On Tuesday, May 23, at 5:30pm in the Donner Trail School gym, the school district will be holding an "Education Matters" meeting. The Education Matters program is a parent community focus group that is held at each school. Attendees break out into small groups to address the current educational curriculum.

Donner Trail is not currently threatened with closure, however we'd like to have a nice community turnout for this meeting to demonstrate the depth of community involvement with our fantastic school.

Please pass along this notification to friends of Donner Trail. Apologies for the late notice!

Nevada County LAFCo has voted to accept the proposed Donner Summit Fire Department annexation with the Truckee Fire Protection district. The vote was unanimous. A final hearing on the matter will take place on June 19th. Unless there is significant protest, the annexation will be effective July 1, 2006.

The DSAA spoke in favor of the annexation along with members of the DSPUD, Truckee Fire Protection District (TFPD), and Placer County LAFCo. Everyone who spoke was in favor of the proposal.

The DSAA has copies of the annexation proposal and independent financial analysis. Please contact us if you would like copies of these documents, or visit the Nevada County LAFCo site for additional information.

The DSAA would like to thank all of the people and agencies that developed this proposal for insuring our long-term safety. Special thanks to all the fire department personal who have helped protect Donner Summit in the past and worked to find financing to make it all happen. Keep your eyes here for announcements of an appreciation day party towards the end of June.

The 14th annual Summit Cleanup Day will be held on Saturday, June 17th. Volunteers meet at the General Store in Soda Springs at 10am. Coordinators will hand out garbage bags and assign road segments to each group. Bags of garbage are left along the sides of the road and collected at the end of the day (or next day).

Sue and Cliff Busby have generously offered to host the volunteer BBQ party in the afternoon at 2pm. The Busby house is at 2226 Lake Drive. Many thanks to Royal Gorge (!), Sugar Bowl, SLPOA, and DSPUD for donating dumpsters.

Invite your friends! This is a fantastic way to meet your neighbors and develop positive Summit kharma..

The latest working meeting minutes are now available for your enjoyment. We had a great meeting on May 2 with a number of notable guests including members of the DSPUD (Tom Skjelstad , Julie Davies) and the SLCWD (Blake Tresan), Peter Mayfield who is consulting for Foster Enterprises, as well as organizers for the Summit Cleanup Day (Nancy Latimer and Jennifer Montgomery).

We had a wonderful review of the Fire Department Annexation issue and current issues (berms, signage, etc.) with Foster Enterprises/Royal Gorge, and a bit of planning for the cleanup day.

Please come out and show your support of the Fire Department at the LAFCO meeting on Thursday, May 18th, at the Truckee Sanitary District boardroom.

The new owners of Royal Gorge have decided to remove the berms from the trails surrounding Serene Lakes. In addition, a number of the "Private Property" signs around the Ice Lakes Lodge have recently been removed. Here's the message we received from Joann Hamick a few days ago:

Royal Gorge Removes Some Trail Berms

Royal Gorge has received comments and had conversations with Donner Summit residents who are concerned about the berming of Royal Gorge x-country trails at the end of the ski season.

Berms are created at the entrance to the trails to prevent access. This is done to discourage snowmobilers, but it also has prevented access by cross country skiers, snow shoers and hikers headed for public areas like Point Mariah.

As of Thursday, May 4, Royal Gorge has removed berms to enable non-motorized access to the trailhead at Ice Lakes Lodge, with access to portions of Reindeer, Tiny Tim, Sterling Canyon, Bogus Basin, Razor Back (to Lola’s Lookout) and Claim Jumper.

We are hopeful that damage by motorized vehicles can be prevented. If you are a nearby homeowner, we would greatly appreciate your watching over the trails and contacting Royal Gorge if you see any motorized vehicles on the trails.

Thank you to everyone who has contacted royalgorgefuture.com about a range of issues and we will continue to try to address your concerns.

Todd Foster and Kirk Syme, Royal Gorge’s new owners