PTRIA Annual Meeting
August 30, 2025 11am
Board Members
President – Terry Johnson
1st Vice President – George Purnell
2nd Vice President – Vacant
Treasurer – Nadine Butz
Secretary – Kathy Mikesell
The meeting was called to order, and the Pledge of Allegiance was said
Red the Fire Chief and Aaron Mandel were the guest speakers
Aaron Mandel spoke concerning the wild land fire mitigation. The Southern Park County Fire Station covers 242 square miles of Park County. He talked about the mutual aid from surrounding agencies in case of wildfire here and the equipment that they have.
He talked about the Risk management for our properties. The fire department will come out at no cost to the property owner to go over the fire risk of the property and offer suggestions. The property owner will receive the report, which is not recorded anywhere else. One of the issues the fire department runs into is access to the property, the driveway being too narrow, low branches, the turns in the driveway being too tight for the trucks and the inability to turn the large trucks around.
Both were called away due to the tones going off.
Terry talked about the 2nd of the 3-year plan for the roads. He stressed the importance that emergency vehicles be able to access your property and turn around. There is a little bit more left to do on the roads. Volunteers will be needed for trimming branches, clearing ponds, all help is appreciated.
George talked about the 2nd year of the 3-year plan, culverts, grading, widening of the roads and cul-de-sacs that were done. All roads will be graded and widened this year. The Red Road was widened and graded. The roads are in good shape and have been graded to provide drainage and have been widened, which allows for safer driving for homeowners and emergency vehicles. This was done by the efforts of Scott Butz of Rock Movers Excavating, which is greatly appreciated, Scott volunteers his labor hours and we pay for the machine time only. For 2 years Scott has offered to install culvert(s)on private property if the owner purchased to culvert(s), due to the rising costs he can no longer offer this free of charge.
Please drive on the right side of the roads, this will keep the weeds down and this will prevent the road from going back to a single lane.
There were 15 loads of road base or 414.49 tons put down on Deer, Antelope and Elk, this was high priority. Elk and Cougar held water, and extra work was required to raise the road for better drainage. Trees on Antelope and Hawk were removed to provide better drainage and widening. There are phone pedestals which were placed in the road, the phone company has been contacted to move these so that the roads can be widened. They currently have not gotten back to Terry. For the trees that were cut down for the widening of the roads, you are welcome to the trees for firewood, all we ask is that you create a slash pile and notify either George or Terry so they can come pick up the branches.
Buck, Doe and Skyhawk are rocky roads and are very hard to grade due to the rocks. The plan is to keep working on them and to eventually be able to put road base down. It is estimated it will take about 40 loads of road base to fix these roads at $1200 per load it will take about $50,000.
Road base is planned this year for Deer, Antelope and Cougar. Culverts for Badger Ln. and the Lower Pond. Antelope by the barrier will require 2 – 24-inch culverts, the road was raised to allow drainage until the culverts are put in. Deer and Hawk will need culverts.
After the completion of the 3rd year the roads will only need grading and road base, but no culverts.
Questions/Comments
At Cougar and 88 the comment was made concerning the drainage. Terry has contacted the county concerning this and they say no culvert is there, but there is one and it needs cleaning out. The county does not answer Terry’s complaints nor questions. There are two places on 88 that the culverts need repaired, Cougar and at the top of the hill on 88.
Jon Klima would like to have the property owners notified when trees are cut on private property so that the owner can come and get the firewood.
Old Grader trade was explained; the old grader was worn out and a barder deal was made and the Assn. received 10 loads of road base. With the old grader being gone there is no maintence nor upkeep expenses.
Nadine talked about the budget. Last year’s left overfunds are dwindling, with the rising costs, the budget will have about $1000 left over. Last year the rollover was $47,000 and of that $32,000 was spent $30,000 of that was spent on gravel and grading. This year the budget had $15,000 rolled over of that fish were ordered at a cost of $1200, insurance went up $173 and the annual filing went from $10 to $25. The change was to move $400 from snow fence to road maintenance due to a surplus in snow fence supplies. The cost of one pass for grading all the roads is $6,800; some roads may require a second pass. The remaining $15,400 will be used for road base and culverts. This year the anticipated cost for the roads will be $28,864 with an approximate roll-over of $2,982. The $10,000 required CD is remaining.
$15,000 moved from last year to current year, there were 83 members who paid dues as of August 30, 2025, we would like to have seen $16,000 in dues paid. This year’s operating budget is $31,166 as of today. Last year $30,000 was spent, which is a decrease of $12,000, based on the current rise in expenses.
There were no questions. The motion for the approval of the budget was presented and Patricia Hilbert approved, and Mark Norman seconded the motion. There was no opposition.
Eric had a question, if he could add the fish that come through an irrigation pipe be added to the ponds. The board will discuss this further and will depend on the type of fish.
Pond conditions were discussed, the ponds are currently covered in algae, which may be due to the lower water table and the weather which both may have contributed to the huge growth. The algae was treated and appeared to be going down.
There were no further questions.
Workdays will be:
Snow Fence 10/18 at 9 am
Tree Trimming 9/26 at 9 am
Pond work 9/20 at 10 am
Phone calls Terry has received:
Eric said that Bill Sioux’s son-in-law will dig the trees along the roads and in exchange will plant the trees by the ponds. Terry asked this person to call him.
There are upset property owners not knowing when their road will be worked on, they would like to be notified. This will be hard to do because of Scott’s schedule and the actual date the road base being delivered might be as short as a day’s notice and the phone company to come out and mark the line location. During road base delivery please do not pull out in front of the equipment to stop them from working.
The meeting was moved to Saturday before Labor Day in hopes that more property owners could be present. The by-laws state the meeting is to be held on the Sunday before Labor Day weekend and may be changed by mutual agreement. Voting was done, to leave the date of the meeting as it currently is, this had a majority of the vote with 3 votes opposing. The date will remain the same for next year. A by-law change will be made. Jon Klima stated that he did not think the by-laws need to be changed due to it stating by mutual agreement.
Terry asked that residents drive slower to maintain the condition of the current roads.
Johanna said that the culvert at the intersection of Elk and Eagle was great.
Jon Klima brought up that Paul Hentschl (purchased Oliver’s old place) wants to build and bring people in to help build his Earthship house and to grow mushrooms. Terry stated that he had had complaints also and did contact the county. They stated they would follow through but never has. The county has a complaint form you can fill out. Johanna said that she has seen people show up at his place unannounced.
Shawna thanked the volunteer board for doing a good job.
A resident, Aubrey emailed the board with comments:
Tried to fish but there was too much algae
Thanked the board for the roads
Maybe divert the money from the fishponds to the roads
Has been having property theft for 2 years and does not feel this is random
Nadine thanked the members who donated extra money and for Jon Klima helping her.
Election
Terry stated he was willing to do another term so that he could finish the 3-year road plan project.
There was no one else nominated for the president.
The motion was presented to retain the board by Denise with Johanna seconding. There was no opposition.
The remainder of the board agreed to stay on another term.
The 2nd Vice President position was open and there were no nominations, Bill Jones was volunteered and accepted.
Jeff had a comment concerning local vs non-local board members. Terry explained that it is better that the board members be local due to the calling of board members frequently on roads. He also wanted to know what the 2nd Vice did, it was explained if the President and the 1st Vice were not available, the 2nd Vice would take over and provide a tie breaking vote.
There are 4 or 5 new residents.
The motion to adjourn the meeting was presented and Denise seconded.