, long a racially diverse and predominantly black area. According to the map, Hillside experienced a surge of white and Hispanic residents by 2010.

An interesting neighborhood to look at is around the Lowell School south of downtown. In 2000, it was predominantly Hispanic. Then came the townhomes and condos of redevelopment and suddenly it shows up as mostly white in 2010.

These maps show how the racial makeup changed after the development of the Woodmen Vistas neighborhood in 2007.

Then there is the interesting case of the development in the Woodmen Heights region northeast of Powers Boulevard and Woodmen Road. The Cumbre Vista neighborhood is being developed there along with Woodmen Vistas, a 10-acre subdivision where the Habitat for Humanity and Rocky Mountain Community Land Trust are partners in building low-income homes.

The two agencies launched the project in 2007 and when finished it will have about 70 homes.

Look at the map and see what Woodmen Vistas has done to the racial makeup of the area. It’s gone from bleached white to predominantly Hispanic.

It’s actually a little unusual to be able to clearly identify minority neighborhoods in the Springs, said Kee Warner, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

“Colorado Springs, in comparison with cities across the United States, is not extremely segregated,” Warner said. “Racial minority populations are more evenly distributed here, than even in Denver. It’s not easy to identify certain neighborhoods as strictly African American or Latino.”

There is no “Chinatown” or Irish or Italian neighborhood, as you commonly find in other cities.

These maps show how the racial makeup of neighborhoods in southeast Colorado Springs changed from 2000 to 2010.

And based on the maps, the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods are trending toward eggshell, if you will.

“These maps tell us something about how the community is evolving over time,” Warner said. “We’ve got significant diversity in our population below age 21 and we’re going to see that work its way into our broader population. We’re going to have an increasing diversity of our population.”

Still there will be enclaves or concentrations of racial populations and they can be attributed to economics, whether it’s a public housing project in South Shooks Run or Hillside, or among the mansions of the Broadmoor neighborhood.

“You’ve got to remember that the city is arranged by income levels as well,” Warner said, adding that while slight shifting is expected, don’t look for dramatic change in the racial makeup of wealthy neighborhoods any time soon.

But as for the rest of the city . . .

“Other neighborhoods will continue to shift,” Warner said, noting the folks seeking out specific schools can drive huge population shifts. “It’s part of the aging process of neighborhoods.”

Check out the maps and tell me what you think you see.

These maps show how the racial makeup of the Old Colorado City neighborhoods changed from 2000 to 2010.

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This should be a quiet time for Cragmor, the little neighborhood across Austin Bluffs Parkway from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Most of the school’s 9,800 students have gone home for the summer.

In a typical year, that would mean Cragmor residents would be enjoying a respite after nine months of traffic, parking gridlock and strangers streaming in and out of their neighborhood.

As UCCS has grown from a commuter college into a major university, Cragmor has become a convenient place for students, staff and visitors to find free parking. In recent years, I’ve documented growing neighbor complaints as cars spread deeper into Cragmor.

Cars line every inch of curb on most school days in the Cragmor neighborhood near the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

On most school days, they fill every vacant piece of curb, block driveways and endanger pedestrians as they circle  the neighborhood and jockey recklessly for spots.

Summer normally brings relief.

Not this summer. It will be anything but quiet in Cragmor, where about 3,500 modest 1950s-era bungalows, many with one-car garages, sit atop old coal mines. The news was delivered to a group of about 150 residents who attended a city-sponsored neighborhood meeting Tuesday evening.

On the perimeter of the neighborhood, city crews will begin widening Austin Bluffs to six lanes past UCCS, essentially working between Mallow Road and Union Boulevard. Of course, a major cone zone will create headaches trying to get in and out of the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, inside Cragmor, more city crews will be installing missing sidewalks, curbs and gutters, repairing crumbled roadway and rehabbing other infrastructure primarily along Acacia Drive, Meadow Lane and Mount View Lane.

(Commuters hoping to cut through Cragmor ought to rethink their routes altogether to avoid huge delays and frustrations.)

Cragmor residents say students, staff and visitors to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs drive wrecklessly in pursuit of vacant parking spots making it danger to drive or walk the neighborhood. This is an October 2012 photo.

But perhaps the biggest change will occur around Labor Day. That’s when the city hopes to implement a sweeping plan to once and for all drive UCCS traffic out of Cragmor, leaving all the new curbs and sidewalks to residents.

The job of exorcist falls to Tim Roberts, a city transportation planner. Roberts will hold meetings this summer with residents, breaking them into eight sub-groups for discussions. His goal is to devise a strategy to reclaim Cragmor’s streets and curbs.

It could be as simple as declaring the entire area a no parking zone on weekdays during business hours. The city has taken that approach on several blocks closest to UCCS. The problem is that it bars everyone from parking, including residents and their guests.

That’s why Roberts will suggest residents consider a more sophisticated approach that designates the streets as parking by permit only with stickers going to residents. Similar parking permit zones exist in Denver and Boulder and many other cities nationwide to control non-resident parking.

“We really want this to be a neighborhood for the residents,” Roberts said. “We’re going to take away the convenience of parking in the neighborhood.”

Before parking permits could be issued, Roberts said, the City Council would need to approve the program.

The city of Colorado Springs declared several blocks of Cragmor to be no parking zones. But neighbors say they simply pushed students, staff and visitors to the University of Colorado deeper into the neighborhood.

Another key to success would be strict enforcement. That means handing out tickets, which would cost $80 each for the first two tickets. Fines would escalate for subsequent tickets and illegally parked cars would be subject to a boot that would prevent them from being driven.

Aggressive enforcement likely would generate enough in fines to allow the city to offer the permits to residents free of charge, Roberts said, unlike other cities that charge for permits.

“This issue has been around for quite a while,” Roberts said. “We’ve been approaching it on a street-by-street basis. Now, we’re taking a more comprehensive approach. We’re viewing the neighborhood as a whole.”

At the meeting, a university official assured the neighbors that UCCS has enough parking to accommodate students and staff and will encourage them to stay on campus, said Tom Hutton, school spokesman.

And the university pledged to work with the city and neighbors to reel in the cars.

Cragmor resident Jerry Schaefer is cautiously optimistic the problem will be solved.

He and his wife, Margie, are longtime Cragmor residents.

“It’s not a neighborhood anymore,” Jerry said. “It’s a big parking lot. We have to get the students out of the area.”

 Jerry Schaefer researched alternatives and believes parking permits will work.

“They are the best solution as far as I can see,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get some relief.”

Once a parking program is chosen by consensus of residents and the city and implemented for Cragmor, Roberts said he’ll turn his attention to the neighborhood just north of UCCS and west of Union where residents report similar parking woes.

Maybe Cragmor will get back to being a quiet little neighborhood again.

Students, staff and visitors to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs often block driveways, mailboxes and crowd corners making it difficult to see in the Cragmor neighborhood as in this October 2012 photo.

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John Schnake walks past a sandbag wall near his home on the east side of Highway 24 in Cascade. The sandbags were placed by volunteers working with the Coalition for the Upper South Platte (CUSP). In places the sandbags are twelve high and seven wide.
Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

FREE SANDBAGS — empty — are now available to residents impacted by Waldo Canyon Fire.

While supplies last.

Provided by a grant from the Colorado Fire Relief Fund.

Get a max 100 empty bags at these locations:

• Colorado Springs Together – 6840 Centennial Blvd. Suite A
• Fire Station 5 – 2830 W. Colorado Ave.
• Fire Station 9 – 622 Garden of the Gods Rd.
• Fire Station 12 – 445 Rockrimmon Blvd.
• Fire Station 18 – 6830 Hadler View

NO OTHER STATIONS have the bags available.

BE PREPARED to sign the Sandbag Distribution Form.

• You will receive an information bag that contains: instructions on sandbag placement, Colorado Springs Emergency Preparedness Guide, and other flood information.

Tips for filling and stacking sandbags to protect against flashfloods.

On Saturday, May 18, folks in the Waldo Canyon burn scar flood zone can pick up FILLED SANDBAGS from a distribution center at the Verizon Building, 2424 Garden of the Gods Road from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or until all sandbags are gone.

Volunteers will be there to help load the 50-pound sandbags into vehicles. Residents picking up sandbags should enter the Verizon Wireless parking lot off of Flying W Ranch Road.

Debbie and Jesse Cisneros initially placed about 110 sandbags along North 31st Street to protect their home from predicted flashflooding in Camp Creek, which runs down the middle of the street in Pleasant Valley.

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A dispute over election results for a homeowners association board turned ugly recently in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

According to the Desert Sun newspaper, a brawl erupted after 52-year-old Thomas Moore reportedly shoved 70-year-old Reesa Manning, who had been elected to the board. The woman had been opposed by Moore’s partner, Donald Searle.

After Moore shoved the woman, police say, he was attacked by five other men.

Moore was hospitalized after suffering a seizure and neck injuries during the Feb. 17 incident.

Now, Moore  is suing the Springs Community Association, the HOA, board members, several homeowners and the security company hired to provide security to the association, according to his lawsuit filed in Riverside County Superior Court.

Moore is accusing the HOA and numerous others of violating his civil rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. He wants at least $25,000 in damages.

Read the full story at this link.

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Marines’ cyclist Breanna Dill and her son landon, 3, warm up in the parking lot before competing in the Women’s Handcycle and Recumbent Cycle race at the Warrior Games Sunday, May 12, 2013 at the Air Force Academy. Michael Ciaglo, The Gazette

On Sunday, I stood next to the bicycle race track at the Warrior Games and I cried.

Not because I was within a few yards of Prince Harry.

I was standing amid men and women who have served, sacrificed and suffered so much for us.

Here they were, working, sweating and competing at a high level despite disabilities I can’t fathom.

Don’t get me wrong. These weren’t tears of pity.

I was in awe.

It was a powerful sight, these men and women in their uniforms of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Special Operations and British Armed Forces.

It’s rare any sports event stirs such emotion in me. (Not even my beloved KU Jayhawks can deeply move me.)

But I challenge anyone to walk among these wounded warriors and not be chilled by their skill, intensity and commitment to excellence.

I was so impressed I’m going to catch a few more events before the games end Thursday. (Heck, the events are free. So why not?)

My introduction to the games came Saturday, when I volunteered at the Olympic Training Center shooting range prior to the opening ceremonies. On Sunday, my wife, Cary, and I took our son, Ben, to the Air Force Academy to watch the bicycle races.

I admit it was a bit shocking at first, to see so many folks in wheelchairs or on crutches with prosthetic limbs and obvious scars of battle wounds.

But that faded quickly and all we saw were great athletes.

Like all athletes, they talked smack to each other. And they took their competition seriously.

I tried to imagine the burn in their biceps, backs and guts as riders with no legs pedaled with their arms.

It was incredibly inspiring to see these athletes, many of them recently injured, straining to complete their races, their faces covered with sweat, fans cheering wildly and waving “warrior” towels. I was among them.

Unlike most sports events, we cheered for everyone.

If you haven’t caught any of the action yet, please turn off the reality show, log out of Facebook and get yourself down to the U.S. Olympic Training Center or out to the Air Force Academy.

On Tuesday, the schedule is packed. From 8 a.m.-4 p.m., watch track and field at the academy’s outdoor track stadium.

Wheelchair basketball is scheduled at 5 p.m.-6:30 p.m. at the academy’s Clune Arena. Sitting volleyball is scheduled 7 p.m.-9 p.m. at the arena.

On Wednesday, Clune Arena hosts archery at 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m., then bronze-medal basketball at 4:30 p.m. and medal games in volleyball beginning at 6:30 p.m. Finally, the gold medal basketball game begins at 8:30 p.m.

Warrior swimmers will take to the academy pool on Thursday, 9 a.m.- 3 p.m.

(You can see details of the schedule at http://www.teamusa.org/warriorgames)

There’s something for everyone.

Go out. Cheer for them. Encourage them. Thank them.

You won’t be disappointed.

And if you are like me, you may need your warrior towel when the event is over . . . to wipe away your tears.

The Olympic Training Center shooting range was packed Monday for Wounded Warrior competition. Photo by Cary Vogrin / The Gazette

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Jan Doran

Longtime Colorado Springs neighborhood activist Jan Doran was honored Friday by El Paso County for her years of volunteer service to the region.

Readers of Side Streets will recognize Doran as a leader of the Council of Neighbors & Organizations during a period when the umbrella group of area neighborhoods elevated its profile at the city and county levels.

Doran also has served on countless volunteer boards and organized workshops in her seeming tireless commitment to public service.

Here are comments made by El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark at the Friday volunteer appreciation breakfast:

“From county fair to storm water task force, it’s hard to attend an El Paso County function or participate in a serious long range discussion without hearing her name,” Clark said of Doran.

Clark then listed some of Doran’s contributions: founding member of the Citizens Outreach Group;  member of the Citizens Budget Oversight Committee; the Department of Human Services Advisory Commission; the Fair & Events Complex Advisory Board; and the Pikes Peak Regional Stormwater Task Force.

“She has is truly a force for the good of this community,” Clark said. “”It’s good thing she doesn’t work by the hour because we couldn’t possibly afford to pay her for all she does to support this county and this community.”

Jim Abbott

Also honored Friday was Jim Abbott, who received the 2013 Jack L. Blackwell Award for the Outstanding County Volunteer for giving more than 3,000 volunteer hours to the Veterans Services office helping veterans and their families secure benefits.

Commissioner Amy Lathen had this to say about Abbott:

“Jim Abbott has been there in the Veterans Services office for more than five years now,” Lathen said. “Most often, Jim is the first person they meet when veterans, widows and dependents come through the door.  Many have already tried to navigate a web of federal rules and procedures required to get veterans benefits and all they know for sure is that they need help.  So it’s a real relief when Jim Abbot meets them at our door with warm, courteous professional and confident greeting.”

The appreciate breakfast recognized all the folks who donate their time to46 different advisory boards, commissions, task forces and working groups.

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Snow flies as baby Great Horned Owls peer from their nest in the Mountain Shadows area Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

Did we mess up by telling the Pikes Peak region about the Great Horned owlets in Mountain Shadows?

Some Gazette readers think so and are telling us, sometimes in harsh terms, via letters and phone messages.

I don’t think we did and I’ll tell you why.

Photo by Mark Reis / The Gazette

First, a recap.

On May 2, we ran a beautiful photo of snow swirling around three baby Great Horned owls huddled in their nest in a Mountain Shadows tree.

The photo, by Mark Reis, our director of photography, also took another showing a woman standing under the tree, holding a child to get a better view. Two other children stood by her.

In his photo caption, Reis reported hundreds of people had been stopping to view the owlets.

And he quoted Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Michael Seraphin warning people to keep a safe distance because the owlets’ parents might attack anyone getting too close to the nest. They are capable of doing serious injury with their sharp talons.

Three Great Horned owlets captured from a tree in Mountain Shadows are living at the Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center where they will be taught to hunt and fly before being released back into the wild in September. Photo courtesy Donna Ralph / Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center

Despite the warnings, people kept showing up at the corner of Centennial Boulevard and Vindicator Drive in large numbers. Reportedly, some climbed the tree and even prodded the nest with a long pole.

Police were called. Barriers erected. Warnings issued.

Finally, the owlets were removed last week by wildlife officials who feared for the safety of the owls and the public.

Today, the owlets are rehabbing at the Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center where founder Donna Ralph and her staff are caring for the trio. Donna reports the birds are thriving, eating on their own mice left for them, and socializing with Hootie, an adult owl and permanent center resident. Hootie serves as a foster mom to owl babies routinely brought to the center.

Some readers criticized folks who harassed the owls, expressing disgust for their lack of respect for nature.

Others, however, ripped The Gazette for revealing the location of the owls.

So I asked Mark why he thought it was important to photograph the owls and publish their location.

He said wildlife photos are among the most popular features in The Gazette.

“Wildlife is part of the reason many of us live here,” he said. “Most of us love the fact we interact with wildlife nearly every day, all year long.

“By photographing them and reporting their location, we were just offering readers an opportunity to come and see them.”

The owls were not a secret. Hundreds in the area already had seen them. Mark said 30 or so people came by in the time he was there taking photos.

It was the same thing with the injured mule deer with the spectacular antlers that perched for weeks on a ledge in Rockrimmon earlier this winter. Hundreds of people were coming to see the deer and ignoring wildlife officials’ warnings to keep a safe distance from the injured wild animal.

Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

Our readers depend on us to tell them what is going on in the community. Not protect them from information. Our job is to hold us a mirror to the community, whether you like what you see or not.

Had we withheld the location of the owls or deer, we’d have been bombarded with angry callers demanding to know. We’re in the information business, after all. And you trust us to tell you the truth.

If you can’t trust us to tell you something as simple as the location of a nest of owls, what other information might we be “protecting” from our readers?

Certainly it’s disappointing some people abused the privilege we enjoy of living so close to nature.

But it’s not the job of the daily paper to withhold information from readers. Just the opposite.

If we stumble on a great restaurant, we’re going to tell you. Or we find an obscure trail that readers might enjoy, you better believe we’ll write about it. Know a great spot to encounter big horn sheep? We’ll spread the word.

That’s what readers expect and demand from us. We do so with the expectation folks will be responsible and take official warnings to heart.

Sadly, some won’t. And if they do it with the wrong animal, they might get bitten or mauled or injured.

We’ll write about that, as well.

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TO SPONSOR THE OWLS

The three hungry Great Horned owlets are stretching the budget of the non-profit Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center mighty thin, said founder Donna Ralph.

She would welcome tax-deductible donations from interested sponsors. Learn more at http://ellicottwildlife.com

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Barriers and warning signs did not stop people from harassing a nest of Great Horned owlets in a tree in Mountain Shadows. Photo by Kassondra Cloos / The Gazette

Mary Bigler, 83, seen here May 7, 2013, has sold tools at Sears on Southgate Road in the Broadmoor Towne Center since 1982. She went back to school to become a teacher and took a weekend job at Sears after her husband died, leaving her as a single parent with four children. She hopes to work “until they carry me out on a gurney.”

Mary Bigler isn’t quite Rosie the Riveter, the World War II icon of American women who left their homes by the thousands to work in factories building planes and munitions in support of the war effort.

Welcome to Walmart!

And she’s certainly not a Walmart greeter — older folks hired to stand at the doors of the retail giant welcoming shoppers.

Mary falls somewhere in between as an 83-year-old tool saleswoman at Sears on Southgate Road in the Broadmoor Towne Center mall.

Need a router? Just ask Mary.

“I’ve always been fascinated by them,” she said, describing how she built a birdhouse using a router just so she’d know what she was selling.

Maybe you need a drill. Mary has two at the home east of downtown where she has lived most of her life since her family moved to Colorado Springs during the Great Depression in 1936.

She was just 6 at the time but remembers her family leaving their farm in Missouri and taking a train here in search of work. They were poor and didn’t have a car until she was an adult. For years they lived in rentals near the Union Printers Home where her mother walked to work each day. (When it snowed, her mother wrapped her feet in newspapers because they couldn’t afford boots.)

Mary Bigler

Perhaps you need a finish sander or sabre saw. Mary is adept with each and can help you find just what you need.

“Whenever I need to know about a tool, I call her,” said Mary’s son, Methodist minister Ed Bigler of Sterling. “She knows that stuff inside and out.”

That wasn’t the case in 1982 when she took the job.

“I knew nothing about tools,” she said. “I learned on the sales floor.”

At the time, Mary was a widow and single parent and needed the income and benefits. Her beloved husband, Edgar, had died at age 50 in 1971. She had three older children but still had a 7-year-old daughter at home to raise.

Mary met Edgar at a drugstore downtown in 1945 after he returned from the war. He’d been a tailgunner in a B-17 and flowed 36 missions over Germany, his son said. They were married a few months later.

When he died, Ed Bigler said his mother drew on her history of hard work.

“She was determined to live life on her own and provide for her own needs,” he said.

Going back to work, even in a job she knew nothing about, came naturally. Just as her father had quit farming, moved the family and become a common laborer to support their family all those year ago.

Mary also went back to school. It took her 10 years of night school until she earned a teaching degree from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Once she completed the degree, she taught at Hunt Elementary School for 10 years, still hawking tools on weekends.

“I had expenses and I needed the benefits,” Mary said of her double-duty teaching and selling tools at Sears.

It hasn’t always been easy at Sears.

Early in her hardware sales career, she heard snide comments that she belonged in women’s wear.

And she endured pay cuts, such as in 1992 when the retail giant slashed the hourly pay of sales employees and put them on a commission status.

Mary Bigler seen on microfilm in Feb. 21, 1992, Gazette-Telegraph photo for a story about Sears slashing pay for sales clerks to save money. She went from making $7.50 an hour to $4.50 an hour plus a 1 percent commission. She needed to sell $300 worth of hardware every hour she worked to recoup her lost pay. Jerilee Bennett / The Gazette file

Mary went from making $7.50 an hour to $4.50 an hour, plus a 1 percent commission. To recoup her lost hourly pay, Mary figured she had to sell $300 worth of hardware every hour she worked. Of course, she never did and even now only makes a $6 hourly base.

Even with her Social Security, Mary said she needs the extra income and so she works three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday, typically about four hours a day.

Over the years, she’s become pretty knowledgeable about tools. And she marvels at the innovations she’s witnessed over the years.

“Every year they come out with something new,” she said. “Everything is cordless. I remember the first cordless drill we sold. When we first started selling them, we sold so many that I even dreamed about that drill.”

A mobile, point-of-sale tablet used by Sears and other retailers to reduce the need for customers to stand in line. They can process credit card sales.

She has kept current on the new models with regular training. She can tell you how different attachments available make a new drill actually seven different tools in one.

Besides the tools, Mary said she enjoys the customers.

“Rarely a week goes by that someone doesn’t come in and say: ‘You sold me my first tool set. I’m so glad you’re here,’ ” she said.

Her son says she’s also a fan of music and the arts and is especially fond of the Fine Arts Museum.

“She’s a very cultured woman,” said Ed Bigler, who has been a minister nearly 40 years. “She loves to read. She follows politics assiduously. And until recently, she always raised a big garden.”

I wondered how long Mary planned to continue working.

“Until they carry me out on a gurney,” she said with a chuckle.

Then she turned serious. Seems she’s facing perhaps the biggest challenge of her Sears career. And she genuinely fears it will doom her.

Rosie the Riveter

It’s a mobile “point of sale” tablet that Sears sales clerks are using. Instead of sending customers to stand in line at a cash register, clerks can make credit card transactions on a handheld computer tablet.

“I’m struggling,” said Mary, who doesn’t even own a cell phone much less an iPad. “I’m having a terrible time learning that technology. It might do me in.”

I doubt it, actually.

Just like Rosie the Riveter, Mary is smart and tough and has spent her life working hard and rising to challenges. I’m guessing she’ll have that tablet figured out in no time.

I hope so, cause I’m needing a snow blower and I wouldn’t want to buy it from anyone else!

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The catwalk used by Teddy soon will be no more. Spence, who uses only one name, and Martha Spence say they will not appeal to the homeowners association.
JERRY McBRIDE / Durango Herald

Teddy and Gus will no longer have a second-story escape route into a nearby tree.

The Edgemont Ranch catwalk will be coming down on orders of  the property owners association.

Teddy and Gus are cats. Their owner, Martha Spence, said she has agreed to remove a 13-foot catwalk between her home’s second-floor bathroom and a nearby tree.

It was erected to give the cats access to the outdoors without having to open and close a door for them.

Neighbors were divided on the aesthetics. And the HOA rules were clear: pets are not allowed to roam free outside.

The Durango Herald had this great story.

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Colorado Statehouse

Water-guzzling Kentucky bluegrass and other non-native turf can no longer be mandated by homeowners association covenants under a bill that passed the General Assembly and is awaiting a signature by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

If Senate Bill 183 is signed into law, as expected, it also would stop HOAs from punishing homeowners whose lawns die during times of drought and water restrictions. It was among four last-minute HOA-related bills that passed in the finals days of the 2013 session. A fifth passed earlier.

Known as the xeriscape bill, SB183 still allows HOAs to mandate native grasses on lawns. But not any turfs that have not “been hybridized for arid conditions.”

Molly Foley-Healy, an attorney with the Community Association Institute who tracks HOA bills in the Legislature, said the turf rules would apply in new communities where homeowners are installing new lawns and when homeowners seek HOA permission to relandscape their lawns.

“It doesn’t retroactively apply,” she said.

HOA boards still can regulate the type, number and placement of drought-tolerant plants in a lawn, she said. And it won’t prohibit a homeowner from installing bluegrass and another thirsty turf, if they like. But the common mandate that a lawn must be 50 percent bluegrass would be outlawed along with penalties for any lawn that dies amid watering restrictions.

“We think this bill is a pretty good idea,” Foley-Healy said of CAI, which represents residents of HOAs, board members, HOA property managers and other related businesses.

Lawmakers also sent Hickenlooper House Bill 1277 which would require community association managers, management company executives and those who directly supervise managers to be licensed in Colorado.

The professional managers and their supervisors would have to hold CAI credentials or a similar certification from another trade association and be able to pass a state test demonstrating a knowledge of state laws governing HOAs as well as basic finance and budget skills.  The bill requires managers to submit to background checks and fingerprinting, and to pass a state test to obtain a license.

David Stiver of Team Strategy

David Stiver, founder of Team Strategy, one of Colorado Springs’ HOA and property management companies, has a problem with the law specifying CAI credentials as a route to certification.

“I think it’s inappropriate,” said Stiver, who said he’s a CAI member. “That’s like saying you have to be a member of the NRA to qualify for a qualify for a license to carry a firearm in Colorado.”

Complaints about property managers in HOAs — single-family home neighborhoods, condos and townhome complexes —  led to the move for licensing. Supporters argued the estimated 500 property managers need to demonstrate they are qualified to handle large sums they collect in dues and fines, to understand legal contracts and to oversee open meetings and abide by laws governing liens and foreclosure on the estimated 2 million Coloradans living in 8,000 or more HOA communities.

Another bill headed to the governor, HB1134, would require all HOAs, no matter how large or when they were created, to register with the HOA Information Office and Resource Center. The bill was heavily amended from its original form and no longer expands the office and to grant it investigative and enforcement powers against HOA boards.

Foley-Healy said the bill orders further study of the need for a watchdog function. The experiences of states with aggressive HOA enforcement agencies, including Nevada, Virginia and Florida, will be included in the study.

Also in the late hours of the 2013 session, lawmakers passed HB1276 to revise the way HOAs collect delinquent dues and fines, and setting specific rules for pursuing foreclosure actions against homeowners passed and awaits consideration by the governor.

It requires HOAs to have specific collection policies that include mandating a delinquent homeowner be offered a payment plan and be given six months to get caught up before pursuing foreclosure.

“The CAI supported them all,” Foley-Healy said. “We worked closely with legislators who sponsored them and we felt they reached a nice middle ground.”

Earlier, lawmakers passed SB126 requiring HOAs to accommodate owners who want to install electric car-charging stations in a complex parking lot. It has been signed into law.

See links to the exact bills and more details on my blog.

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