Side Streets   Neighborhoods, people and issues

El Paso County Commissioner Dennis Hisey

Recently, El Paso County Commissioner Dennis Hisey suggested an energy company’s plan to drill three exploratory wells likely won’t cause “a lot of heart burn” because the sites aren’t “getting close to people’s barns and houses.”

I tried to reach Hisey for days to ask him about that observation because I’m hearing from neighbors who are grabbing for rolls of Tums at the thought of Englewood-based Ultra Resources converting the Banning-Lewis Ranch from a sprawling subdivision into a massive oil and natural gas field.

Especially concerned are the 700-plus homeowners in Colorado Centre and another 70 or so homeowners in adjacent Cuchares Ranch.

They rely on four wells drilled into the shallow alluvium of Jimmy Camp Creek to supply their drinking water. They are frightened by the thought of wildcatters a few miles away using a controversial technique of “hydraulic fracturing” in which they blast chemicals and water into shale formations to break the rock and release oil and gas.

Critics blame the so-called fracking technique for damaging the environment and contaminating underground drinking water supplies.

“Some of our residents have come to us with questions,” said Joan Lucia-Treese, a member of the Colorado Centre Metro District board. “The first of the three wells is not terribly far from us. Some residents are concerned. Our board has concerns.”

The well in question would be at the corner of Drennan and Curtis roads, about three miles south of Schriever Air Force Base and about six miles east of Colorado Centre and Cuchares Ranch.

What could go wrong?

Enough, actually, that many residents are worried.

But drilling, apparently, can’t be banned. Only regulated. And folks in Colorado Centre want their elected officials to take a hard look at the project.

“We’re not trying to stop anyone from drilling,” said Al Testa, manager of the metro district. “But if there is any contamination, it’s going to get to us very quickly because our water is alluvium water. Not from a deep aquifer.”

Colorado Centre, with Jimmy Camp Creek on the right, as seen from www.FlashEarth.com

In other words, it flows just below the surface so it’s especially vulnerable to contamination.

“We want to make sure there is a mitigation plan in case they end up polluting our community’s only water source,” Testa said.

Seems reasonable. Wish I could have asked Hisey about it and, perhaps, gotten some assurances.

“Our concern is ‘what if’ and what do we do,” Lucia-Treese said. “Who makes the call in the event of an accident?

“What happens in that 24- to 48-hour period before the state declares an emergency and the oil company must begin remediation? Am I buying tons of bottled water for our 800 homes?  How long do we have to wait for reimbursement from the oil company? What kind of remediation can we expect?”

Makes me want to say: No fracking way!

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The Woodmen Hills Metro District wants the El Paso County Commission to give it the authority to enforce covenants in filings 1-10 of the subdivision in unincorporated Falcon, northeast of Colorado Springs.

Only the 900 homes in filing 11 have a homeowners association enforcing covenants. The other 1,200 homes, in filings 1-10, have covenants attached to their homes but no active HOA to enforce them.

And that’s the way many seem to like it.

When the metro district began enforcing them in 2008, resident Chuck Warne led a group of residents who sued to stop.

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A recreation center in Woodmen Hills.

In May 2009, a district judge slam-dunked the  Metro District.

Then, in June 2010, the Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s decision.

Case closed, right? Ha!

The metro district is determined to get authority to resume policing violations of covenants — rules governing parking, landscaping, fences, trailers and such.

On Thursday, they tried to convince the El Paso County Commission to give it the authority as part of a new “service plan” it is seeking.

The proposed service plan also would allow the district to raise its maximum debt authorization to $53 million from its current $16.2 million cap. And it would give the district a maximum mill levy of 60 mills. I found it interesting the covenant issue generated the most controversy.

Residents lined up to denounce the metro district and its previous efforts at enforcing covenants and to plead with the five commissioners to strip the provision from the service plan.

Among those testifying was Chuck Warne, who moved to Woodmen Hills in 2003 and sued in 2008 to stop the enforcement.

“You’ve got a very small group of people trying to impose their will on the majority of people,” Warne said. He said if residents want covenant enforcement, they can do it themselves.

“It’s up to the residents themselves if they want covenant enforcement,” he said. “They can create an HOA under their home rule powers. We don’t need the Metro District involved. They don’t listen to the people. They don’t care.”

Larry Bishop

Before Thursday’s hearing, Metro District manager Larry Bishop said many residents want covenants enforced and his board is responding to that demand.

“There’s a misunderstanding about whether the metro district is going to become a dictatorship and force covenant enforcement down peoples’ throats,” he said. “Voters will decide. It will be a simple ballot question: Shall covenants be enforced in this filing?”

I’ve spoken to folks in Woodmen Hills who would welcome the proposed vote in May 2012 and the enforcement of covenants.

They say there are too many RVs and trailers parked on the streets and other issues.

But it was enforcement horror stories that got the attention of commissioners Amy Lathen and Darryl Glenn last week.

“We’ve heard outrageous examples of abuse,” Lathen said, adding that she’s never gotten a request for enforcement from Woodmen Hills residents. “But I’ve heard many complaints.”

The commission delayed action until December. I’m guessing whatever the decision, the fight will go on.

Here’s a link to an independent Woodmen Hills Info website.

To read briefs filed in the appeal, click here.

Follow this link to the Court of Appeals decision upholding the judge’s decision.

The attorneys for the metro district wrote this letter explaining their position.

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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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Round One goes to the Van Wormers. But Round Two is already costing them cash.

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Cynthia Van Wormer kisses one of the birds she breeds and sells from her home in Woodmoor. The neighborhood homeowners association has ordered her to move her business because it violates covenants prohibiting animal breeding. Photo courtesy of KRDO Newschannel 13.

Cynthia and Thomas Van Wormer convinced the El Paso County Commission on Thursday to wink at state laws and county ordinances and let them keep their Rocky Mountain Bird Farm & Pet Supply in their Woodmoor home.

Thomas and Cynthia Van Wormer spoke Thursday to the El Paso County Commission in defense of their Rocky Mountain Bird Farm & Pet Supply business that they operate from their Woodmoor home.

It didn’t bother three members of the commission — Wayne Williams, Amy Lathen and Dennis Hisey — that the business violates state and county rules for home businesses and bird breeding.

Williams said if neighbors can’t hear or smell the birds, then the government should butt out. I call the policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Smell.”

The three commissioners’ attitude incensed the Woodmoor Improvement Association, which is the homeowners association for the 3,000-home community in the woods east of Monument.

WIA President Chuck Maher called the commissioners gutless and said he wished he hadn’t voted for them. And he vowed the WIA would do what the commission didn’t have the spine to do.

Thomas Van Wormer, business partner Shawn Rapley, and Cynthia Van Wormer listen to testimony Thursday before the El Paso County Commission.

“We will enforce our covenants,” Maher said, vowing to use all means necessary including asking a judge for a restraining order to evict the business from the home.

In fact, the wheels of HOA justice already are turning.

On Friday, the WIA won a court decision against the Van Wormers over legal fees associated with fighting a restraining order the couple brought against the association in October.

The WIA submitted fees of about $1,600 in that case.

And the couple now is liable for daily fines stemming from their home business.

At a November WIA board meeting, the couple was found to be in violation of two covenants. Board members described it as a tense meeting in which Cynthia Van Wormer shouted and used obscenities in addressing the board and neighbors.

It fined them $50 for barking dog violations and $50 for having an unapproved home business, according to WIA attorney Debra Oppenheimer.

Both fines were suspended to let the couple remedy the violations. When their two wolf hybrids were shipped to a sanctuary in California late last month, they avoided the first fine.

But Oppenheimer said the home business continues to operate and the $50 fine will be reinstated along with a $25 daily fine that will accrue until the business is gone. The daily fine took effect Dec. 31, meaning the couple now owes $250 and counting!

I tried to talk to the Van Wormers about all this.

Cynthia Van Wormer called the commission’s decision “fair” but declined to tell me her next move. Instead, she attacked me, accusing me of slanting my original column against them.

Cynthia got very angry when I asked her about her testimony to the commission in which she said only about 25 percent of her 1883-square-foot home is dedicated to the business.

I reminded her that she told me her entire basement — about 1,000 square feet — is filled with 50 birds and she had put her living room and dining room furniture in storage to accomodate another 48 birds. That sounded like far more than 25 percent — the legal limit — to me.

Thomas and their business partner, Shawn Rapley, also criticized me and accused me of being unfair in my portrayal of them.

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Cynthia Van Wormer can’t understand why her neighbors care if she keeps 100 exotic birds, breeds them and sells them from her modest ranch home in Woodmoor, east of Monument.

She doesn’t understand why anyone thinks her Akita dogs were vicious or dangerous and had to be destroyed.

And she’s angry the county forced her to send her wolf-hybrids to a shelter in California.

She hopes her response to complaints will convince the El Paso County Commission to let her keep her menagerie. At least her birds and her business at her home.

“It’s really sad I can’t live and run a little business in my own home and be left alone,” Van Wormer said Wednesday.

She blames her neighbor, John Clark, for her problems. He has filed repeated complaints against Van Wormer over her animals. It goes back to 2002 when one of Van Wormer’s dogs, Kai, left her yard and attacked his golden retriever pups.

The humane society impounded Kai, held it 101 days before a judge released the dog and it returned home. A few months later, the dog died unexpectedly and Van Wormer blamed Clark.

Here is a look at the neighborhood from Google Earth:

Here is the packet of information prepared for El Paso County Commissioners by the code enforcement officers to be presented at Thursday’s meeting. Here is the second violation notice mailed in November.

Clark denies Van Wormer’s allegation that he poisoned Kai. And tests of the dog were inconclusive. She sued him anyway and won a small settlement.

Things intensified around 2009 when her bird collection grew to about 100, she got three new Akitas and two wolf-hybrids. She found herself facing complaints from Clark, other neighbors, the Woodmoor Improvement Association and the county.

In September, the three Akitas were destroyed after complaints about vicious fighting. And Van Wormer sent the wolf hybrids to a sanctuary in California a couple weeks ago after county complaints.

And she has sought a restraining order against Clark, accusing him of threatening her life.

He denies making any threats and cites her “erratic” behavior as the reason he’s thinking of moving. He said he is scared of her after a domestic dispute in her home in June 2000 led to her arrest for assault on a police officer. And he cited her use of a gun around 1999, shooting at someone in her home.

What about the shooting in 1999? She says an intruder threatened her life so she grabbed her husband’s gun and fired, being careful to aim about six inches to the side of the man’s head. The man fled and was not immediately caught.

Van Wormer said Thursday the man was caught, eventually, and is incarcerated. But she did not give his name and declined to answer any more questions from me about the incident.

What about that arrest back in June 2000? She said it happened after EL Paso County Sheriff’s deputies answered a call about a domestic dispute at the home. She wanted to throw her husband out of the house. She said he kicked the door in.

But when police arrived, she said one of the officers sexually assaulted her by placing both hands on her breasts and pushing her up against a wall to restrain her. She responded by slapping him. The slap was minor, she said, and didn’t even leave a red mark.

Here’s the police report of the incident. The arresting officers paint a much different, and darker, picture of events.

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And now, more and more of those signs are using Light-Emitting Diodes or LEDs.

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LEDs are super-bright electronic lights.

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 Imagine thousands of the brilliant little suckers flashing messages on a 30-foot-tall billboard outside your bedroom window.

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That’s happening all around the Colorado Springs region: in Security; on Austin Bluffs Parkway near Barnes Road; along U.S. Highway 24 near Petersen Road; and on Powers Boulevard near Galley Road.

All five signs are owned by Lamar Outdoor Advertising, which spent upwards of $250,000 apiece for the boards.

Here’s a photo of a two-sided board on Austin Bluffs, towering over the Fabulous TNT’s strip club:

Neighbors are divided over the LED boards. Some hate the blinking every six seconds as the message changes. Others accept them, grudgingly, as a fact of life.

Here’s a look at one that stands along South Academy Boulevard, in near Bradley Road, in Security. Folks living in modest houses amid the trees behind the storage warehouses are not thrilled with the sign.

 Lamar  owns an estimated 150,000 billboards in 44 states, Canada and Puerto Rico. Of its inventory, about 250 are LEDs.

Advertisers love them because motorists can’t ignore them. They can be networked nationwide. The message can be changed instantly for a single-day promotion. All with just a computer keystroke.

But more cities are banning them because they pose a danger to motorists, who can’t ignore them. And folks living near them object to the bright, blinking signs.

Critics include Scenic Colorado and the Council of Neighbors & Associations.

Denver and Colorado Springs don’t allow them. But they were permitted in El Paso County last year after a staff review.

Here’s a link to the 68-page report prepared for the El Paso County Commission on billboards in the county.

Screen Magazine  describes LEDS as an efficient, effective and ultrabright alternative to incandescent light bulbs.

A light emitting diode (LED) is an electronic light source. The first LED was built in the 1920s by a radio technician who noticed that diodes used in radio receivers emitted light when current was passed through them.

 The LED was introduced as a practical electronic component in 1962 (See Wikipedia). LEDs are considered more energy efficient and require less maintenance than traditional lighting. They also boast a life of about 50,000 hours–more than five years!

If you’ve been to Freemont Street, seen below, in Las Vegas or Times Square in New York City, you’ve seen LEDs in all their glory.

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These new billboards are light-years away the original billboards in the 1830s which advertised: “The circus is coming to town,” according to a history written by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America Inc.

Electronic digital billboards go back about 10 years, again according to OAAA.

Of the 450,000 billboards nationwide, about 2,000 are LEDs but the inventory is growing by the hundreds every year.

The signs cost upwards of $250,000 or more, compared to $5,000 to $50,000 for a traditional billboard.

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Residents of the Eagle Villas neighborhood were shocked when they learned in the winter of 2007 that San Diego attorney Miles Scully, owner of the Gleneagle Golf Course, wanted to close his 10.5-acre driving range.

Here’s a look at Gleneagle from www.FlashEarth.com:

Scully wanted to build 47 patio homes on the property. Right in front of Eagle Villas and the folks who paid a premium to front a golf course. They organized a massive neighborhood effort, including an online newsletter, to oppose the project.

 The subsequent fight has been the subject of several Side Streets.

Here’s a story I wrote in June, a previous story  from August 2008 and another I wrote in February 2008.

I’ve also blogged about the fight in June and last August. In those blogs, I posted more detail about the project.

Here is a closer look at the driving range and Eagle Villas neighborhood:

Anyway, the El Paso County Commission took up the issue at it’s July 9 meeting and after several hours of testimony and debate voted 3-2 to approve Scully’s rezoning request which would allow him to build the patio homes.

You can listen to a recording of the hearing. Better carve out about three hours, though.

But neighbors are celebrating. They had feared a complete smackdown from the commission. They worried that “property rights” would trump the concerns of neighbors whose property values stand to suffer if the entire golf course eventually is redeveloped into high-density homes as has been suggested by Scully.

The commission gave Scully about a year to come back with a plan to protect the remainder of the 103-acre course from future redevelopment.

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Property rights will be the heart of the debate when the El Paso County Commission takes up a request Thursday from the Gleneagle Golf Club to rezone 10.5 acres, including its driving range, to allow it to build 47 patio homes.

Here is a look at the region from www.FlashEarth.com:

Residents surrounding the golf course, led by the owners of the 28 Eagle Villas townhomes that overlook the driving range, are opposing the rezoning and patio home project. Below is a closer view from www.FlashEarth.com:

Here are preliminary architect’s drawings of the project:

Activists created an action group called GREAT, for the Gleneagle Residents’ Environmental Advocacy Team, to fight the plan.

They raised $10,000 to hire an attorney, produce documents, mailings and set up a Web site to coordinate the battle.

 Now it’s all up to the five-member County Commission to decide whether the needs of the course owner outweigh the needs of dozens of homeowners surrounding the course.  Here is a view from the course.

Here’s a link to my Feb. 24, 2008 column on Gleneagle and its driving range and my blog, as well.

And here is a followup I wrote Aug. 21, 2008 about the conflict. I blogged about it in August, as well.

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