FTA News December 2002 December Meeting: Wednesday, January 8th, 6:30 PM, Robbers Roost Tavern

By proclamation of our President, Lore Lunsford, the December meeting has been relocated to the Robbers Roost Tavern
We'll talk about trails and plans for the new year! Everyone is welcome to attend the meeting, learn about trails, help preserve and develop our trails system!!! Bring a friend.

Welcome new Board Members!

President	Lori Lunsford	367-4254	lunsford@foothill.net
Vice President/Trail Scout	Steve Tomlin	367-4514	plough@foothill.net
Vice President	Jim Larimer	367-4332	ROBIEPK@foothill.net
Treasurer	Bruce Littlefield	367-3353	brucelit@foothill.net
Secretary/Newsletter	Sue Crum	367-4278	susan@foothill.net

Huge thanks to Larry Mobley and Sherri Osborn for the hard work, time, dedication and energy.

4th of July Prizewinner is still smiling!!!
Marla Triggs, an 8-year old Foresthill resident who won the two-hour trail ride for two, invited her older sister Jessica (12) for a scenic ride on the McKeon-Ponderosa loop. Marla donated one dollar towards the Patent Road Staging Area Gravel Fund. All donors had their name placed in a jar for a drawing to win a guided trail ride with Ponderosa Trail Rides. Marla and Jessica chose to break the prize into two one-hour rides so doubling their fun. Lori reports that the girls had a great time with wonderful weather. Congratulation to Marla!
Thank you Steve and Lori of Ponderosa Trail Rides.

Working with new developments
This fall members of FTA have been active monitoring the planning process of no less than four large developments within the Foresthill Divide. These four developments are in different stages of implementation but they will all impact our community and our trail system. It is extremely important to work with the owners of these developments and Placer County to gain trails and insure that we do not loose trails. Placer County has made a commitment to encourage trails within our community and many developers see the benefit of having trails that will enhance their product.
It is in FTA's charter to preserve, protect and expand the Foresthill Trails System and I am very proud to report that we have a few members that are fulfilling this commitment.

Trail Maintenance Responsibility
This is an email from Vance Kimbrell of Placer County Planning Dept. in response to questions of trail maintance responsibility within a development with public access trails.

Larry and Doug,
The way public trails within subdivisions normally work is that the homeowners association is responsible for the trail maintenance since it is their residents that have primary access and use. If it is a large subdivision, the county has, on occasion, required the homeowners to pay an assessment via a County Service Area and county staff will maintain the trail through this fund. This is normally more expensive to the residents that just having the HOA (Homeowners Association) do it, but it is also more dependable and it provides a reliable funding source for trail maintenance.

The Forest Ranch subdivision project is not far enough along yet for county staff to start evaluating which method would be appropriate on the project.

The State Parks has little or no money for existing trail maintenance and what little maintenance they do is only on their property. They depend heavily on volunteer groups to maintain their trails system. Much like the state, the county provides very little funding for trail maintenance, so we also depend on trails groups for maintenance of any public trail easements where we do not have alternate maintenance funding sources explained in the first paragraph. I hope this helps to explain the trail maintenance process.
Vance

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