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“Oldtimers have a mental map that is often 20 to 30 years out of date,” Timoney said.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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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

Early Sunday morning, eight young bucks and one old buck gathered in the open space behind my home in the Rockrimmon neighborhood of Colorado Springs.

After a day of high winds and blizzard conditions, the bucks seemed to be enjoying the warm sunshine. They were feisty, engaging in group sparring.

The old buck with a broken antler stayed away from the group and relaxed behind my fence.

Meanwhile, the young bucks took turns locking antlers and pushing each other around.

A couple of them were particularly rambunctious, even pawing the ground and driving each other into trees and bushes.

The winner of that bout then went over and challenged the old buck, who had been relaxing under a pine tree.

They went at it for several minutes. We heard the clacking of antlers as they pushed back and forth.

Eventually, the old guy drove the young buck into a bush and shook his head vigorously and it was over.

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Longtime neighborhood activist Jan Doran has a few things she wants to ask the new state HOA boss at his public town hall meeting in two weeks.

Bud Stringfellow also wants to meet Gary Kujawski, HOA Information Officer, to ask about his homeowners association at Park Vista Estates.

Ditto for many other Side Streets readers who perked up at the news Kujawski will hold a town hall meeting at 9 a.m., Saturday, March 23, in the Penrose branch of the Pikes Peak Library District at 20 N. Cascade Ave., in downtown Colorado Springs.

Gary Kujawski

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Now, here’s an important detail for folks who want to attend the scheduled three-hour meeting: you must reserve one of the 100 seats available. That means sending an RSVP email to the HOA Information Office and Resource Center, cynthia.aguilar@state.co.us, or calling 303-894-2292 to reserve a seat.

The event is free but Kujawski is limiting attendance to allow for more give-and-take between himself and the crowd.

“One of my goals is to have a more outreach from this office,” Kujawski said. “I want to get out and speak with people, see what they are thinking, see what they would like from this office in terms of legislative changes and education efforts.”

Larger groups make meaningful conversation difficult.

Doran hopes to get a meaningful answer to her question about why all HOAs are treated the same under state law regardless of size.

Doran is administrator for the Discovery neighborhood in Rockrimmon where dues are $30 a year for 329 homeowners. By comparison, some HOAs in the Broadmoor neighborhood, Peregrine and other areas charge upwards of $300 a month in dues and fees.

Jan Doran

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She said it’s unfair for the state to impose mandates for record-keeping and document disclosures, for example, and other time-consuming chores on HOAs like Discovery when there is no paid staff or professional property management.

“They’ve lumped everybody together — condos, townhomes, patio home complexes, large single-family developments,” Doran said. “What about little HOAs like ours? One size doesn’t fit all. It’s not fair.”

Doran would like to see Kujawski ask the General Assembly for an exemption for small, low-budget HOAs that existed prior to 1992 when lawmakers first enacted the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act, which governs HOAs. Small HOAs built after 1992 were exempt from it but not older HOAs like Discovery.

It’s important to know that if you aren’t able to attend the March 23 town hall meeting, you aren’t completely out of luck.

Kujawski said he intends to make regular visits to Colorado Springs and hold more town hall meetings.

“I really want to get a good, thoughtful discussion going,” he said. “We’ll have larger groups down the road.”

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This was the view from Chapel Hills Mall when the Waldo Canyon Fire exploded down into Colorado Springs' foothills neighborhood of Mountain Shadows on Tuesday, June 26, 2012.

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On Tuesday, June 26, I said goodbye to my house and my neighbors and started my life as a Rockrimmon refugee.

My heart was pounding as I made one last sweep through our little house in Raven Hills. I wondered if my family would ever celebrate another birthday here. I paused at the window where we saw so much wildlife in the woods outside. Where we always put up our Christmas tree.

In the garage, I stopped at the wall where we traced our kids’ profile, measuring their heights to document their growth over the years. I took one last picture of the shark mural in my youngest son’s bedroom, grabbed my oldest boy’s high school letterman’s jacket, took a photo of my daughter at Disney World and began our escape.

I’d fought bumper-to-bumper traffic on my way home from downtown after a 4 p.m. briefing on the Waldo Canyon fire had been interrupted by a stunning mandatory evacuation order for the Mountain Shadows and Peregrine neighborhoods just west of my ‘hood.

My 12-year-old, Ben, was home with Nugget, our beloved dog. My wife, Cary, knew evacuation would mean chaos and began an urgent trek from her west-side store to reach them and get them to safety. I wasn’t far behind as I left downtown.

Neither of us could believe what we saw: a hurricane of fire had erupted in the foothills. Cary called me describing menacing flames along 30th Street and Centennial Boulevard. I figured she must be exaggerating. Then I got closer and faced the otherworldly orange glow of the swirling clouds and winced at the ash-filled, 101-degree winds.

I joined a line of cars backed up along Rockrimmon Boulevard and Delmonico Drive like I never could have imagined.

Intersections were blocked by panicked drivers trying to escape. Sirens wailed all around. I felt trapped in a horror movie.

A friend called and described houses ablaze in Mountain Shadows and urged me to join the exodus. And we did as soon as we grabbed mementos, photo albums, computers, even a cribbage board my father-in-law made.

Cary, Ben and Nugget left as I gathered all I could. Before leaving, I checked on my neighbor across the street. He refused to evacuate with his invalid wife. It was a sickening feeling to give up my pleas and get on with my own escape.

By then, embers were falling on my shake roof and I knew it was time to jump in my Jeep and flee. If only it would start. It had choked on the smoke on the drive from downtown and wouldn’t turn over.

My head exploding, I finally coaxed it to life and headed toward Woodmen Road. Except I couldn’t get near it. Panicked evacuees had turned it into a parking lot. I had to go west, toward the flames, to escape. But that route was blocked as well.

Finally, I went into four-wheel-drive, hopped a curb, blasted down a hill, across a soccer field and over a trail to reach Rockrimmon Boulevard where six lanes of traffic were headed east on both sides of the median.

And there I sat in traffic. It’s a memory I’ll never forget. I teared up as I scanned the surrounding cars. Everywhere were children, scared and crying, their parents looking deathly afraid and, in my rearview mirror, a view of the gates of hell.

Overwhelming relief rushed over me as I reached Interstate 25 and I started putting miles between me and the apocalyptic wildfire that was consuming the foothills.

I felt guilty about abandoning my home, my neighbor who refused to evacuate and all the others still sitting, petrified, in traffic.

I was one of the lucky ones. My family was safe and we had generous friends who took us in, fed and comforted us. By Wednesday morning, it seemed our neighborhood had survived. But it’s small comfort because so many neighbors have lost so much. And this catastrophe isn’t over.

To all the victims, I can only say I’m so sorry.

Homes in Mountain Shadows burn as the Waldo Canyon fire explodes down the foothills of Colorado Springs. By Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette

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A deer trots along a new 150-foot guardrail installed along Rockrimmon Boulevard by the city behind the homes of Mitch Logue and Donald and Colleen Kunecke.

To most motorists flying through the intersection of Vindicator Drive and Rockrimmon Boulevard, the new guardrail along the east side is just a blur of black and brown steel.

And, to be honest, that’s why it was installed.

Most drivers are going way too fast around the corners of the T-shaped intersection to notice. (They are too busy texting their BFFs or eating a triple-cheeseburger or applying makeup.)

But to Mitch Logue and Donald and Colleen Kunecke, the sturdy new 150-foot barrier represents peace of mind and freedom to use their backyards without fear.

It’s something most people take for granted . . . the confidence they won’t get killed in their backyard by Danica Patrick impersonators.

But that’s been a very real threat for Logue and the Kuneckes, who have the misfortune of backing up to the busy intersection, kept hopping morning and night by people racing to the adjacent Safeway Center, or the large apartment complex, or to Eagleview Middle School or commuting to Mountain Shadows and Peregrine.

I drive it daily and routinely see cars accelerating down Vindicator toward its dead-end at Rockrimmon. They turn north, two abreast, tires squealing as the wild-eyed drivers — no doubt listening to 50 Cent on their earbuds  — charge to the next light.

Between the two properties, more than a dozen cars have plowed through their fences and into their yards over the years.

Just one example of the damage Mitch Logue has endured during his years backing up to Rockrimmon Boulevard and Vindicator Drive.

Mitch Logue told me he’s replaced sections of his fence a half-dozen times in 10 years. In July 2009, he spent $3,600 replacing the entire fence. Within days a small SUV smashed through and landed in his yard, taking out a post and slats.

Before the Kuneckes bought their home next-door in 2000, a soda delivery truck came crashing into the yard. Prior to that, a pickup destroyed the fence and slammed into the dining room.

Then, on June 3, 2009, a huge, white sport utility vehicle roared down Vindicator, slammed into two cars waiting at the stoplight, lurched through the intersection, jumped the curb and blasted into the Kunecke’s backyard.

This white SUV wrapped itself around a tree in the Kuneckes' backyard in June 2009 after ramming two cars at the stoplight, plowing through the intersection and exploding through the fence.

“We were getting ready to eat dinner,” Colleen Kunecke told me at the time. “It sounded like an explosion. It scared the hell out of me.”

The SUV ended up wrapped around a tree.

Prehistoric guardrails employed by the Kuneckes to protect themselves in their yard.

To protect themselves, the Kuneckes positioned huge rocks to deflect wayward vehicles.

Both families are happy to finally get some protection from the city.

“Now I’ve got some safe area to work with,” Mitch said last week. “I’m happy.”

And he’s making plans for his yard.

“I’m thinking about putting a greenhouse back there,” he said.

The Kuneckes echoed his satisfaction.

“We were quite surprised,” Donald said. “Now we’ll be protected.”

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This is the approximate route taken by Luna, a dog owned by Daryl and Cindy Anderson. Luna escaped a relative's fenced yard and made her way about three miles toward home before she was killed on railroad tracks near Rockrimmon.

Luna

Some good is coming from the sad story of Luna, the dog who escaped a fenced yard and tried to make her way home only to be killed on the railroad tracks along Monument Creek in Rockrimmon.  

Luna’s remains were found by Tom, a Rockrimmon resident, who removed the collar and called Luna’s owners, Daryl and Cindy Anderson, to inform them of Luna’s death.  

Tom called the Andersons himself because he said the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region refused to take a “deceased animal” report.  

He said HSPPR staff told him to call the Colorado Springs street department to report a dead animal. Tom was outraged and feared Luna’s owners would never know what happened to their pet.  

Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region

So he called The Gazette and Luna’s story was the subject of Monday’s Side Streets column. That’s when things happened at HSPPR.  

I received an email Monday from Jan McHugh-Smith, president and CEO of the humane society.  

She told me she was changing policy immediately to accept dead pet reports and log them in a notebook available for viewing at the society’s Lost and Found Pet area.  

Here’s the text of her note to me:  

Dear Bill,  

 After your story was published our currently policies on lost and found pets were reviewed, and we would like to update you and make some corrections to your article entitled: SIDE STREETS: Neighbor helps family get closure for lost pet, questions humane society policy.  

Jan McHugh-Smith, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region

 From this point forward, the City of Colorado Springs Street Division will directly email their finished work logs (recording dead animal description and location) to our lost and found email. We will be publishing all of the logs in a notebook in our Lost and Found Pets area. This will allow owners to read the logs, and hopefully be able to identify if their pet has been found deceased in the city. We will also match the city work logs with lost animals that have been reported to HSPPR to try to reconnect additional stray pets. 

 Our call center will also be taking found reports on deceased animals, and will try to combine logs and reports if efforts are found duplicated. 

 The Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region works diligently to reunited owners with lost companion animals; we reunited 4,199 stray animals last year alone. Tom should be commended in his actions, and his Good Samaritan efforts will bring positive changes in our policies. 

 Sincerely,   

 Jan McHugh-Smith 

President and CEO  

I should note all the good work HSPPP already does on behalf of pets and their owners in the region. 

According to the 2010 annual report, the society had 21,100 pets in its care in Colorado Springs. 

It handled 7,700 adoptions in addition to the 4,199 reuinted pets and fostered 450 pets. 

It’s animal law enforcement unit responded to 24,000 calls for service and conducted 3,800 cruelty investigations. 

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This was Luna, the beloved pet of Daryl and Cindy Anderson and their family.

Luna

Luna was a pound puppy, adopted by the Andersons from a humane society shelter in Las Vegas about 10 years ago.

A couple weeks ago, Luna was visiting a relative’s house near Flintridge and Dublin. She apparently panicked when left in a fenced yard, dug her way out and vanished far from her home near Garden of the Gods Road and Centennial Boulevard.

Daryl said he and his sons put 100 miles on their car searching for Luna.

They reported Luna to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, checked its kennels daily to see if Luna was among its captured strays and they scanned reports on the society’s lost pet website.

Then, late last week, Daryl received a call from a stranger who said he had Luna’s collar.

Tom, who declined to reveal his full name, had taken the collar off the dog’s remains, which he found on railroad tracks that run past Rockrimmon.

Tom had noticed Luna’s remains as he walked his own dogs along Monument Creek near Mark Dabling Boulevard in Rockrimmon.

Luna had died trying to get home from the relative’s house. (See map of Luna’s approximate route at the bottom of this blog).

She had crossed Academy and Union boulevards, Interstate 25 and the creek. But she’d failed to cross the tracks safely.

 I’m guessing she made it a few blocks north to Cottonwood Creek, followed it west to Monument Creek and then a bit south along Mark Dabling before she strayed onto the tracks.

I’d guess she’d gone about three miles!

Daryl tells me Tom and his wife not only showed him the location of Luna’s remains, they helped him retrieve the remains. He described it as “a very messy and unpleasant task.”

“Tom’s a wonderful person,” Daryl said. “That gentleman was the best ‘Good Samaritan’ that I could have run into.”

Tom said he braved the decomposing remains because he, too, had lost a pet cat, Barney, a few years ago and never learned its fate.

He didn’t want Daryl’s family to wonder about Luna, the chow mix they had adopted from a humane society in Las Vegas.

“They needed closure,” Tom said. “We never got closure with Barney.”

Normally, the story of Luna, Daryl and Tom would would end there. But this incident raised questions in Tom’s mind about how the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region deals with dead pets.

Tom was surprised to learn he could not make a “deceased animal” report after he saw Luna’s remains.

“They said they don’t do that,” he said. “They just wanted me to call the city to get it hauled away. I was more interested in reuniting it with its owner.”

So he didn’t call the city street division to retrieve the remains. That was a mistake, the society says.

Crews would’ve picked up Luna’s remains and called the society promptly.

“Every day, the city gives us detailed reports of the deceased pets they pick up,” said Erica Meyer, society spokeswoman. “If there’s a collar, they remove it, and give it to us with the report so we can call the owner.

“If there is no collar, they give us breed information, size, color, location. Then we try to match it with the lost pet reports we have.”

Allowing folks like Tom to report animal remains would cause duplication and confusion, she said.

And deceased pet reports are not displayed online, as Tom proposes, to protect owners from shock.

“Rather than putting it on the web, we have a department that notifies owners personally,” Meyer said.

“We work really hard to reunite people with their lost pets, whether they are alive or deceased.

“We have an entire unit that works on it every day.”

Meyer reminds everyone to call the Humane Society immediately if they see an injured animal or suspect it may be suffering. Don’t always assume an animal that has been struck by a car, for example, is dead.

The number is 473-1741.

To report a dead animal in the city, call the street division at 385-5934.

n El Paso County, call 520-6460.

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Before moving here in 1994, I’d always lived in very urban neighborhoods in cities to the east. I was shocked to see all the wildlife that lives among the neighborhoods of Colorado Springs.

For 13 years, we’ve lived next to an open space in Rockrimmon and have a front-row seat for watching deer, coyote (I spotted this one on Christmas morning 2007), bobcat, fox.  I’m still hoping to see a rare mountain lion.

What I enjoy the most is seeing the bears. Typically, they emerge from the open space at night and trigger our security lights.

This cinammon black bear has been a regular visitor to our backyard for years. Usually, she has a cub or two following behind her.

I’ve always considered it a privilege to live so close to nature. I never considered calling the Division of Wildlife when the bears came and knocked down the neighbors’ birdfeeders or tossed open trash cans. I just shrugg it off.

I didn’t consider calling DOW after a bobcat raided my kids’ rabbit hutch and attacked my dog. I was upset but shrugged if off as the price of living among wild animals.

Last fall, I was lucky enough to watch the old, cinammon bear turn on one of her cubs, a young adult, and angrily chase him up a tree.

He had been following her and I believe she was tired of him competing with her for food and let him know it. The confrontation was dramatic and the young adult was unhappy.

Luckily, he ran up a tree just off our bedroom and we were eye-to-eye. He huffed and barked at us from the branches.

 This spring, she showed as usual with three new cubs, foraging at night mostly. The young adult came around, too. But he avoided her and made his rounds in the daytime.

We’ve spotted him in the mornings, crossing the street or digging in a neighbor’s trash which had been set at the curb for pickup.

I met  him twice this summer. The first time, I had opened my garage in the early morning to load luggage into my car for a trip. He happened to wander into the garage while I was inside the house getting our bags.

I came out and he was trying to open a refrigerator deep inside my garage in a mud room. We were both startled. I ran back inside and pounded on the walls to chase him out of the garage.

I met him again a few weeks ago. Earlier in the day, he came right up to one neighbor, chasing her into her house. He walked up the stairs to her front door before sauntering off. He was not scared of her.

That evening, he came in my garage while I was unloading groceries. He got the fridge in my mud room open and drained a gallon of juice. Then he went after a plastic trash can full of dog food.

He would not leave no matter how much I yelled at him, or threw brooms and other objects. He just glared at me and ate dog food. Finally, I ran to my car and blasted the horn until he retreated.

He came back a few minutes later, even jumped on a small wooden fence and huffed at me as I swept up the dog food. He scared me.

So I think I understand how those folks felt last week when they were confronted in their homes by bears. It’s sad six died in three days. I wish there was another solution.

 But I’m convinced this young adult is not afraid of humans and has identified houses as a source of food. He’s dangerous, in my book. Especially to my 11-year-old son.

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Look familiar? If you spend any time behind the wheel in Colorado Springs, you’ve probably seen hundreds of potholes this spring.

In fact, the city says it has filled 7,400 in the first three months of 2010. In fact, nine crews from the Street Division repaired more than 4,000 in March alone!

Sadly, they are only about halfway done. And that’s only if we don’t have any more freeze-and-thaw cycles, said Ken Winckler, operations manager for the division.

Just about all 109 of the street division staff are involved in patching potholes.

Sometimes, it looks like they are all standing around one hole, watching a single person work. At least, that’s the perception of some in the city.

Reader Frank Rakoczy recently sent The Gazette a couple photos of a street crew working on his street in Rockrimmon and wondered why only two of the seven city employees seemed to be actually working.

Below are Rakoczy’s photos. In the top photo, a city truck pulling a trailer filled with hot liquid tar is visible followed by seven men and a supervisor’s white pickup truck.

The second photo shows a closer view of the crew. One man is bent over, holding a wand that pumps hot liquid tar into cracks in the asphalt. Three men hold large squeegees that they use to push the tar into the cracks and smooth it. Two men perform traffic control and a third is the supervisor, Winckler said.

Winckler said the tar truck was led up the street by a truck pulling an air compressor. A worker walks behind the compressor truck, blowing dirt and rocks out of the cracks before the tar is pumped in to seal the cracks.

Below is a partial view of a map of Colorado Springs maintained by the street division.

The large black dots represent “open” requests for pothole repair the city has received from citizen phone calls and through e-mails to the Street Division Website. Each dot represents one pothole, even if it has received repeated calls for service.

Small grey dots represent filled potholes. 

There are a couple ways to report potholes for repair:

• Call the Pothole Hotline (leave a message): 385-6808
• E-mail: streetdivision@springsgov.com

To learn more about how the city repairs its streets, follow this link to the city’s Web site.

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