Side Streets   Neighborhoods, people and issues

John Schnake walks past a sandbag wall just above his home on the east side of U.S. 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 sandbags wide. Schnake hopes the sandbags will divert 98 percent of the water that might flow from the burn scar above the homes. “Think of it as a funnel and I live at the bottom of the funnel,” he said.
Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

Debbie and Jesse Cisneros heard the warning about dangerous flash flooding expected below the Waldo Canyon fire scar in coming years for residents of Pleasant Valley.

That warning goes double for folks like Debbie and Jesse, whose house fronts Camp Creek along north 31st Street.

So when the city sponsored a sandbag giveaway recently, they made several trips hauling filled bags to their home, collecting about 110 and piling them two-high along the curb for the entire length of their property.

“Volunteers came and helped us unload them,” Debbie said. “We’re still trying to decide where to put them.”

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.

Other neighbors also stockpiled sandbags, employing much different strategies to protect their homes from feared floodwaters.

Some piled them against basement windows. Others propped them up along landscaping features in their yards. Others have built more elaborate sandbag walls, even using thick plastic, along the foundations of their homes.

I wondered who was doing the best job, so I called the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, a nonprofit based in Lake George. The folks at CUSP are widely viewed as the experts in flood mitigation in wildfire zones.

Turns out none of the sandbagging I saw in Pleasant Valley was done properly.

Carol Ekarius, CUSP’s executive director, said the Cisneroses probably have the best idea of building a sandbag wall at the street.

But their effort, like all the others, wouldn’t do the job if the creek jumps its concrete banks. They probably need another 200 bags for a sufficient wall.

Experts say stacking sandbags against a house or foundation can lead to seepage and damage the structure. They recommend sandbags be places at least two feet from a structure.

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Many more bags if they need to surround their entire home, which could be necessary if floodwater happened to come from behind. (An inundation analysis of specific properties in area flood zones, commissioned by the city, will give folks like Debbie and Jesse a better idea what they might expect. But it has not been released yet.)

And Ekarius said Debbie and Jesse are missing perhaps the most important component of successful flood protection: full neighborhood coordination and cooperation.

If neighborhoods including Pleasant Valley, Mountain Shadows, Oak Valley and Peregrine, and the communities of Manitou Springs, Cascade and others up Ute Pass are going to survive predicted flash flooding off the Waldo Canyon fire scar, residents better get serious about sandbagging and work together.

Experts say stacking sandbags against a house or foundation can lead to seepage and damage the structure. They recommend sandbags be places at least two feet from a structure.

“They need to build walls,” Ekarius said. “Real walls. Maybe four bags high in Pleasant Valley. And they need a continuous sandbag wall along the entire front of those houses.”

She’s talking more than a mile of creek-front from Chambers Way on the edge of Garden of the Gods to Bijou Street on the south where Camp Creek dives underground for the last few blocks of its trip to Fountain Creek.

The walls Ekarius is talking about are not just a line of sandbags piled four-high. They are mini-pyramids, three or four bags wide on the bottom, tied shut and pointing downstream in staggered rows.

Tips for filling and stacking sandbags to protect against flashfloods.

As the wall climbs in height, it reaches a point at the top with a single row of bags on top.

Up in Ute Pass, CUSP is leading teams that are building walls eight bags high and more. And CUSP experts have put on free demonstrations in Peregrine and other areas to show how walls need to be built to withstand rampaging floodwaters produced by torrential downpours common in the Pikes Peak region.

CUSP will even schedule free demonstrations for folks who want to learn. Simply call CUSP at 719-748-0033 to ask for help. You won’t find any sandbagging advice on city or county websites or distributed at meetings because they want homeowners to consult erosion experts to learn how to best protect their individual properties.

 WATCH A VIDEO DEMONSTRATION ON SANDBAG WALLS.

Of course, a lot of people can’t afford to hire experts. I’d like to see free sandbagging demonstrations sponsored by the city at some of the big spring and summer festivals. Grab a turkey leg and funnel cake and learn how to protect your home and neighborhood!

El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark said it’s crucial neighborhoods in flood zones get serious about sandbagging.

“If people just line them up, they will wash away and actually contribute to the debris problem,” Clark said. “There is a right way and a wrong way to use sandbags. And 20 sandbags or a few dozen won’t do any good.”

It reminds me of all the Firewise efforts coordinated by the city in recent years to get neighborhoods to thin urban forests, remove combustible scrub oak, shrubs and needles. The goal is to create a defensible space to allow firefighters to protect a home and prevent the spread of wildfire.

Firewise techniques work, Ekarius said. But those efforts were wasted on some streets during the Waldo Canyon fire because some didn’t participate, allowing fire to penetrate and burn the homes of folks to who tried to mitigate the risk.

Experts say stacking sandbags against a house or foundation can lead to seepage and damage the structure. They recommend sandbags be places at least two feet from a structure. Experts warn only a solid sandbag wall built along neighborhood frontage to Camp Creek can protect homes against flashflooding.

Ekarius said the same will occur if everyone at risk of flashflooding doesn’t get with the sandbag program.

“If there are gaps in a sandbag wall, the water will go right around the sandbags,” she said. “And you have to be prepared to close your driveway, as well.”

If a continuous sandbag wall can’t be built along Camp Creek, Ekarius said individual homeowners or groups can build walls around their properties, turning their homes into islands.

However, she cautioned against piling sandbags against a house or foundation.

WATCH A VIDEO DEMONSTRATION OF HOW TO BUILD A SANDBAG WALL

“Water seeps through sandbags,” she said. “When they are against a foundation, they get wet and seep right through the foundation. You need a gap of at least a couple feet between the bags and your house to prevent seepage.”

The best solution is large-scale cooperation by neighbors.

“If groups of neighbors can work together, there’s a better chance of protecting their property,” Ekarius said. “Working together is better than one person trying to protect it alone.”

Debbie Cisneros was surprised to hear what Ekarius was recommending. Debbie said she believes Pleasant Valley residents would gladly unite behind a coordinated sandbagging effort. And she wondered if the Pleasant Valley Neighborhood Association might organize the effort.

“We’ve always been a real tight-knit neighborhood,” she said. “I think people would want to come together for something like that.”

Some Pleasant Valley residents are stacking sandbags on landscaping features. Experts warn only a solid sandbag wall built along neighborhood frontage to Camp Creek can protect homes against flashflooding.

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Are residents of the Pikes Peak region just a bunch of complainers or what?

For the second consecutive year, Colorado Springs ranks No. 1 in the number of complaints registered with the state HOA Information and Resource Center.

The news was contained in the recently released annual report of Colorado’s homeowners associations by Gary Kujawski, an attorney who was appointed in late October as the new state HOA Information Officer.

Kujawski said he doesn’t view the region as whiners.

“In Colorado Springs, the number of complaints is up there,” Kujawski said. “There could be a number of reasons and it might be a simple case that people there are more aware of this office.

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“I’m not sure a lot of people statewide are as aware as people in Colorado Springs.”

Kujawski’s office is responsible for registering HOAs in Colorado and gathering information for a database on HOAs.

(I use the HOA abbreviation to describe all covenant-controlled communities whether they are single family neighborhoods, condo and townhome associations, voluntary improvement associations, or property owners associations. And covenants are rules governing everything from house design, landscaping, paint colors, roofing materials, parking that homeowners voluntarily agree to follow when they buy their homes.)

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Since launching operations in 2011, the HOA office has registered 8,347 HOAs covering 853,542 units, or homes. An estimated 2 million Coloradans live in HOA communities.

Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region are grouped in the South Central region in which 664 HOAs are registered.

In 2012, the office fielded 2,873 inquiries, of which 576 were complaints lodged by 309 people.

They range from handling of elections of the board of directors to meeting procedures to conflicts of interest as well as covenant enforcement complaints, fines, liens and foreclosure issues.

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“Of particular concern is the serious nature of many of the complaints received and the inability of homeowners to resolve their issues without resorting to legal channels,” Kujawski wrote in the annual report.

While some might view the complaints totals as low, given the number of HOA residents in Colorado, Kujawski said he takes them seriously.

“You can see in the report you don’t have trivial complaints,” he said. “They are serious matters and they affect many people.”

Repeated complaints of rogue HOA boards and managers led leaders of the Colorado General Assembly to introduce bills aimed at reforming HOA operations. They want to make HOAs operate more professionally and with greater transparency. Some want to restrict the ability of boards to impose large fines and lien homeowners for minor violations.

There’s even a push to expand Kujawski’s role to police HOAs and enforce state laws on boards found to be violating the law.

But for now, he is focused on collecting data, listening to complaints and dispensing information about the rights of HOA residents and board members.

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And he sees part of his duties as educating the public about the very existence of his office.

So he’s scheduling a series of town hall meetings around the state to listen to homeowners and discuss issues they are facing.

“I’m working on some educational materials and refining our system here,” he said. “I want to get input from homeowners directly to find out what they need from our office.”

In fact, he has scheduled a three-hour public meeting at 9 a.m., Saturday, March 23 at the Penrose Library, 20 N. Cascade Ave. in downtown Colorado Springs.

“I really want to get thoughtful input and get a good discussion going,” Kujawski said. “If necessary, I’ll come down more often, every month or so.”

So mark your calendars and get to the library early to be sure you get a seat.

Follow this link to my Jan. 27, 2012, column about the first HOA report.

To read the associated blog, click here.

Here’s a link to the full 2012 Annual Report of the HOA Information and Resource Center.

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Ray Heins, the longtime Colorado Springs sign painter, died Wednesday morning after a long illness. He was 92.

Heins was the subject of a recent Side Streets column  and blog about his life and career as the man behind Heins for Signs.

During his 50-year career, Heins painted signs for just about every business in the Pikes Peak region, from Calhan to Cripple Creek.

The discovery of his photo library, documenting the signs he painted, excited officials at the Pioneers Museum.

They say Heins was a valuable local historian and his photos will be acquired for the museum collection for research purposes and for display.

Heins’ daughter, Elaine Heins Foster, said he died in the company of his other daughter, Lynette Heins Kemp, as well as his step-daughter, Judy McCombe-Gandolf. He’d been in hospice care for several weeks.

Heins was born Jan. 30, 1921, in Loup City, Neb. He joined the Army in 1942 and served four years, largely in China, during World War II. After the war, he returned to Colorado Springs, where he had been stationed at Camp Carson.

In Colorado Springs, he looked up Alma Buckley, the fiance’ of an Army buddy who had died during the war. He and Alma were soon wed and remained married 44 years until her death in 1989.

He took a job with a sign painter, learned the trade and started his own company, Heins for Signs.

Besides his daughters, he is survived by his wife, Ethel, whom he married in 1990.

“He was the best Dad in the world,” Heins Foster said. “He was a wonderful guy. We did everything together.”

Funeral arrangements are pending.

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For days after the Waldo Canyon fire, my Jeep smelled like smoke. I couldn’t get the stink out.

The entire Pikes Peak Region is experiencing the same phenomenon. It can’t shake the stink of the fire.

Images on the national news of forests and homes burning led to widespread cancellations at area tourist-related businesses.

Now we’re all being urged to take “staycations.”

Terry Sullivan

Experts say if we all explore our own backyard, we can help our economy.

And we’ll have fun.

I asked Terry Sullivan, longtime tourism guru, if staycations can really help.

“Absolutely,” Terry said. “And there’s a lot we can do by inviting our friends and relatives to visit, too.”

Terry offered this staycation tip:

“One of my favorite things is to get up early in the morning and take a family up the Pikes Peak Highway,” he said.

But he only pays to go to three reservoirs — Crystal Creek and North and South Catamount — where he stops and fixes breakfast.

“I bring premade pancakes and either bring a grill or use the barbecue pits, with caution of course,” he said.

“There’s nothing like having breakfast and looking up on Pikes Peak.”

He’s even been lucky enough to have friends catching fish while he’s cooking breakfast.

My favorite staycation also involves the mountain.

My wife, Cary, and I spent a morning riding down the highway with Pikes Peak Mountain Bike Tours and then had lunch along Fountain Creek at Wines of Colorado in Cascade. Epic!

We also had a great staycation exploring Victor and Cripple Creek. We spent the night in a haunted room at the Victor Hotel, rode the Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad and we lost an hour wandering the Victor Cemetery. (We’re strange like that.)

Our staycation list also includes rafting the Arkansas River, a day trip to Green Mountain Falls and hiking at the Crags.

Susan Edmondson, executive director, Bee Vradenburg Foundation and staycation expert

My friend, Susan Edmondson, had tons of staycation ideas involving the arts.

“If you can’t find something fun, brilliant, mind-blowing and great for the whole family in our local arts scene, then you’re just not looking,” Susan exclaimed. (She exclaims a lot.)

Her list includes taking the kids to Millibo Art Theatre’s “Double Bubble” Ice Cream Theatre.

Susan also highly recommends catching James Turrell’s “Trace Elements: Light Into Space” opening Saturday at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Susan called it ”a mind-blowing installation light sculpture.” And she exclaimed: “This is a must-see for everyone, and I really mean everyone.”

And she recommends Theatreworks‘ “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” at Rock Ledge Ranch, Aug. 2-26, which she described as “Shakespeare in a spectacular setting.”

Susan also touted all the free concerts in the great outdoors pretty much every night of the week – about 125 concerts total throughout the region in the summer. For a great downloadable concert guide go to COPPeR.

Finally, friend Warren Epstein, who seems like he’s on permanent vacation, urged folks to consider an overnight in the Cliff House in Manitou Springs (he loves the signature suites), a visit to the Penny Arcade and maybe a nightcap at the Keg.

“Manitou, especially, caters to people wanting something unusual and unique,” Warren said. “You’ll get a real vacation experience.”

Here’s some other staycation ideas and coupons from area attractions and other businesses:

To get more information from the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, follow this link.

Click here for Manitou Springs area information.

You can find more deals at the Pikes Peak Country Attractions group.

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Hello, neighbor!

Time again for one of my favorite topics: homeowners associations, or HOAs.

The HOA Information Office and Resource Center just released a year-long study of Colorado’s HOAs. Results are not pretty.

The HOA office fielded 3,053 inquiries, of which 478 were complaints.

Guess what area produced the highest number of complaints.

The Pikes Peak region, of course, with 21 percent of all complaints!

Are we a bunch of whiners, or what?

Not really, says Aaron Acker, the Colorado HOA Information Officer.

“We started with the presumption we’d get a lot of ticky-tack complaints,” Acker said. “We were wrong. Most of the issues were major ones.”

Complaints like HOA boards and managers hiding financial and governing documents.

“Transparency is a big issue,” Acker said. “Homeowners trying to get information are getting significant blow-back from their management companies or HOA boards.”

Aaron Acker, Colorado HOA Information Officer, spoke to a group of Pikes Peak region property managers and HOA board members on Feb. 15, 2011.

“People want to know what’s going on with their money. And HOA boards have a legal obligation to produce records at the behest of members. But we’re seeing a lot of complaints about them not responding, producing incomplete records, fighting requests or charging very high fees for documents.”

Access to HOA board meetings came up often in Acker’s study, as did failure to listen to homeowners — whether by property managers or HOA boards.

“These are pretty major issues, in my estimation,” Acker said.

Acker and his office were created by the 2010 Colorado General Assembly.

Upon opening the office last January, Acker was told to find and register all Colorado HOAs.

 (I used that abbreviation to describe single family resident neighborhoods, condo and townhome associations, voluntary improvement associations, property owners associations.)

So far, he has registered 8,037 asssociations, representing 838,211 homes, condos and townhome units and 2 million residents.

Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region are grouped in the South Central category, which has 661 registered HOAs. That’s about 8.2 percent of all HOAs registered. In other words, that 8.2 percent accounted for 21 percent of all complaints!

 (Industry experts believe upwards of 25 percent of Colorado HOAs remain unregistered.)

Acker said he hopes HOAs will use his findings as a wakeup call to reform how they interact with homeowners.

Lawmakers are digging into the data, as well, and likely will use it to decide whether it’s time to license property managers or give Acker greater power to police HOAs. Stay tuned!

Here is a link to a column and blog I wrote recently about the issue of licensing property managers.

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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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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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It makes perfect sense that professional landscapers would celebrate Earth Day.

After all, landscapers are all about protecting the environment.

Planting trees and shrubs and flowers is not just a fad with these folks. It’s their lives.

And it makes perfect sense that landscapers, under the leadership of PLANET — the Professional Landcare Network — decided to launch a National Day of Service on Earth Day.

What better day to promote their profession, to reach out and remind everyone there are plenty of certified professional landscapers out there who care about their communities and their customers.

After all, we’ve all heard stories — I’ve written a few myself — about crooks claiming to be landscapers who take half your downpayment and disappear.

In our area on Friday, professional landscapers from around the Pikes Peak region will be volunteering their time and using donated materials to build a healing garden at Memorial Hospital for Children on Boulder Street east of downtown Colorado Springs.

If you have any doubts about the sincerity of these landscapers and their commitment to this day of service, consider this:

They are taking on a project that the hospital had budgeted $100,000 to complete.

And they will be moving all the materials — 50 tons of dirt, 5 tons of sand, 24 tons of sand/gravel roadbase, 2.5 tons of drainage rock, and uncounted tons of flagstone, boulders, pavers, trees and shrubs — by wheelbarrow to the site.

It will take volunteers a day just to haul all the stuff the length of a football field down a narrow ramp to reach the place they will build the healing garden.

I’d say that qualifies as a true day of service for these members of the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado.

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Here’s a look at the $110 million Memorial Hospital for Children on Boulder Street. The seven-story east tower opened at Memorial Health Systems’ downtown campus in December 2007.

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Volunteers from the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado's southern chapter will build a healing garden using donated materials on Earth Day, April 22, 2011, at the base of the Memorial Hospital for Children east tower. The garden will be built behind the retaining wall and railing.

The garden will feature three large circular patios, a fountain, benches and tables and a variety of plants.

The patios represent hope, life and healing. The area will be a retreat for children and their families as well as Memorial employees.

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Here’s how Helen Hunt Falls normally looks . . . 

Helen Hunt Falls

But lately, its received a paint job it didn’t need. 

Others call it graffiti. 

In this case, it appears to be the work of gangbangers. 

Spray paint mars the signs, rocks along the trail, timbers and around the falls itself. 

It’s an ugly stain on North Cheyenne Canon Park and the falls. 

And it is disturbing to folks who live nearby and those who travel from all over Colorado Springs and  the Pikes Peak Region to hike the canyon. 

It bothers them to think they are at risk of encountering Surenos or Chihuahuas or Maderas or Prospect Lake Barrio or Blythe Street X3 gang members when they walk, run or bike the canyon and its popular trails. 

But the signs are unmistakable. 

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But gang graffiti, or just random forms of graffiti, are not confined to Helen Hunt Falls.

After a couple quiet years of relatively little graffiti, city parks maintenance supervisor Tim Pluemer reports an ugly bloom of the vandalism is underway.

He says it is a chronic problem at the three city skate parks.

And it is spreading to neighborhood parks from Briargate to the Broadmoor area.

No park, it seems is immune.

And it’s a shame that when budgets are so tight, the one member of the parks maintenance staff has devote two days a week simply to scrubbing away the often profane rants and taggings by graffiti vandals.

Graffiti tags of the Surenos gang, based in Southern California, mar a skate park in Colorado Springs.

Graffiti on a playground in a Colorado Springs neighborhood park.

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It’s silly season, I mean election time again. New homeowners association boards are being elected all over the Pikes Peak region.

An especially contentious race is for three seats on the Woodmoor Improvement Association board.

 The nine-member board governs the sprawling, wooded and affluent golf-course community of Woodmoor, which has 3,000 homes on 2,000 acres east of Monument.

It oversees $1.3 million in assets, income and spending and enforces covenants.

One of the big issues this election is a recent decision by the board to spend $20,000 to build a 10-space parking lot and trails on a 13.7-acre marsh on community property in Woodmoor. The marsh is in the middle of this photo from FlashEarth.

Here’s a look at the planned trails and parking lot under construction on the site.

Critics say the board should have gone to greater lengths to inform the community about the project, gathering neighbor input and holding public meetings before spending such a large amount of money.

They also criticize the board for spending thousands on beer and food for neighborhood parties. Critics say the board spent $9,000 last year. The board says it was $5,300 and a justifiable expense because so many homeowners attended.

The board has been in turmoil for a couple years. Critics say the conflict erupted with the rise to power of George McFadden, the current WIA board president. He is a polarizing figure in Woodmoor.

Although McFadden is not up for re-election on Jan. 25, three allies are on the ballot. And his name always comes up in conversations about the board, the election and the issues facing the community.

McFadden, however, declined to talk to me about it. He did the same thing a year ago when I wrote about a string of resignations from the board. At that time, as now, his name came up over and over. But he didn’t want to talk. Instead, he ripped me in emails and letters after the column ran.

Check it out my Feb. 11, 2009 column at this link. And here’s the blog I wrote, with his flaming rebuttal attached.

McFadden did write me Tuesday, pointing me to the Web sites of the competing camps: one for his allies:

The other is for the opposition group: 

And here’s McFadden’s e-mail to me on Tuesday:

Mr. Vogrin,

I have no desire to become more involved in the WIA Elections as I am not one of the candidates running, so I offer “no comment”.  I would advise all interested in the elections to review the various campaign websites.

George Labesky, Gary Marner, Bill Brendemuhl – www.woodmoorfacts.org
Jim Hale, Nick Oakley, Paul Lambert – www.savewoodmoor.org
Ed Miller is the other candidate.

I would also point out that both Nick Oakley and Jim Hale were appointed, by the “so called Majority”, to committees with the purpose of looking at our rules and regulations and design standards manual and suggest changes to the board.  George Labesky was appointed to the Legal Audit committee by the board to review our governing documents (Declaration, Articles, and bylaws) and to bring them into compliance with the various state statutes (they are woefully out of date).

I think any and and all of the candidates running for election will serve the owners well, but the two incumbents have the experience and proven track record that the others do not.

All the info you need is either on the websites mentioned above or on the WIA webpage at www.woodmoor.org. 

I hope this article will be more balanced than your last one on Woodmoor.  I regret that the Gazette did not cover the very successful WIA Community Events, attended by over 1000 owners this year.  If you want to review what was provided in terms of recreation (which is the first listed use of Assessments per the WIA Declaration) the newsletters which provided announcements for the events are available in PDF form on the WIA website.

Thanks,
George McFadden

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