The summer has been relatively quiet. There are no trespass violations reported as yet this quarter, and no cabin break-ins. There have been numerous reports of dog leash violations and incidents involving pellet guns. Please remember that in order for the Heber Valley Animal Control or the Sheriff’s department to respond to this type of incident, there must be a complaining witness who will actually sign the complaint. Asking our security employee to call and provide a second hand account of the incident to law enforcement is not sufficient. If you witness an illegal act, please  call the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Dispatch directly.

We are still looking for applicants to fill full and part time positions at the Timber Lakes gate. If you are interested, please contact the office for an application. If you have any questions about what the position entails, please call Craig Allen directly. We would prefer to hire from within the community before we start hiring from outside Timber Lakes. We are also working on a service response guide for Timber Lakes Security. As soon as this is complete and we are fully staffed again, we will communicate to all owners though our website.

We have had some complaints about speeders. Please do your part by obeying the speed limit. If you witness someone speeding in Timber Lakes, get their license plate number and contact Craig Allen.

We spoke briefly during the annual meeting about short-term rentals. We have discussed this with the County Attorney and have had initial discussions with the Sheriff’s Office. The County will enforce the law, and we are working with the Sheriff to determine what type of evidence will be required in order to prosecute a successful case. While we are waiting to hear from the County on the next steps, residents can help by identifying rental properties. If you are aware of a short term (less than 30 day duration) rental, please call or email that lot number to any board member. We are currently aware of only 25 or so properties that fall in this category.

Thanks for helping us keep things safe in Timber Lakes.

We have received several emails and telephone calls about the new Timber Lakes Directory. Many of you are upset that your unlisted telephone number and/or address was included in this directory. Please be assured that Timber Lakes Property Owners Association does NOT release your owner information without your permission, with the exception of cooperating with law enforcement agencies and other inquiries where we are required by law to divulge owner information.

We did not provide any information, permission or support for the printing of the directory. We do not know how the information was obtained. This was the sole effort of one property owner who was operating on their own and we suggest you contact that individual with your concerns and complaints. Her name is Rachel Deggerman. I did not purchase a copy of the directory but I assume that it lists her telephone number.

As always, thank you for contacting us when you have a concern.

The County has a crew in Timber Lakes spraying for noxious weeds on the roadsides this week. We encourage property owners to do the same on your lots. Some weeds, including Musk Thistle, Scotch Thistle, Leafy Spurge, Square Rose Knap Weed, Yellow Star Thistle, Yellow Toad Flax and Russian Knap Weedthistle, will take over if they are not controlled.

Thanks.

John Blickenstaff

We held our annual meeting this morning (Saturday, July 12, 2008). We had approximately 125 people in attendance and about that same number voted by mail.

John Blickenstaff, Mike Durr and Gifford Ely were elected to three-year terms as members of the Board of Directors. Brad Denney ran a nice absentee campaign. He was unable to attend the meeting but was nominated from the floor and received many votes, but not enough to win a seat.

We announced our discussions with All West Communications about improving the services they offer in Timber Lakes and look forward to working with them on these enhancements. Regarding one of those items, a non-binding poll of those present showed an overwhelming majority favor getting cell phone coverage on the mountain.

Ernie Giles, Wasatch County Fire Chief, announced the County has decided to build a fire station in Timber Lakes. He was applauded and expressed appreciation by stating that he is not usually applauded when he shows up. Both the County and the Property Owners Association still have some hoops to jump through to make this happen, but the prospects are exciting.

We will summarize the rest of the meeting in the minutes, which we will post as soon as we have a chance to compose and review them.

Following the public meeting, the Board of Directors met and elected officers for the fiscal year (July 2007 through June 2008). The results:

John Blickenstaff — President
Ole Smith — Vice President of Administration
Gary Hume — Vice President of Operations
Charlie Richards — Treasurer
LaMar Hadley — Secretary

I would like to thank a bunch of people. First, thanks to John Young, our outgoing President. John did a remarkable job of organizing the Board’s workload and refereeing between strong opinions. He and his wife, Ilse, put in untold hours worrying about details, getting the newsletters organized and printed, creating meeting agendas and talking to property owners, The Young’s have served our mountain community well and we will miss him as our President.

I also want to thank Grant Fairbanks and his election committee for handling the ballots and counting the votes. Grant has tackled this project for several years and we appreciate his civic spirit and willingness to provide service to the rest of us.

I appreciate Connie Hadley, for taking minutes and keeping us all honest. She has a big task just riding heard on LaMar, but she also finds the time to communicate with the rest of the Board and keep us informed of issues that she knows we need to look at.

I want to thank each of you that took the time to vote in this election, as well as those who voted in the Pebble Creek matter. We will be back to you shortly to ask you to approve another couple of important items.

Finally, thanks to you property owners who have contacted a Board member with a concern, suggestion, complaint or question. We appreciate your input. If we have not addressed your problem yet, it is not because we do not care; it is because we do not have enough property owners volunteering to help us. If you are willing to help, please let us know.

Our Board will meet in two weeks to map out our priorities for the coming year and pledge to keep trying to improve the quality of life on our mountain.

John Blickenstaff

There are always many questions by the lot owners as to what projects are ongoing and why “my road is not fixed”! We have been holding off on repairs to the roads while waiting to see if the water bond project was going to pass. Now that the water board has decided to move forward with the project, we can now prioritize our road projects.

John B. and I attended a meeting with some of the water board members this week and worked on a plan as to what part of the mountain they would suggest to the contractor he work on first. I have been holding off on applying any new road base to the roads that will be dug up (approximately 18+ miles of road) when the new water pipe is laid as this would be a waste of our dollars. If we laid down new base now the new base would be mixed into the dirt and then reapplied. This does not make for a good road base.

It looks like the water contractor will start laying pipe in early September. The water company will probably ask for them to start on the upper part of the mountain (as that is where most water leaks are) and a second crew start on the west side. If snow hits the upper mountain early this year, that crew will probably move to the west lower side.

As the pipe is laid in the ground on the side roads those roads will be put back to some improved condition and then most will receive an additional 3 inches of road base added to the surface. Our road guys will be working ahead of the pipe laying crews making sure that the roads are widened where and when possible and that excess dirt from the pipe trench is used to improve certain road dips and humps. Our biggest challenge is that we have only two road guys, while the pipe laying company may have up to four crews available for this project at any one time. Math says we cannot keep ahead of all the pipe crews with just our two guys so we will be working on the areas that need the most work as our priority.
We will be evaluating all the intersections and trying to figure out how we can improve them, if possible, if and when we have excess dirt and time available.

Our original intent was to have the pipe crews do Blue Spruce first so we could improve that road. After some additional consideration we decided to do Blue Spruce last as there will be a large volume of heavy trucks going up and down that road in relation to the water pipe project which could cause considerable damage to that section of the road.

There is no doubt that the main roads will be in very poor shape for the next 1-2 years. We will do the best we can to keep the roads graded and as smooth as possible.

In a project of this nature there are a lot of “ifs”, “when” and “buts”. We have a road crew of two men and a whole lot of work to do with very little money. Please be patient with us over the next few years. When we are all through I think the mountain will defiantly be in the best shape is has been in years.

Thanks for your patience.

Gary Hume
Road Guy