May 28, 2026
Greetings once again Pike Trails Ranches Property Owners,
Annual Meeting: Yes, it’s time for that annual Newsletter/Dues Notice. This year we will be holding our annual meeting on Sat. September 5, 2026 (Sat. of the Labor Day Weekend) at the Sothern Park County Fire Protection District Station #3 at 11:00 AM. The address is: 2406 Park County Road #88. We’re going to have a pot luck lunch following the meeting. PTRIA will provide the Fried Chicken, Coffee, Tea, Lemonade, Waters, Picnic supplies and we’ll have the chairs from Station #1. Those chairs are not real comfortable so you might want to bring a more comfortable one! So, bring a side dish, salad, desert, favorite beverage or just yourselves. ….. Whatever you want, and come join us, we would love to hear from everybody. This is not an election year but we do have some business to take care of so come lend your voice.
Dues: Our road maintenance, drainage corrections, supplies, materials, pond maintenance and fish are just some of the things that our dues cover. The improvements that we are able to make and maintenance we’re able to accomplish are directly proportional to the dues we can collect. We have several owners that have helped us out in the past with extra donations, that has really helped us stretch the work and thanks to those folks for that, every little bit helps! Keeping our roads in good shape is more than just for us to drive on, our Fire, law enforcement, Emergency Services and suppliers depend on these roads and can respond quicker and more efficiently when we’re up to speed on the maintenance. And remember our roads are not race tracks. Our dues have not been raised lately and dues are still based on the following criteria: Base Dues: Single Lot with access from PTRIA road $175.00
Base Dues: Single Lot with access from CR 88/Hwy. 9 $70.00
Added to Base: Additional Unimproved Lots (each) $70.00
Added to Base: Additional Lot with Home on PTRIA Road (each) $175.00
Per our By-Laws, Dues are voluntary and ownership and dues responsibility are determined through the County Assessor’s Office Data. If the information we have is incorrect, please let us know. We do not browse the records unless we have something wrong and need our Property Owners to notify us that a change in ownership or contact point has occurred. A separate page is included with a coupon to fill out for contact information and the assessment value, please return that completed with your payment to help us keep our records straight. Again, we would like to give a special thank you to those who have given us a little extra in the past, every little bit really does help us make more and better fixes to our neighborhood. That being said, we as an association are once again in a position where we have an income that is really being outpaced by inflated costs of materials, fuel and hardware. We’re going to be looking at raising the dues assessment and believe that $50 to $75 additional assessment to Lots with a home and access to PTRIA roads, and $25 to $35 additional assessment to Lots with access from CR 88/Hwy 9 and additional unimproved Lots would be appropriate to allow the board to keep pace with the needs of Road Base and the few Culverts that are still needed and the costs to put these things in place. This is truly a situation where you get what you pay for! The costs of this material/hardware have increased by appx. 70% and fuel costs have increased by appx. 12% to 14% and that is being translated into delivery costs, since the current rates were established. To put it simply, we’re getting less than half of what we used to for our dollars.
Ponds: On 4-3-2026 we welcomed our 2026 trout to our ponds on a beautiful but windy sunny day. 125 lbs. of trout were delivered this year and split between the upper and lower ponds. This year we have a Golden trout in the upper pond! With the low rainfall this year so far, we are keeping an eye on the ponds. Treatment was applied in late spring.
We would like to remind everyone that the dams and land bridges of our ponds are not to be utilized as roads for vehicles. They are there for maintenance and service of those ponds and are intended for foot traffic only.
Budget: We are anticipating an operating budget reduction of over $12,000. We experienced an increase in expenditures for Insurance, PO Box fee, filing fee and website operation. Along with the cost of materials for road maintenance. Below is a snap shot of this closing year’s budget against the new year’s suggested budget for road maintenance/repairs.
Budget 6/1/25-5/31/26
Total income $33,061 (92 members paid)
Road focused
Grading (Road Maintenance): $6,800
Gravel/Culverts/repair: $15,400
Anticipated Budget 6/1/26-5/31/27
Anticipated income $20,687 (92 members paid, depleted rollover budget)
Road focused
Grading (Road Maintenance): $7,500
Gravel/Culverts/repair: $5,000
These Proposed figures are based on past funding trends and are always subject to change as our accomplishments are directly proportional to our funding.
Common Courtesy: When we have an issue that requires access to or across someone else’s property we need to contact the owner by phone or contact one of the board members for the phone number prior to accessing that property. If the issue is one that requires the assistance of the Sheriff’s Office, then they need to be allowed to handle that and they should be called. Many properties are under surveillance by security systems or Game cameras and you would be surprised how many there actually are. Un-approved trespass could cause somebody real problems and some hard feelings. So please refrain from trespassing without notice and approval.
Contractors/Workers: Throughout the year there will be contractors and/or their workers or even our own neighbors doing the work that this board has either contracted or asked to do for us. If these people are doing a job for us and anybody has an issue with it, please contact the board members and do not try to take the issue up with the workers. Those people are doing what we ask them to do and trying to get in their way or interrupt them in any way will only cost us money and grief. The grading that we have done is done to develop correct crowning and drainage effort for our roads. If there is not at least an 18-inch metal culvert at a drive there will most likely be a berm developed there. Those will have to be worked down by the property owner to allow vehicles to traverse but the drainage form must be maintained. PTRIA will not be responsible for washouts/mudholes developed because the drainage form for the road edge has been destroyed and someone now has a river for a drive entrance. And remember a Road Grader or Backhoe or Dozer types of equipment will always win when confronted by a smaller/lighter piece of equipment.
Intersection Repair/Road Closure: The intersection of CR 88 and Deer Ln is going to be repaired with the last of our road maintenance money from last year. This is the type of emergency that we held the funds in reserve for to work. The problem is that the road base that we originally placed there has been pushed off by traffic volume and excessive speeds and “want-to-be race drivers” power-sliding around that corner. The road surface is now just basically clay and rutted and washed. We’ll have to go at least 6 inches deep to get under the damage and then refill and compact new road base in that area. We may consider a speed-bump to keep the speeds down. That may be what it takes to slow down FE-DEX and UPS and the likes as well. We’ll post some signage a couple of days before but we will have the whole intersection shut down, and the “Red Road” will have to serve for access and we’ll get that re-opened as quickly as possible. We’re not sure of the timeline on that yet as we are at the mercy of our contractor’s availability.
Father’s Day Fishing Event: The Father’s Day fishing Event will be held the weekend after Father’s Day on June 28, 2026, at the upper pond from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM to accommodate the other festivities that celebrate the men that keep our world running. We are providing Burgers and Hot Dogs, Chips and waters for this event. Please feel free to bring a picnic side dish or desert if you would like. Don’t forget to bring along your lawn chairs, fishing poles and tackle boxes. Don’t forget that we received a golden Trout with our fish and we’re still seeing him swimming around in that pond you could be the one to catch him!!
Fire Talk: As always, we all need to be extremely careful with fire. We’ve been fortunate that we have had as few issues as we have had. There is currently a stage 2 fire ban in effect and we are working to Park County Guidelines that can be found on the Park County fire ban guide on that website. Please check to see if you need a fire permit before you open burn, just talk to the folks at the Fire House in Guffey, better safe than sorry.
Property Ownership Transfers: Just another reminder about letting us know when ownership and contact points change in our subdivision. Also making sure the right information is on the County Data Base. We don’t want to bother people but there may come a time that we’ll need to contact a property owner. If you are a new owner… Welcome to the neighborhood… We’d like to thank everyone for their help, support and hard work. This work can’t be done without the whole team and we’re all part of the team. We’re looking forward to seeing you all at the meeting.
Here’s to everyone having a great next year from the entire Board,
Terry Johnson President cell: 303-704-6441
George Purnell 1st Vice President cell: 719-989-8963
Bill Jones 2nd Vice president cell: 720-948-8077
Nadine Butz Treasurer cell: 610-704-6815
Kathy Mikesell Secretary cell: 719-285-5048