Emergency Exits throughout the Association

I am confused about the new map that was posted to the Association website. I remember explicitly being told by the previous President that the emergency roads indicated on the map were never to be used. The Private land owners prohibited us using these in any way. I am also very concerned that given our present situations in the area with regard to wildfires (Wood Hallow and Seeley Mountain to the South) that the BOD's are not proactive in finding ways out of both sides of our Association. What are the concerns? Is keeping a road closed because of dust and traffic worth someones life?? This needs to be addressed ASAP!!! I cannot believe it was not the main topic of conversation at the last meetings. It would take literally a half day of work to get this opened up!

Tripple B Properties LLC

We agree that the Board needs to put aside their personal view points concerning egress roads and look to protect the safety and welfare of the members. We are tired of hearing from State DNR and Sanpete County officials that the Board is rejecting the available grant money that could be used to improve our association roads so that emergency vehicles could respond and the members could have alternate egress roads to escape. It is wrong that the Board is trying to shut down any efforts to obtain grant money for the fire protection plan. The emergency escape routes listed on the new map are also not suitable for those in regular passenger vehicles without 4-wheel drive. Good Luck trying to get out during a flash flood on those roads even if you have 4-wheel drive. The increased association fees should be used to improve the roads to make them more passable, and not spent on mag chloride to lower dust levels.

cbench wrote:I am confused about the new map that was posted to the Association website. I remember explicitly being told by the previous President that the emergency roads indicated on the map were never to be used. The Private land owners prohibited us using these in any way. I am also very concerned that given our present situations in the area with regard to wildfires (Wood Hallow and Seeley Mountain to the South) that the BOD's are not proactive in finding ways out of both sides of our Association. What are the concerns? Is keeping a road closed because of dust and traffic worth someones life?? This needs to be addressed ASAP!!! I cannot believe it was not the main topic of conversation at the last meetings. It would take literally a half day of work to get this opened up!

Tripple B Properties LLC

Those red lines are there to show that there is a road there. I understand that these roads are not the best of roads and that there is a gate on the road going north. We are not to use those roads at anytime unless there is an emergency. There is one problem though, I know a car or even a truck will not be able to go over the logs they have placed in the roads. One could possibly go offroading and get around them but could very well get stuck trying to do that. That is an issue that the board has been dealing with for a few years now and the owners of that property are just not cooperating with them at all.

I totaly agree we need to get our own access from both the east and west sides of the mountain. Especially in situations like this. Maybe this situation will open the eyes of some westside owners that are prohibiting the connection road. There is more to the road than just wanting access to the west side. Its called safety.

*Please note that whille I am the admin of this site I am in no way shape or form a spokes person for the board. They may ask me to post stuff from time to time but anything I say is of my own opinion as a property owner unless otherwise stated.

The purpose of the map is to show SPOA roads & there is in fact emergency egress routes outside of SPOA property boundaries where shown on the map. The problem is that those emergency egress routes do not allow anyone to exit to a public road in order to leave the mountain. Those exits only allow us to exit from SPOA boundaries. I agree that this poses a problem & is a safety issue; especially in any emergency situation whereby egress or entrance may not be possible from either the East or West side.

I want to make it clear that the statement made in this forum topic about the SPOA Board members putting personal viewpoints above the safety & welfare of members is not true. To the best of my knowledge, it is also a false statement that the SPOA Board has ever tried to shut down efforts to obtain grant money for a fire protection plan or rejecting available grant money to improve association roads for better emergency vehicle access. Everyone in the SPOA should realize from their own observation that grant money was recently used to have DNR crews clear away trees & brush from SPOA roads and personal cabins for the purpose of creating adequate defensible space. I am not aware of any grant funds that have ever been made available to SPOA exclusively for the purpose of creating a new road of any kind. Even if such funds were made available, the route of a permanent new road would have to be approved at several levels before it could be constructed.

I am sure it would be of no surprise to anyone that I personally would like to see a permanent road either restored or constructed that would connect the East and West sides of the SPOA Gooseberry Subdivision. That is how the subdivision was initially approved & developed & is probably currently designated on Sanpete County records. I personally believe a connecting road that allows entry & egress from each side should be a top priority to accomplish. However, it simply cannot be done without taking the appropriate steps to make sure it is accomplished properly & legally, unless there is an emergency that dictates such a road be immediately accomplished. If that were to occur, I am confident a majority of SPOA Board members would cast a vote to do so.

I hope that this current threat from the Seeley Fire will help to enlighten many SPOA members that there is a significant safety issue to the entire SPOA membership due to the fact that there is not a legitimate egress to the North or South of the SPOA boundaries and there is no interconnection between the SPOA East & West gates of the Gooseberry Subdivision. I can assure you that this topic will again be brought up not only at SPOA Board meetings, but also brought up for the entire SPOA membership to review & comment on. I hope it will be reviewed by other authorities as well.

Please understand that emotions cannot take over prudent judgment and appropriate actions by either the SPOA Board or individual members.

I encourage comments on this matter by any & all SPOA members.

Thank you both for your quick responses. My family very much appreciates the work you are doing to keep our Association protected and accessible. I know it is not an easy job! Thank you for answering our questions and please let us know if you need any assistance.

Site Admin: your doing a great job!

I served on the fire protection committee from 2006 to 2010 and worked very closely with DNR official Terry Heath on implementing the fire protection plan for the association and obtaining grant money. Much of the work we were to do was not fully supported by the Board at that time. I have had conversations with Terry that support my comments made earlier in this post concerning the Board. I recognize that our current Board President, Jeff Thomsen has made efforts to address the egress road and supports it.

The $146,000 grant money the fire protection committee obtained for the association was to be used to support the fire protection plan, and the egress road was the key project the money was intended for. When the egress road was shut down by owners and Board members, the fire protection committee decided to use the money to work on creating defensible space for those owners who wanted this done. Some of that grant money was used to complete logging in areas that the logger had not done, this because the Board did not manage the logging project, project manager or logger.

Recent efforts to obtain new grant money to support projects not done under the fire protection plan have been attempted. Terry Heath brought contractor Craig Rasmussen to the recent owners meeting dinner in May. Craig was being asked to review the fire protection plan and work on getting grant money. However, Craig was told by Board member(s) not to talk about the egress road at the dinner. We went down to Sanpete county offices in June and talked with the County Recorder Reed Hatch. He knew about the struggle that our association has concerning the egress road and the road that exists, but was closed without proper authorization. He called the fire warden while we were there to find out the status of the work that Craig was doing on the fire protection plan. The warden told him that the Board was not cooperating and that unless there was cooperation that they would not make efforts to get grant money for the association.

This reply is only to bring clarification to my comments. I am grateful for Jeff Thomsen and Scott Halton's recent efforts to work on egress roads. If only we had that Board member support when we started working on this issue 6 years ago, the egress road may have been done and in use now and we would have been prepared for the threat of forest fire. I hope that we can all work in cooperation for the safety of all association members.