Hi Ms. Eller,

My name is Ken Colaizzi and I’m currently serving as the TrailMark HOA President.

I recently contacted South Suburban Parks and Recreation about the large amount of weeds that are out of control in height throughout your property here in TrailMark. Many of our residents are deeply concerned as there are now a large amount of rattlesnakes hiding in these weeds next to your trails.

We received written notification from Seth at SSPRD stating that there has been a change of policy at SSPRD and routine upkeep of mowing your weeds will no longer be performed unless they are noxious weeds. Our homeowners are outraged at that response!

As you can see from the photos that I have included, the SSPRD weeds are now engulfing the fire hydrants – which is a HUGE risk to TrailMark homeowners’ safety by putting them at risk in case of a fire.

On behalf of our 799 TrailMark residents, we are all being harmed by the SSPRD’s neglect in not taking care of routine maintenance in mowing your weeds.

Some of the weeds around SSPRD’s trash cans are becoming so high, that dog walkers can’t even access the SSPRD supplied poop bags for their dogs, without walking through tall weeds which put their dogs at risk from being bit by a rattlesnake. 

I’m politely making you aware that not routinely mowing the SSPRD weeds is a negligent danger to your constituents in TrailMark. 

If our homeowners had weeds in their yards as tall as the SSPRD weeds, they’d be receiving a courtesy notice from the HOA to take corrective action and clean them up promptly. If we didn’t have an HOA, the City of Littleton would be citing homeowners for tall weeds as well.

TrailMark is begging SSPRD to step up and mow your weeds. We don’t want to see our residents harmed by a rattlesnake bite, or endangered by a fire when fire personnel cannot safely access the fire hydrants in case of an emergency.

Since this is a pressing need of immediate action for the safety of our residents, I’ve also included our Littleton City Councilwoman, Andrea Peters, in this email so she can be kept aware of this problem as well.

I look forward to your response so we can keep our residents aware of your action plan.

Mr. Colaizzi,

I appreciate you bringing this to my attention.  I have forwarded this to the District’s Executive Director and asked him to address it immediately.

Thank you,

Pam Eller

Mr. Colaizzi,

I just got off the phone with Rob Schoeber, our Executive Director, regarding your concerns over the TrailMark open space. He followed up with SSPRD’s Director of Parks and Open Space.

Recently, the District approved a policy regarding mowing of open spaces. Simply stated, we mow along trails and structures such as fire hydrants, and also along fence lines where there is adequate access.

There is a contractor who is responsible for the TrailMark area, and I am told that he has fallen behind in his schedule. Actually, he was supposed to be there today. But the Director and Executive Director plan to go out to TrailMark tomorrow to take a look at the space and make sure that the District’s directives are being followed. If the work has not been completed, a crew will be assigned to take care of it as soon as possible.

So I feel confident that the appropriate mowing will be completed by the end of the week.

If you have any further concerns, please contact me.  And thank you again for bringing this to our attention.

Pam Eller