Commerce City – There was a time when old cars and metal scrap projects in the yard were a way of life in this city with industrial roots.
Now, as modern residential developments put a shine on Commerce City’s one-time gritty image, some longtime residents are feeling squeezed as the city pushes them to clean up.
Enter Gene Leffel, a professional junkman who created a volunteer group to help needy folks clean up their yards. The group also is pressing the city to be less aggressive, especially with rules that demand that yards, including backyards, be spruced up.
“Commerce City has always been a place that was pretty lenient,” Leffel said. “You could do things that you might not be able to do in other places.”
In essence, Leffel says, you take away all the junk and Commerce City loses its spirit of individualism – a place where even someone who makes a living tinkering with things others have cast aside can do so without government interference.
“They want to change the image and turn this into another Cherry Creek,” he said.
Not exactly, say city officials, though they do want to improve Commerce City’s image.
New housing and covenant neighborhoods are changing the city, which means other parts of the community have to change too, said Sheri Chavez, director of Neighborhood Services, which oversees code, zoning and property inspections.
“The focus has become stronger with the growth and development, but the image has always been important,” she said. “We have our core city but also have our northern range, which is covered by covenants and things that our core city is not. It’s bringing those two parts of the city together.”
As part of that mantra, code citations have increased 71 percent since 2003.
During an eight-month period this year, the city issued 2,855 citations – warnings to either clean up or face fines or a court summons. Last year during a similar period, 1,888 citations were issued; in 2003, 1,664 citations.
Most violations are discovered one of two ways – by one of the city’s nine inspectors while on a patrol or by neighbors who complain, Chavez said.
But several residents say they are in a bind with the heightened enforcement. Many are seniors and have little income to pay for the labor.
Leffel and his band of volunteers recently came to the aid of Ron Jones, 64. The group picked up piles of newspapers, canned food, wood, slabs of concrete and overgrown brush in his front yard.
“We were going to try and take all summer to clean it up,” Jones said of his yard, now clear down to the dirt around a few trees. “They dug right in and started pitching stuff, even some stuff I wanted to keep.”
Leffel was motivated to turn his junk-hauling expertise to community charity after several elderly friends were cited. Citizens Against Restrictive Zoning (CARZ) was created to help residents meet the city’s codes and to combat their enforcement.
More than 100 residents have attended CARZ’s monthly meetings. The group has already conducted five cleanups for residents.
Leffel said seniors are getting too much pressure from the city, noting the case of Bob Strassell, who saw the city remove loads of scrap metal, wood, trees, old cars, mowers, motors, tables and chairs, even though the material was behind a metal fence. The city then placed a lien on Strassell’s property for $13,929.87 – the cost of the cleanup. Strassell, 78, died shortly thereafter.
“They came in and took everything he had out there,” Leffel said. “He was a senior citizen, disabled, and his life revolved around fixing small engines and lawn mowers, and he tinkered with all of that stuff. Six months after that, he was dead.”
For others, just weeds and overgrowth bring the city’s scrutiny, said Alice Jaramillo. She and her husband, who is 80 and disabled, were cited.
Their son called CARZ for help.
Days later, a crew of 16 was out trimming trees, cutting hedges and pulling weeds.
“It had gotten hard for us to keep it up,” said Alice Jaramillo, who has lived in Commerce City for 40 years.
“The city should help people instead of just telling them what’s wrong.”
Staff writer Elizabeth Aguilera can be reached at 303-820-1372 or eaguilera@denverpost.com.
