ELBERT COUNTY — Just above a rise on County Road 160, farms and ranches stretch out as far as the eye can see over the rolling hills outside the tiny town of Agate.
On a recent day, horses galloped in a pasture while crows stood guard on a wooden fence, and a tractor made its way through a field. Everything seems to be here for a reason. Everything, that is, except for the rows upon rows of old black tires stacked several feet high.
A closer inspection reveals that the tires are part of what used to be the , a failed experiment in community living. There are stables and pens and land divided with used tires, some stacked in pallets wrapped in wire that are used for windbreaks. Dozens of other tires are strewn across the landscape, as are broken wooden pallets, abandoned frames of what looked to be a shed or even the start of a very small house, and construction debris littering the 60 acres on the Meadowlark property.
And that has brought the wrath of leaders in Elbert County, who contend that the former co-op is a zoning violation, an eyesore, a junkyard, a safety hazard, a place that it wants cleaned up fast — whether the property owners do it or the county undertakes the work and charges the owners for the cost.
The issue has landed both sides in court. Elbert County filed a civil complaint in district court in January, demanding the property be brought back up to code.
“Presently sited on the property is an assortment of junk, construction debris, used vehicle tires, rubber debris and trash,” Elbert County wrote in its civil complaint.
Meadowlark officials fired back a lengthy response, arguing that the county is preventing the nonprofit from performing normal agricultural operations with recycled products.
“Elbert County provides no evidence to support that Meadowlark is a junkyard,” the co-op’s former owner wrote.
A judge is now reviewing the documents to decide the next course of action. Meanwhile, the problems are still there, with no real end in sight.
Meadowlark recently was dissolved as a co-op because of low membership, but the landowners plan on farming and ranching the property themselves. They may allow crop sharing and have someone farm or ranch some of the land in return for a share of the crop.
Free land promised
It’s hard not to fall in love with the rural aspect of Elbert County, which has about 22,000 residents, especially south of Agate. The peacefulness and tranquility are enough to seduce any city slicker.
That’s what drew the Paredes family to sell their mobile home in the Denver area more than a year ago and move to Elbert County.
An advertisement on a Spanish radio station promised a free plot of land at Meadowlark if its users agreed to cultivate it or raise livestock and share their fruits with others, the family said.
In exchange for the free land, early co-op members were required to join the movement for Meadowlark to create its own city, an effort that never got its legs and died at the idea stage.
Marlene Paredes and her husband, Arturo, are raising six children in a less-than-modest house on the Meadowlark property. They have chickens, goats and cows, and with some old tires built a pretty nifty corral where their horses can exercise.
“The kids love it here,” Paredes said on a recent day as the children played on the property. “We have animals.”
But problems followed a few months after they moved in.
Paredes said they were told they could build a house on the property, so they began the foundation only to learn that the county would not allow it.
What started out as free land quickly became a $382 monthly charge for rent, or they could work 40 hours a month on the property, Paredes said. They also had to pay about $145 a month in utilities. A plan to charge fees for schools, libraries, parks and other amenities that the property has never had was considered but not implemented.
They’re looking to move out because of the issues the Paredeses said they’ve had with the former owner and president, Aaron Brachfeld, and his wife, Mary Choate, who now owns the land. Brachfeld transferred the property to his wife for legal purposes, he said.
Choate said the only cash required was for utilities, such as electricity and trash.
“If you’re going to build a school, you’re not going to build it with vegetables,” Choate said.
“Anger issues”
The Paredes family, Brachfeld and Choate are the only people still living on the property — and things among them are getting tense.
On Memorial Day, Aaron Brachfeld pulled a gun on Arturo Paredes after their cows made it onto Brachfeld’s parcel, adjacent to theirs.
Brachfeld was charged with felony menacing.
“He has anger issues,” Marlene Paredes said. “He’s mad because nobody is paying him any more money.”
Brachfeld said Arturo threatened him and his wife, so he “brandished a pistol” — a move he now regrets. He also has to stay away from the family.
Choate said she has started eviction proceedings with the Paredeses.
Elbert County is aware of some of the issues that have sprouted from the property and tried to take action. It adopted a rubbish ordinance but is revising and considering a in the wake of the ongoing battle with Meadowlark because agricultural lands were exempt from such regulations.
Elbert County spokesman Cory Stark said county officials have decided not to comment on the situation, citing the pending litigation.
Neighbors have also been affected. Some don’t like the tires and don’t like having their Memorial Day celebrations interrupted by sheriff’s deputies whizzing by on their way to sort out a Meadowlark feud.
“It’s ugly,” said one neighbor, who lives — as the crows fly — about a mile from Meadowlark and who asked that her name not be used because of privacy concerns.
Thousands of tires
Brachfeld said the idea behind the co-op was a good one when it was incorporated in 2010. Property owners would ban together, work the land, share and sell what they produced, and live the good life. But only a handful of properties were even occupied at any one time; a few lived there and a few lived elsewhere and visited only to work the land.
He and his wife live in a small, one-room wooden house — if you could call it that — that he got classified as a boat and licensed as a recreational vehicle. But the shack is neither seaworthy nor drivable, at least not now.
The two live off the land but only have about about 1.5 acres of intensive cultivation, he said. They have chickens and goats, and Brachfeld has planted plum trees on his property. But those will take up to 10 years to reach maturity, he acknowledged. Squash, cress and chard were planted — on purpose, Brachfeld said — among overgrown weeds, but the weeds are also used to feed animals.
They have a well, so water hasn’t been much of an issue so far.
Brachfeld and Choate dry their socks on wire meshing wrapped around fledgling trees, but “the county said we needed a permit to dry our socks outside,” he said.
Theirs is a simple life, a “new model” for agriculture, he said.
They eat some of the produce they grow — and sell some to another co-op, which provides them with spending money. They recycle everything. Brachfeld said. The tires are an example of that. Companies donated the tires, and the property has upward of 12,000 loose tires and another 1,200 bales of tires, each of which contains about 100 compressed tires.
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, Brachfeld said.
“They accused us of being a junkyard,” Brachfeld said. “It’s difficult to be a junkyard without any junk. We’re not the prettiest farm in Elbert County, that’s for sure.”
Brachfeld and Choate have cleaned up the property some, but there still looks like much more needs to be done. Meadowlark has stopped the tire deliveries after the county complained, he said.
“Our goal is comply with the law,” Brachfeld said.
The fight with the county has been frustrating, they said.
“It’s been a long two years,” Choate said. “Some people love what we’re doing. Some people hate it.”
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
