SAGUACHE COUNTY — Following two successful court proceedings and a recent request to enforce a court order resulting from the second suit, Chester Havens Sr. and Chester Havens Jr., contractors living in Lazy KV Estates, call any defense of the subdivision’s HOA “bull.”
The court documents from the lawsuits and the recent report of a violation of the court’s order are posted online at Facebook. Havens received a settlement for services rendered to the HOA in his most recent lawsuit, which went to mediation. Several other legal documents also are posted at the Concerned Citizens forum online, Havens Sr. said.
The most recent request by Havens Jr. to enforce the April 2019 mediation results is based on the HOA’s failure to erect signs in the subdivision according to the stipulations provided in the original court order.
Havens Sr. points to court documents, notices from the state regarding a water violation and a reprimand for selling real estate without a license as proof current board members of the Lazy KV Homeowners Association (HOA) are not working for the good of the association. In addition, he maintains that the HOA, in violation of the Kiowa Act, has not held proper elections since its creation in 1972.
Regarding the statement of an anonymous source in last week’s issue that s/he attended the last two meetings and that the first meeting only was recorded with a camcorder but the second was not:  
“I personally was there also at the meeting and there was a heated debate over the voting and the board’s lack of give a damn,” Havens Jr. wrote in a recent Facebook post. “As concerns the video and audio tapes, they are in my care because they contain information that would be considered contrary to the board of directors of the KV Estates version of events.”
This same anonymous email writer also claimed that the first article reporting that the board uses scare tactics to intimidate people, which ran in last week’s Center Post-Dispatch, is incorrect. “I have never seen that,” s/he wrote in an email sent to Valley Publishing.

Scare tactics and real estate sales
Tabitha Hapl, a Lazy KV homeowner, first referred to the “scare tactics” in a notice she sent to Lazy KV homeowners regarding the upcoming election. She points to the Lazy KV’s own June 2019 newsletter, written by Secretary Teena Swisher, as the source of her information. The newsletter states:
“I have heard that several people want to get elected to be board members at the Aug. 3 yearly homeowners meeting. Some of them want to get rid of the entire board. But let me ask you all something — let’s say that they were able to get all new board members. These new people would have no idea how to take care of the water system, much less how to run the KV office. They would not even be able to write checks for the bills because their signatures would not be on file with the bank.
“I am asking that you all send your proxy/ballots back in time for the annual meeting, especially if you want to retain the current board members… As always you may name me or one of the board members as your proxy designee. But even if you choose not to vote, please send your proxy back anyway to ensure we have a quorum to actually hold the annual meeting.”
Another complaint made by Hapl in her initial letter was that a proxy can be signed to help meet the quorum but put a line through the proxy name location and on it can be written “for quorum use only.” Proxy votes also can be kept for 11 months and used to vote on other issues, Hapl wrote.
On July 1, 2019 Swisher was notified by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Affairs (DORA) that her case with the department had been terminated after she agreed to stop selling real estate in the Lazy KV without a real estate license. DORA cautioned, however, that “Additional complaints may result in further investigation.”

Boil order and notification failure
Regarding the water situation, Hapl reports that last October the water was turned off for four days to repair ruptured water lines, but the only notice for this repair work and boil water order was posted online. Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE) officials in contact with Hapl confirmed that a Facebook notice was not sufficient, and any boil order notice must be issued on a CDPHE form and hand-delivered to all residents.
The Saguache County Health Department was not notified of the boil order either, as CDPHE requires.
As a result of this failure to notify, CDPHE told the HOA their water would have to be boiled indefinitely until water test results proved the water was safe to drink. In the boil water notice posted to Facebook following their contact with CDPHE, Swisher wrote:
“Due to complaints made to the state, we have been ordered to boil water until further notice, not just for four days as was posted on Facebook. Just because I personally feel there is no need for this boil business doesn’t mean you should do the same. We have added additional chlorine to the well per the state order and need to wait until the solution has time to reach all water lines at which time we will perform water tests to send to the lab to be evaluated.”
Hapl told CDPHE she never received a printed notice and estimated that 20-30 other residents, some of whom she was in contact with, did not receive notices either. Havens Jr. and Hapl both supplied photos of the actual ruptured water lines. Hapl said that the water that issued from her tap after the breakage was muddy and full of small rocks.
Hapl said the full water report from CDPHE, which is required to be published following a break in the lines was not provided to residents by the HOA. Instead, only a part of the report was provided. At press time the water in Lazy KV Estates was turned off once again.
Both Hapl and the Havens claim that many homeowners in the subdivision are upset over recent events and the upcoming election. They all profess a desire only to see conditions in Lazy KV improve, for the health, safety and well-being of present and future property owners.