Englewood Story

Link: http://www.eyeonenglewood.com

On October 22, 2007, the head of Englewood’s building department, Lance Smith, phoned me to say that the City Attorney, Dan Brotzman, had instructed him to invalidate our building permit since our contractor was no longer working on the job.

I admitted we had fired our primary contractor for breaches of contract. I explained what a struggle it had been, but the work was already finished. We were just finishing some wood trim work.

He instructed me to come down to the building department and pull a new permit. He said his department would not honor the permit previously obtained by us because it was hung on a contractor’s license, but I could obtain a homeowner’s permit.

I immediately dropped what I was doing and obeyed.

On November 7, 2007, we received a call from Tricia Langon, Senior Planner, with Community Development. She called about "several complaints" that we had "unrelated people" living with us. I told her I had written a letter of inquiry to Gary Sears and was still awaiting a reply. She said she’d call back later because she was “in the dark as to how to proceed.” One month later, December 7, 2007, she knew exactly how to proceed.

Later, upon obtaining e-mails and phone messages from this time period, I realized that she had been sending threatening Notices to other households about violating the City's definition of household for years.

What she really meant about being “in the dark” was that Mr. Sears, with other heads of staff, had been colluding together about how to prosecute a legal private residence for a City code defining, “household.”

To make themselves legally immune for this nonsense was to promulgate a lie, say: "We made a mistake, and we are correcting it now." That is all well and good for someone who doesn't have everything to lose by that lie.

In my open records from the City, I found e-mails and phone calls from the neighbors and City employees about the 'Bartnick's guest house' and 'the boarding house.' This was before I even realized what term might characterize us and defined our rights.

When Ms. Langon called next, I explained that even six weeks later,I hadn’t yet received an answer from the City Manager. All I had asked for was information, and City Manager Sears did not have the decency to converse with me. Ms. Langon replied that City Manager Sears was now ready to meet with us. December 19th would be a convenient day to discuss our options.

The hold up had been that although our select neighbors and the City Manager had already determined to force us to leave the neighborhood, they required the appearance of order to do that. They needed to "get their ducks in order" regarding the household ordinance by which to prosecute us.

I called Joe Jefferson for help. He was our District 1 Council Representative newly elected, and he relayed that in his initial interview with City Manager, Gary Sears, he had confided that the City was going to prosecute us one way or the other, and that Mr. Sears was looking into our building permits to see if they could catch us in any kind of building violation too. Joe not only spoke to me on the phone about this, but also confirmed it in an e-mail.

I wasn’t worried about the building permits because we had passed everything except the final, and I knew we had been above average in our building standards. After all, this wasn’t a fix and flip, we had personally designed it for our family’s needs. We were living in it. We were vested.

Nevertheless, when we paid for researching records at the City, we found that Manager Sears had asked Police Officer Tom Vandermee for all of my blog entries to search for something that might trigger a case against us. He also asked Lance Smith for a professional opinion as to whether there were any differences in building codes for a boarding house or a single family residence.

Even the engineer had required exterior 2’x6’ walls to provide for lower heating costs. The framer had complained about our engineer designing in extra structural support around each window and doorway. “It’s gonna be a fortress,” he’d said rolling his eyes.

But it revolted me that Mr. Sears had just arranged to meet with us “about our options,” while official plans were under way to catch us in their net. This was my turning point. As I sat there on the phone listening to Joe Jefferson, I envisioned a web the City Manager had been quietly weaving. Nausea, angst set in.

That day, December 12, 2007, a certified letter came from the City.

I panicked at this roadblock. It clearly told how they were not willing to talk about options after all, but wanted to criminalize us. The NOTICE said, “You must comply with the City's definition of household within 7 days. The City does not have any permits or variances to give you. Home occupation permits are for business, something other than the nature of the primary function of your residence, thus they do not apply to you.”

My innocent attitude turned to dismay and a feeling of utter helplessness. How could we possibly move out our flourishing South Korean at this juncture? What about our artist who had just made her room her own with linens and decor? Where would our newest guest go who had lost his job just a week after moving in? It seemed inhumane to put any of our housemates out on the street in a Colorado Winter.

I felt sick. I e-mailed the City Manager and Ms. Langon to cancel our meeting as "unnecessary" since I knew from their 7-day Notice as well as Joe's conversation that they had already made up their minds how to proceed. We had their Notice in hand.

Joe shocked me further by reporting that they might even have a police officer standing by to serve us with a complaint depending upon what I said at the meeting.

In my e-mail, I showed my revulsion like the scream of a rape victim when I named Langon and Sears as the spiders weaving their web.

December 20, 2007 I desperately wrote a letter to each City Council member instead, asking each to research the code as to variances and zoning options, and I also asked them to over-rule the City Manager since we were not criminals, but privately shared our home with students.

No one on the City Council bothered to respond. Later, I discovered, that none of them could be bothered to research their own code or to care two twitters for a common homeowner such as myself.

On December 22, Christmas week, Officer Watson stuffed a "14-Day Notice of Violation of the Definition of Household" under the doormat: Ho~Ho! Our very own Christmas present from the City had arrived.

Link: http://www.ci.englewood.co.us/Index.aspx?page=952

Shortly after the new Boarding House Code was enacted our appeal regarding Ducky's new fence was subverted and lost by a part-time municipal judge, John W. Smith III. The run off felt as confusing as being Dorothy in Kansas fleeing from the witchy neighbor and finding herself with a bump on the head from the ensuing tornado.

In the three inch volume of Englewood Municipal Ordinances, the City spent all summer "cleaning up household items." This is to say, "cleaning up mistakes, errors and accidents which shouldn't have officially occurred given the presumption that enacted law is always true, thorough and authoritative."

The "sweep up" of course wasn't meant to help individuals who have been victims and prosecuted under the errors, nor does it necessarily mean the City is returning to any measure of good sense. In fact, it meant that they are adding layers to their bad faith like pieces of furniture to the cyclone. They simply added more things to wollop the disoriented.

Because the neighbors had now taken to circumventing the issue of us housing up to three unrelated people of color in their neighborhood with unfounded parking complaints and foot traffic, they then complained to Planning and Zoning Commission that we appeared to be rushing to complete our driveway. On July 8, 2008, a secret study session where the public was generally not allowed, Council representative Bob McCaslin enabled as to our neighbors.

Both McCaslin and representative Penn intended to keep their word to get behind the neighbors all the way and help them "fight the good fight". At the close of the planning and zoning meeting, Planner Tricia Langon instructed that "no one repeat anything" that had gone on, and further kept these minutes from being published until I found out about them through an open records request on September 2, and complained publicly to City Council.

Sudddenly, the fact that the Drakes complained we were "rushing to pour the driveway," was somehow unacceptable as though hurrying to obey a law that was about to be enacted was illegal. In fact, we were naturally continuing the work on our driveway to enable our 84 year old mother aided by a walker easy access to our home for family get-togethers. Easy access meant getting her into the side door.

So, that hot July day we built the framework and had the dirt delivered, Ducky's wife, Anne, called the police on us. Commander Contos explained that our driveway could not be completed without a site plan approval. I explained to him, along with Code Enforcement Officer Carolin Faseruk wickedly standing beside him, that the City already had an approved copy of our site plan on file evidenced by our blue prints.

Commander Contos looked down at his shoes and said, "Well, it certainly looks like there is just dirt to me, so I'll leave you with just a verbal warning instead of the Notice of Violation."

We then received a letter from Tricia Langon, Senior Planner, stating that she had double-checked. Since the building department had invalidated our permits, this blanket act included our site plan, thus, we were required to apply for a new one.

I went down to City Hall, brought a copy of our site plan for parking, and it was stamped approved and e-mailed back to us by Brook Bell.

There is really no such thing as this invalidation of a site plan already approved because, according to City Code, the approved initial plans were valid for three years after approval, but I understood that the City needed to help Anne and Ducky swoop, fly and deposit their poop on our heads for the sake of saving "The People's Dignity."

This little charade was continued however, in the new Boarding House Ordinance as it was enacted.

City Council brought it forward to vote on September 15, 2008, with a requirement for a site plan to be formally approved. And, when they applied the new ordinance to us, the memo from Alan White in Community Development was that a yet another site plan application with drawing be submitted...for the third time!

All the lingo in the application was toward new development, new zoning, new plans, requests for variance of proposed properties, etc.

Reading it clarified to me that all of zoning's powers lie in forward planning, and not in retrospective application of law. I felt there was a dim arc of a rainbow,-- promising what?... I still couldn't grasp.

We had poured our driveway and parking areas. Our entire project was complete. There was nothing new left to apply for.

Certain aspects of the boarding house Ordinance were indeed passed through Planning and Zoning Commission, where Chairman Bliele and two other members refused "to step on one person's toes" "especially where a great amount of personal investment had already taken place by relying on the old code." But others, including Contractor Steve King, who had built a house on our block, voted with the City's recommendations to ungrandfather us.

Dorothy went to Oz and applied for "Home". The Great and Mighty Oz made her go to the fire to bring back the Witch's broomstick before he would send her home. Oz had no power to promise this, much less to accomplish. He himself was stranded in the Emerald City.

When Councilman Joe Jefferson proposed to City Council a modification to their original ordinance, September 15, 2008, his idea was not based on almost 400 Englewood Citizen's petitions to honor the Constitutional right to choose or to freely assemble, to grandfather the existing boarding house into the new laws. Nor did he concern himself with Mr. Doug Cohn's weightier reminders of illegalities. Instead, Joe in his Council Choice spot that night, told the neighbors his intention was to shift liability elsewhere. He asked to speak with them after the meeting.

The proposed amendment to Ordinance 55 came as a surprise, however, to some on Council.

Councilman Wayne Oakley complained that the proposed change to the ordinance had not been included in his Council packet, and that he had not had a chance to review it yet.

Mayor Woodward said in a prepared moment preempting the discussion, that considering it was Constitution week, he felt bad bringing the ordinance forward for a vote and that Council needed to at least appear to be honoring the grandfather clause in the City Ordinances.

Council agreed that City Clerk, Loucrisha Ellis, should read the proposed amended ordinance aloud.

Proposed amended Ordinance 55 was a surprise to most everyone, including the Planning and Zoning Commission. This procedure proved to be more than just a surprise, however, in that it violated the City Charter, Section 58, where it states that all proposed amendments and modifications to ordinances must be brought to Planning and Zoning for review, even if Council chooses not to heed their recommendation on it.

Thus the illegal and overbroad Emergency on Boarding Houses came full circle. Ordinance 55, in its shining seven point cunning entirety outlawed rather than grandfathered our boarding house, enacted, October 6, 2008. But Dorothy had a good heart and lots of help from her friends, and she was not the one stranded behind the curtain.

The elaborate curtain of deceit works against the one hidden behind it, because it prevents the hidden to see the truth. I am amused to discover the trilogy of Dorothy in Oz was originally a political commentary, written in a child's fairly tale metaphor.

Link: http://EyeOnEnglewood.com

Michael Knight, investigator, for District Attorney, Carol Chambers, contacted me to explain that their hands were tied as to prosecuting fraud. "Fraud" has certain elements to be proved, and one of those elements is to prove how the City Council or Manager had personally benefited or laundered money.

It was the position of the District Attorney that Englewood seemed to be doing what they were doing as a power play. Perhaps it was because City Manager Sears lived only four houses from us. Perhaps it was because the contractor we fired was Ron Noffsinger's fishing buddy, and because the guys sitting on Council were also his high school buddies. After all, this was exactly how small town politics worked.

Yes, "color" on the block may indeed be the motive of these people, making them rednecks, but fraud simply couldn't be proved yet. I contacted Colorado's Civil Rights Division. Protecting those of color was defensible, but the statutes applied only to landlords, loan officers, and real estate agents.

People knew what was happening was "wrong," but could it possibly be legal?

It appeared a block full of good ol' rednecks were gonna get away with railroading others out of town in the year 2008.

The Devil is in the details, they say. The D.A. sent my complaint to the Attorney General to see if there was anything they could do in that office. They suggested I contact my State Representative.

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