The minutes of the January 4th DSAA working meeting are now available. We spent a fair amount of time discussing whether we should sign the Memorandum of Understanding for the Royal Gorge Scientific Peer Review Process. The MOU was sent out to board members and, after a week of time to review the document, the DSAA voted 9-0 (with one abstention) to sign the MOU. We also spent a bit of time discussing the followup meetings for the Summit Summit, the first of which just took place this last Sunday and the next of which will take place on Monday February 12th.

Our local train expert, Tom Appelbaum, sent in this report on the latest news on the Capitol Corridor rail service:

This report is the latest news I have on the possibility of Capitol Corridor rail service between the Bay Area, Sacramento, and Reno/Sparks. Nothing much has changed since the last report.

As most of you know, you can travel eastbound or westbound from Truckee on the California Zephyr, a train that leaves from Oakland going eastbound and from Chicago going westbound. Neither train is very reliable as far as stated arrival times, but the train from Oakland is usually less late into Truckee than the train from Chicago.

The other alternative, either from the Bay area or from Reno/Sparks, besides Greyhound, is to take a combination of the Capitol Corridor trains and buses, using various arrival/departure points, including several daily trains from the Bay Area to Sacramento and a bus to Soda Springs and Truckee, or a train (one per day) from the Bay Area to Auburn and a bus to Truckee; or the reverse of both if leaving From Reno/Sparks. You can get details of those trips from Amtrak.

After having spoken with many different people in several different agencies that are involved with the Capitol Corridor trains, including federal, state, county, and private groups, it is evident that, at least for the near future (3-5 years at the very least), the only improvement in the route mentioned above will be in the number of trains that go eastbound to Auburn, and the subsequent increase in buses leaving from there to points east. The return trips westbound would increase at the same level. It's an old story, but the capacity for increased rail use through the Sierra is non-existent at this time, and won't happen for years to come.

The details of the current situation are many, more than I'd like to get \ninto for this short report. However, if you'd like reasons \nfor why things are the way they are and how long it will be before things \nchange, including a list of all the players and what they've done or not done to \nhelp the cause, please feel free to call me on my cellular phone, (510) \n816-7720, and I'll take the time to explain in greater detail what's up. \nGive yourself at least 15 minutes if you want the full story. You can call \nbetween 6 am and 9 pm any day of the week.


Thanks very much.

Tom Appelbaum
Orinda and Soda Springs

The next DSPUD meeting will be on January 19th. The agenda lists a few pertinent issues including a discussion of the long range strategic plan, an update on the search for a consulting engineering firm, and a bit about the ongoing issues with the Fire Department annexation discussions with LAFCo (though the interesting bits will probably be in closed session).

The agenda for the next SLCWD board meeting on January 12th is now available. There will be some discussion of a new, hopefully streamlined, agenda format, re-organization of board committees and a possible new meeting time.

Happy New Year! It's been a busy few weeks for all of us, so we apologize for the late posting of the minutes of our December Working meeting. This meeting happened prior to the Summit Summit, and mostly consisted of preparation for the big meeting. You can read all about it in the full minutes of our meeting on December 5th, 2006.

The next working meeting is scheduled for 6:30pm Thursday night, January 4th, at The Summit (DSL). We'll be discussing followup items to carry the momentum of the Summit Summit forward into the new year.