Side Streets   Neighborhoods, people and issues

Can we talk? Just us neighbors?

Maybe to organize to fight a commercial development on vacant land.

Or to get City Hall to listen to our concerns about traffic.

Or to preserve the character of our unique neighborhood.

Some on the Colorado Springs City Council and the Planning Commission say no. You can’t talk. They won’t grant you permission to talk.

Dave Munger in 2011

No kidding. I heard it myself.

The idea that some in Colorado Springs government would dismiss groups of neighbors who organize informally and approach their elected leaders is troubling to the city’s top neighborhood activist, Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors & Organizations.

Munger was puzzled the first time it happened in January when the Planning Commission rejected a request by the Rawles Open Space Neighborhood to initiate a city-sponsored conversation about creating a master plan for 38 large properties along Mesa Road on the city’s west side.

The commission voted 6-3 to deny neighbors the right to talk, demanding the group get agreement from 100 percent of the property owners before having a conversation. It didn’t matter the city code doesn’t require unanimous agreement before a master plan conversation can begin.

Then similar comments were made last week during the City Council meeting. (You can watch the three-hour City Council debate at this link. Selected Item 14 for viewing.)

The Rawles neighborhood leaders presented signatures of 26 homeowners who all want to discuss a master plan. It was not 100 percent but it was near 75 percent agreement.

Janet Suthers

(Janet Suthers, the commission chairwoman, told the City Council during its hearing that her panel really only wanted two-thirds agreement, even though it repeatedly insisted on unanimous agreement.)

Suthers and commission member Don Magill tried to explain to the council that the issue wasn’t about basic democracy and the right to congregate and self-govern, as Munger had tried to argue.

Suthers and Magill said the issue was property rights. And a simple conversation about a master plan, which would declare the neighborhood’s desires to preserve a rural character and open development style, was too dangerous to allow.

Don Magill

That attitude won agreement from three on City Council, including Angela Dougan who wanted to know who had elected the 26 Rawles neighbors to speak for all 38 property owners.

“You have no documentation,” Dougan told Rawles spokesman James Kin. Dougan then tried to discredit Kin and his group by suggesting they were no more legitimate than if she and Councilman Merv Bennett went to a hotel and represented themselves as a married couple.

Nervous laughter erupted on the council. But Munger wasn’t laughing at efforts to knock down the Rawles group because he passionately believes neighborhood groups, no matter how informally organized, ought to be respected and encouraged to get together and talk.

“Democracy ought to be the over-arching goal here,” Munger said. “We ought to be empowering people to have a voice over their own lives.

“If we’re not willing to give people the voice they deserve, we need to rethink our priorities.”

Of course, Munger was buoyed by the final City Council vote, 5-3, to allow the master plan process to begin. And he said he would never advocate letting a majority of neighbors trample the property rights of the minority. Nor would city staff, the commission or council, all of whom must approve any master plan before it is enacted, Munger said.

“There will be lots of opportunities for us to defend those who don’t agree with the majority,” Munger said. “Our history as a city is pretty clear. We’ve always encouraged neighborhoods to have conversations and speak for themselves and decide what their neighborhood ought to look like.

“I’m not sure why anyone would oppose the idea of a conversation.”

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This was the view of the Rawles Open Space along the 1500 block of Mesa Road in the 1940s. Colorado Springs founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer reportedly rode his horse along this route from Glen Eyrie to get downtown. Courtesy Pikes Peak Library District Special Collections.

In 2009, neighborhood advocate Dave Munger asked the Colorado Springs City Council a simple question: What is a neighborhood and who decides?

The council gave an emphatic answer: Size doesn’t matter when it comes to protecting the character of neighborhoods. Tiny pockets of homes, including the westside Rawles Open Space Neighborhood along Mesa Road, can organize even though they are covered by a larger association because they boast unique character and deserve individual recognition. Follow this link to my May 3, 2009, column about the Rawles Open Space Neighborhood.

Neighborhood advocate Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors & Organizations, testifies Jan. 17, 2013, before the Colorado Springs Planning Commission in a screen capture from video.

The council’s declaration was significant because it shielded the rustic Rawles neighborhood, where houses are scattered on large lots without curbs and gutters and even sewers, from a modern, five-house subdivision proposed on five acres in the area. Here’s a link to the follow-up blog I wrote on Nov. 8, 2009.

That history seemed lost on the city Planning Commission last week when the panel voted to reject a request by the same Rawles group for permission to draft a master plan. It would cover 38 properties on 85 acres within the larger Mesa neighborhood.

A master plan, if approved by the planning commission and council, would guide future development in the neighborhood. It might call for houses to be built farther back from the road than required by city codes, or seek to impose stricter height restrictions and other rules for construction.

The planning commission decided to stop the conversation before it could even get started. To watch the two-hour hearing on the issue, click this link.

Real estate attorney James Kin, a leader of the Rawles Open Space Neighborhood, testifies Jan. 17, 2013, before the Colorado Springs Planning Commission in a screen capture from video.

Several commissioners challenged the validity of the Rawles group, despite its high-profile recognition by the council. And several flatly rejected the assertion it counts 75 percent of the homeowners among its members, as stated by group leader James Kin, a prominent real estate attorney who has served on similar city commissions.

Commissioner Jeff Markewich put it bluntly: “Other than Mr. Kin’s word, I haven’t seen evidence the organization really represents the neighborhood . . . I just don’t see any evidence that this neighborhood organization really is representative of the vast majority of people in the neighborhood.”

Ouch.

Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors & Organizations, or CONO, tried to persuade the panel to let the master plan conversation occur so the neighbors can try to draft a plan.

“In our view, neighborhoods are one of the basic ways in which we, as a community, exercise and conduct democracy,” he said. “It’s the basic way we come together to solve problems. One thing CONO tries hard to do is to encourage neighborhood discussion of important issues.

“We would view this draft plan as the beginning of that discussion.”

Colorado Springs Planning Commissioner Don Magill gestures as he pointedly questions attorney James Kin about the Rawles Open Space Neighborhood in testimony Jan. 17, 2013, in a screen capture from video.

But Commissioner Don Magill took offense at Munger’s suggestion, snapping: “You just gave us a lecture on how we should deal with this. Thank you.”

Commissioners repeatedly questioned Kin, Munger and others about how the Rawles group, or any neighborhood group, gets officially recognized. Who at the city, one asked, certifies a neighborhood association? What are the criteria?

Clearly the commission was trying to discredit Kin’s group as not a credible association. And several accused Kin and his group of having a hidden agenda.

“This is actually an attempt to get control of somebody else’s property through a kind of esoteric, indirect fashion,” said Commissioner Robert Shonkwiler.

The majority didn’t seem to care that master plans are a common tool for preserving the character of a neighborhood and routinely written by developers, the city and even, in rare instances, neighborhoods themselves.

Most baffling to Kin, Munger and others was the insistence by the commission that 100 percent of the 38 property owners agree to the master plan process.

Kim insisted the commission didn’t have legal authority to demand unanimous approval of the neighborhood to simply draft a proposed plan.

“Not only do we believe the code does not allow you to add additional requirements such as 100 percent participation, but we also don’t believe it is good governance,” Kin said.

Magill fired back.

“That’s what I want to do,” he said, pointing at Kin. “That’s what we’re saying. That’s what we want to do.”

And Munger noted the 75 percent agreement was more than the super majority vote needed to pass laws, overturn a veto or amend neighborhood covenants in most homeowners associations.

But the majority on the commission was unswayed. Magill said to simply allow the discussion would give sanction to the group and tacit approval to its master plan.

“To approve you to go forward with a master plan opens Pandora’s box,” Magill said.

Now, the council will get a chance to decide because the Rawles group has appealed the commission’s rejection, Kin said Friday.

He acknowledges he probably angered some on the commission by drafting a proposed master plan and passing it around the neighborhood prior to getting commission approval. And he denies the group tried to bully folks who recently bought vacant lots in the neighborhood, as was suggested.

“We have a unique little stretch and we think it’s worth preserving,” Kin said. “I hope they (the council) will be open-minded.

A 2009 view of the Rawles Open Space, a 7.6-acre tract named for the former owners of the property. It was deeded to the Palmer Land Trust for preservation. Another 19-acre tract nearby also is owned by the Trust, which works to secure conservation easements to preserve undeveloped land. The 38 homes sprinkled amid the open space adopted its name.

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Amy Filipiak is watching for the skies to turn white.

When they do, if all goes according to plans, teams of Snow Angels will emerge to clear sidewalks within at least 1,500 feet of a half dozen schools in the region.

Filipiak and a group of neighborhood leaders and city officials have spent a year organizing Snow Angels around these elementary schools: Steele, Carver and West in District 11, Pikes Peak in D2, Frontier in D20 and Odyssey in D49.

Eventually, Filipiak hopes to see similar teams spread to all elementary schools in the Pikes Peak region.

“We put together a pilot program to see how best to get people to participate,” she said.

Amy credits the idea to bicycling advocate Al Brody. Both believe snow should never block a child’s path to school so they set about organizing teams of Snow Angels to clear the way.

Amy Filipiak, leader of the Snow Angel army

Brody sought out Amy because of her role as volunteer coordinator for the area’s Safe Routes to School program, which program promotes walking and biking to school by building sidewalks and bike paths, training crossing guards, installing bike racks at schools and encouraging students and families to participate.

Since Congress authorized it in 2005, the program has distributed $612 million in grants to more than 10,400 schools nationwide, covering 4.8 million children.

Filipiak then approached the city’s traffic engineering department and the Council of Neighbors & Organizations, the umbrella organization for area neighborhood groups.

CONO president Dave Munger said his folks quickly saw the potential and began contacting neighborhood associations where they might test the idea, such as the Old North End and the Organization of Westside Neighbors.

“Part of being a good neighbor is making sure kids can get to school safely without slipping and sliding,” Munger said.

CONO treasurer John Nuwer said the city embraced the idea and printed door hangers to help get the word out to residents within a radius of the six schools in the pilot program.

“They also printed some nice decals to give people who shovel their sidewalks to let people know you are a Snow Angel,” Nuwer said.

The program benefits more than just school children, said Vic Appugliese, president of the Old North End group.

Nobody wants to see Grandma out plowing her own sidewalk.

“This will help elderly neighbors who can no longer pick up a shovel. It will help us identify those folks and get them help,” he said. “This is a great program. We have a lot of pedestrians in our neighborhood. This is about helping everybody.”

There’s just one problem.

It hasn’t snowed enough to trigger the program.

When it does, the group is ready.

“We’re hoping a little bit of awareness will get people out to shovel their walks,” Filipiak said.

Are you ready, Snow Angels? The kids are counting on you! 

Here's the 1,500-foot radius around Steele Elementary in the Old North End Neighborhood. It's approximately three blocks in every direction. Organizers hope Snow Angels will clear all sidewalks in the zone each time it snows.

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Chip Landman testifies before the Colorado Springs City Council, sitting in its dual role as the Utilities Board, on Sept. 21, 2011.

In 2006, Chip Landman bought a dilapidated building out of foreclosure and started making plans to restore it — exactly the kind of “infill” development City Hall has promoted for years.

Due to the recession, the building sat until 2009 when Landman learned from Colorado Springs Utilities that it would cost him thousands to reconnect the water and sewer services, which had been shut off when the bank took the property back years earlier.

The huge cost of essentially turning a water valve created what Landman called “a chilling effect on redevelopment of old blighted properties.”

It seems most of the Colorado Springs City Council agree and will consider slashing fees for restoring utility service based on sweeping changes suggested by Utilities staff.

Colorado Springs City Council president Scott Hente

“I’ve heard support for bringing this forward to City Council,” council President Scott Hente told the staff at an Oct. 19 meeting of the council, sitting as the Utilities Board. The council is expected to consider the new fees Dec. 13.

Besides making it cheaper to redevelop commercial property, the proposed fee reductions would apply to residential properties, which have gone into foreclosure by the thousands.

For decades, Utilities didn’t charge to restore utilities unless a property sat disconnected five years or longer. At that point it was deemed abandoned and fees imposed.

In 2006, the codes changed and service was not considered abandoned until 10 years elapsed. Also, Utilities instituted a two-year grace period, after which service restoration fees were imposed. Beginning in 2010, the abandonment period was extended to 20 years.

Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations

Under the proposal Utilities proposed, the two-year grace period would grow to five years. And fees would drop. For example, instead of paying about $10,000 to reconnect residential service deemed abandoned, it would be capped at $3,008.

Savings would be even greater for commercial customers. For a 2-inch meter inactive 10 years, reconnection would drop from about $14,000 to about $4,600. And restoring abandoned service would plunge from the current $116,000 to $14,000.

The proposed fee reduction is welcome news to neighborhood activist Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors & Organizations. He said he’s heard many complaints about the fees.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest to figure out ways to encourage infill,” Munger said. “I’m glad to hear Utilities is rethinking its position on reconnection fees.”

Andrew Knauf stands outside his house on West Pikes Peak Avenue. He turned off the utilities in 1993. When he called to get service reconnected about three months ago, he was told it would cost more than $11,000. He is appealing.

It’s unclear if the new fees will help Andrew Knauf, who turned off utilities in 1993 to a house he owns on West Pikes Peak Avenue.

When he tried to restore water and sewer a few months ago, he was told it would cost more than $11,000. He is appealing.

“We’re talking about turning a valve,” Knauf said. “I can’t afford $11,000.”

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Are you afraid in your neighborhood?

Scared to walk at night?

What about the daytime?

A new survey reports that fewer than 50 percent of folks in the Pikes Peak Region feel “very safe” walking their neighborhoods at night!

The 2011 survey of the Quality of Life Indicators in the Pikes Peak Region released Friday reports the number of people who feel “very safe” walking in their neighborhoods at night has dropped below 50 percent.

According to the report, 82 percent of people surveyed feel “very safe” or “somewhat safe” strolling their neighborhoods in the day.

But when night falls, the number drops to just 71 percent. And fewer than half feel “very safe.”

I was shocked.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no macho man. Over the years, I’ve been scared, day and night, visiting certain neighborhoods . . . the housing projects in Chicago, the Tenderloin in San Francisco, or any neighborhood in Oakland, East St. Louis and Kansas City, Kan.

But never have I felt fear in Colorado Springs.

I know there are neighborhoods here where you can get robbed or shot . . . Briargate, Peregrine, Flying Horse, Broadmoor.

Let’s face it, any neighborhoods where there are nice cars, fancy homes and money are targets of crime.

The only fear I’ve felt walking at night in the Springs is from the rare mountain lion or frequent black bear who roam our region. I’ve seen mother bears get pretty aggressive around humans at dusk. I even faced one in my own garage.

But the survey is talking about fear from humans and that is much different. And it doesn’t seem to matter that the crime rate in the region is 10 points below the national average.

Colorado Springs neighborhood activist Dave Munger and Mayor Steve Bach spoke at a news conference in September 2011.

So I asked neighborhood guru Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, about the findings.

“I’m a little concerned,” Munger said, noting that some of the fear may be related to another finding of the survey that showed the city’s police are solving fewer crimes than ever.

The so-called “crime clearance rate” dropped to 22 percent in 2010 in Colorado Springs and it was 27 percent in El Paso County. In Fountain, the rate was just 23 percent.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a great solution for this,” Munger said. “The question is: How do we make sure we are providing a safe environment for all our citizens and good a quality of life for all citizens regardless of their ability to pay for it?”

On the positive side, he said, the survey showed a growth in the number of neighborhood organizations. There are about 200.

“That’s a terrific thing,” he said. “Neighborhood and community organizations are where we learn to work together and understand what it means to live and work together. They are basic units of democracy.

“When a neighborhood is organized and makes decisions to improve the quality of life, it will impact the people in the immediate vicinity in a positive manner.”

Wonder if those neighborhood groups are good at solving crimes?

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Nancy Strong didn’t know she was ahead of the curve when she led an effort to transform a deteriorating piece of abandoned Santa Fe Railway right-of-way in the Shooks Run neighborhood.

The property, at the southeast corner of El Paso Street and Willamette Avenue, was a bend in the railroad abandoned after the last train passed in 1971.

Over the years, it had grown weedy and nasty.

It bothered Nancy, especially because it was across from the Middle Shooks Run Park and adjacent to a Mountain Metro Transit bus stop.

So after the bus stop was rebuilt last fall to make it handicapped accessible, Nancy was inspired to transform the right-of-way as well.

She led and public-private effort to rehab an old bend in the railroad and make it an attractive corner that would look good for years with minimal water or weeding.

The corner of El Paso Street and Willamette Avenue has been transformed by the Middle Shooks Run Neighborhood Association from weeds and dirt into a landscape of trees and shrubs sustainable in our dry climate.

First, she enlisted her friends in the Middle Shooks Run Neighborhood Association for ideas and help.

Then she started contacted Metro Transit where she found Bill Bottini, who helped her get approval to redirect $500 the agency planned to use reseeding the area and use the cash for landscaping.

Nancy turned to area businesses for donations and got donations and discounts on boulders, dirt, landscaping materials, trees, shrubs, flowers and mulch.

Finally, it was up to neighborhood volunteers to sculpt everything into the streetscape that exists today.

Long-term, the plants will need little water. Hopefully, they will get by on natural rainfall and snowmelt.

And the mulch will suppress weed growth to keep the properpty attractive with minimal labor.

Turns out, Nancy and her neighbors doing the exact kind of public/private project envisioned by Mayor Steve Bach when he announced formation Wednesday of a Streetscapes Solution Team.

The team will be led by longtime neighborhood activist Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, an umbrella group for the city’s neighborhood associations.

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To date, the answer is no. No neighborhood organizer/activist has ever been elected mayor of Colorado Springs.

The mayor typically is a product of the establishment . . . a banker, attorney, businessman, a leader of a non-profit or some other executive.

Even as neighborhoods have grown in sophistication, political savvy and influence at City Hall, they have not produced mayoral timber. 

Sallie Clark

The most successful product of a grassroots neighborhood movement, Sallie Clark, tried twice to win the mayor’s seat and lost. 

In 1999, she finished third to incumbent Mary Lou Makepeace and car dealer Will Perkins. 

Then in 2003 she again finished a close third behind winner Lionel Rivera and Ted Eastburn.

Another neighborhood leader who joined her on the council was Margaret Radford.  They were followed by Tom Gallagher.

In 2004 Clark deepened her political resume when she was elected to the El Paso County Commission.

Margaret Radford, former neighborhood activist and two-term member of the Colorado Springs City Council

She’s watching with interest the upcoming race for mayor. That’s because the race includes two men whose roots are in neighborhood organizing like hers: Gallagher and Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, or CONO, the umbrella organization for the city’s neighborhood associations.

Clark is wondering, like I am, if their backgrounds in neighborhood leadership, will translate into votes for mayor.

Radford surprised me with her analysis. Having come from a neighborhood organizer/activist background, I expected her to echo the need for our next mayor to have strong neighborhood sensibilities and perhaps roots similar to hers.

However, Radford said neighborhoods don’t have the corner on leadership training. She urged voters to elect the candidate with the best character, leadlership skills and vision. Interesting.

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The Council of Neighbors and Organizations, or CONO, is trying to alert residents of Colorado Springs and El Paso County about the budget crises facing the local governments.

So CONO – a volunteer umbrella group for the city’s neighborhoods - is sponsoring a series of free community forums where folks can come and listen to non-partisan experts discuss the economy and how it is crippling local governments.

Dave Munger, president of CONO, said the group wants to dispel a lot of the misinformation floating around about the city using “scare tactics” to justify a property tax increase and allegations of “socialist conspiracies” and the like.

The first forum was in August. The second was 6:30-8:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Fire Department Complex, 375 Printers Parkway, east of downtown. 

The final forum will be held 6:30-8:30 p.m., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at the West Intergenerational Center, in the old Buena Vista Elementary School at 1628 W. Bijou Street. It will feature a lengthy community discussion of the implications of the previous two forums. 

 Initial comments will be made by by:

Dave Csintyan, CEO of the Greater Pikes Peak Area Chamber of Commerce;

Jan Doran, past president of CONO

 Steve Pope, publisher of the Gazette.  Ample free parking is available on site.

  The Pikes Peak Library District is showing the sessions online and on Comcast Cable Channel 17. Below is a screen capture of Dave Munger at the first CONO forum.

CONO’s first economic forum featured Colorado Springs City Manager Penny Culbreth-Graft and El Paso County Administrator Jeff Greene. That session can be viewed on cable on this schedule:

• September 21, Monday 7:30 p.m.
• October 11, Sunday, 6 p.m.
• October 15, Thursday, 9 p.m. 

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