A La Plata County man faces criminal mischief charges for keying a neighbor’s car after a vote didn’t go his way at a county planning meeting earlier this summer.
“Before I was done doing it, I realized it was one of the stupidest things I’ve done in my life,” Robert Kolter told The Durango Herald on Monday. He declined to comment further.
The incident stems from a La Plata County Planning Commission meeting June 27 where resident Paula Berg requested three lots totaling 9 acres that her family owns be split into seven lots.
The lots, according to county records, were reclassified in October 2017 from a residential designation to multi-use, which allows for higher density and a wider variety of development on the property, located near the intersection of County Roads 225A and 510, east of Elmore’s Corner.
Berg told planning commissioners she hoped the properties would help “middle class” people find affordable land for homes, businesses and storage space.
During the public comment period, Kolter, 60, who lives near the property in question, said he opposed the project because of issues surrounding density, traffic and a possible change of character of the area.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “I think that living where I live and having a view of the La Platas that’s going to be obscured by storage units and god knows what else through a mixed-use plan doesn’t fit with what I bought when I bought my property.”
Kolter also raised concerns about impacts to water quality for neighbors and insisted mixed-use, higher-density projects would be better concentrated along U.S. Highway 160.
“To add seven more residences, and the traffic that goes with them, I think will be a problem,” he said. “I don’t think we need the extra traffic.”
The Planning Commission ultimately approved the proposal, unanimously.
Berg told police that Kolter left the meeting upset at the outcome of the vote. Around 7 that night, she left the meeting and went to the parking lot to find her 2016 GMC had been “keyed, causing extensive damage to the paint,” according to the report.
The next morning, June 28, Berg contacted La Plata County officials about the incident, who were able to pull video surveillance of the parking lot “in which her neighbor can clearly be seen leaving the building shortly after (6:26 p.m.) and then damaging her parked car.”
The neighbor, according to police records, was identified as Kolter.
Berg declined to comment for this story, saying the incident is going through the court process.
Berg told investigators she and her family has had “numerous encounters” with Kolter.
“(The Bergs) stated they have a rental property on their land and that in the past Mr. Kolter has been found trespassing inside an outbuilding full of property belonging to a renter, cut a fence in between their properties and used a front-end loader on his tractor to fill a large dumpster the Berg’s rented with trash,” the investigating police officer wrote.
Kolter was contacted by police later in the day June 28 and said, “I did it” and “what do we need to do to take care of this?” He also told police that the day of the meeting, he was having a bad day.
Kolter was ticketed July 7 with criminal mischief for allegedly causing damages between $750 and $1,000. He is set to appear Wednesday in court.
County Manager Chuck Stevens told county commissioners earlier this month the incident highlights how quickly situations can escalate. Recently, the county has implemented a number of measures to bolster security and safety at county offices, like requiring employees to wear identification badges and take active-threat training.
“We will continue to critically assess our current security measures as well as review best practices from across the country to confirm that we are taking the necessary steps to keep our employees and citizens safe in county spaces,” Stevens wrote to employees this week.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
