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Marc Margulies in Cambodia filming “Act of Valor” (Photos courtesy Marc Margulies)

On the heels of its most successful Wounded Warriors event yet, Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra (DSES) is teaming up with local resident Marc Margulies for a fundraising event coinciding with the premier of “Act of Valor,” a motion picture hitting theaters nationwide on Friday, Feb. 24.

Margulies has been a cameraman since 1978. He and his wife, Lou, own the local Mammoth Lakes Laundromat, the Laundry Annex and Aloha Sudz. Marc was part of the crew for the new film, which is cast with active duty Navy SEALs.

The film follows an elite team of Navy SEALs as they embark on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent. Also threaded into the plot is the hunt for the “bad guys” who kill the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines at the beginning of the film. The Ambassador getting offed is a face that many locals will recognize, as it is none other than Margulies himself, who was cast in the role during filming by co-director Scott Waugh.

“I was working on the film and Scottie Waugh said he wanted me to be an actor in it,” Margulies said. “So, I played the role and even have some lines. I also got a custom-made suit out of it.”

Margulies’ scene was filmed in Cambodia, and in a small hint he related that his character’s death revolves around an ice cream truck. While acting, Margulies also had to run interference with the camera crew, which didn’t know how to load the film into the camera without him.

“I worked as an actor and a camera assistant on that day,” Margulies said.

Margulies and the young actor who plays the US Ambassador's son

The film, according to Margulies, honors service people.

“It’s so real, it brings you right in,” he said. Using active Navy SEALs makes the experience even more authentic. The crew was able to accompany the SEALs on practice ops to make the experience even more genuine.

“I’ve worked with a lot of actors who are using guns [for their roles], but to see these guys handle a weapon was very real,” Margulies commented.

Also very real is the DSES fundraiser being held on the evening of Feb. 24; head over to Minaret Cinemas that evening at 7 p.m. for free appetizers provided by Roberto’s, plus a no-host bar of beer and wine, in addition to the film’s screening.

Anything that is donated above and beyond the cost of your movie ticket will go to DSES. Following the screening, Margulies will be on hand for a Q&A.

“There are 210 seats in the theater and we hope to fill them all,” said DSES Executive Director Kathy Copeland. “The more the merrier.”

If you’d like to reserve your seats in advance, call DSES to do so, 760.934.0791.

Directed by Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh, “Act of Valor” is being touted as the ultimate tribute to the troops, which is why the partnership with DSES on Feb. 24 makes so much sense. Each year DSES and Mammoth Mountain host Operation Mountain Freedom for the nation’s wounded warriors. Servicemen and women enjoy several days of therapeutic recreation catered by DSES during the event. This year, 38 attendees made for the biggest event on record.

For more on the film visit www.actofvalor.com

Some fallen “sailors” (Photo: Dan Molnar)

The Eastern Sierra has seen its share of powerful winds, but the gusts that blew through much of California on Nov. 30, 2011, were particularly ferocious. The same wind event that pummeled the greater Pasadena area in Southern California was even fiercer in the Eastern Sierra, toppling thousands of trees in the Middle Fork San Joaquin River watershed of the Inyo National Forest (INF). The epic level of devastation has led to a recovery effort that’s become known, unofficially, as “Operation Blowdown.”

Reports from the U.S. Forest Service say the tangle of trees resembles “a giant’s game of pick-up sticks.” Winds well in excess of 150 miles per hour were recorded, often registering “off the chart” gusts on monitoring equipment at the top of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.

What generated the wind that caused the damage? No one knows with any real certainty yet, but scientists and weather researchers are already studying the event. Federal forest and land agencies, and numerous nature and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and Friends of the Inyo among others, are already pooling their resources to stage the massive cleanup effort that will be involved in getting things back to, or at least as close to normal as possible.

“How do we respond so that people can recreate, and assist scientists and researchers in finding out the cause?” Sue Farley, INF and Bishop Bureau of Land Management Vegetation Project Manager, asked.

The damage occurred in random patches, from Island Pass to Fish Creek, and throughout the Reds Meadow valley and down to the Whitney Portal. According to INF Wilderness Trail Manager Michael Morse, who covers the North Zone including Mammoth, volunteers have already hiked and documented about 45 miles from Reds Meadow, Crater Creek, Fish Creek and up to Thousand Island Lake.

Morse said downed trees in sections of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and Mammoth Pass exhibit characteristics suggesting they were hit by a “microburst,” typically a column of plunging air, producing damaging winds at the surface that have similarities to a tornado. It’s not been determined, however, if this event qualifies as a “microburst.”

There are, he said, hundreds of trees in 10-foot-high piles. Everything in a SW aspect was hit, and the patterning seems to fall within the 7,500 feet to 9,000 feet timberline. Farley said the wind took out a lot of “sailors,” which are often the biggest and oldest trees that have large canopies, those resembling “sails.”

Not unlike tornado damage, the event’s randomness is both perplexing and yet awesome in the level of devastation. “There are at least 2,000 to 3,000 trees down that we know of,” Morse related. “The volunteers stopped counting after 800 trees and had only gone 3 miles.”

The Mammoth Lakes Basin only had about 100 trees downed. “We used to think of that as a lot,” Farley said. Still unknown are what happened in the Fish Creek drainage and Duck Pass areas.

In the Reds Meadow valley hundreds of trees are down in campgrounds, picnic areas, trailheads, and access trails. Extensive clean-up work is needed to remove downed trees and to repair the roads, trails, utility lines, restroom buildings, picnic tables, and food storage lockers damaged by fallen trees. “This is uncharted territory to deal with damage of this magnitude,” Deanna Dulen, Superintendent at Devils Postpile National Monument, noted. “You have to see it to believe it,” Morse remarked. “Even when you see it, it’s still hard to get your head around it,” Farley added. “We’ve never seen anything like it in recent history.” Records, Farley indicated, point to a similar event that occurred approximately 150 years ago.

In terms of trails status, Morse said the 9 trailheads in Reds Meadow valley all have debris. The PCT has been deemed “impassable,” with lots of climbing required. One hiker who emerged from the trail not long after the event said it took his group about 25 minutes to go a half-mile in some parts. Officials are working with the PCT Association on alternate routes. The official kickoff of the PCT hiking season is April 30, but most hikers don’t arrive until late June.

There are some trails, however, that have little or no damage. The Piute Pass and the Golden Trail out of Lone Pine only have about 40 trees to address, and nearby June Lake and Lundy Canyon have minimal, if any, tree issues.

Meanwhile, Farley said the INF has been working on an inventory of the downed trees, and a strategic plan to complete and repair work as quickly as possible, in a manner that will have the least impact on public use this summer.

“Our goal is to open as many of the Reds Meadow valley recreation sites and trails to the public as soon as is feasible and safe,” Jon Regelbrugge, Mammoth District Ranger, said in a media statement. “Every site in the valley has some amount of trees down and damage,” INF Recreation Staff Officer Jon Kazmierski reported.

Least affected: Pumice Group sites, which have no infrastructure damage. Most affected: Agnew Campground, which has only 3 sites not impacted. Destroyed there are picnic tables, bear boxes, fire rings and restroom facilities. Numerous “root wads” — about 400 — will need to be cut apart and removed, and craters left from the root systems will need to be filled in. “That might be a total rebuild,” Kazmierski suggested, but added that much of Agnew is buried at the moment. “You literally can’t see the campground for the trees,” Farley said.

This season’s snow drought, which lasted into January actually proved to be a “blessing in disguise,” according to Kazmierski. A regular snow pattern would have put the effort much further behind. “If we’d waited until the spring melt off to reveal the damage, we’d have had no clue what was in store at this point,” Morse assessed.

Reservations have nonetheless been suspended for the time being over what Kazmierski said was general “uncertainty” about access to the Valley.

Many of the camps, however, aren’t likely to look the same as they did before the “blowdown,” and there will be stumps and tree limbs removed on an ongoing basis throughout camping season.

The break in snow allowed downed trees to be removed from Reds Meadow Road, Reds Meadow Campground, the Rainbow Falls trailhead, and the Ranger Station area and Devils Postpile trail. Kazmierski said the Lakes Basin campgrounds will likely open on schedule, as well as the Convict Lake and Sherwin campgrounds, which are both getting new restrooms (not related to the wind event). Those he said are still on track to be ready on or before Memorial Day weekend.

Farley said implementing any strategy will depend on “variables that can’t be pinned down now,” such as weather, residual snowpack and emergency funding sources. Earlier and later timing scenarios are likely to be developed during the next few weeks with roads listed as a top priority, since access is the key to everything.

Also in the mix are partnerships with organizations such as FOI, which has amassed significant trail maintenance experience as part of its successful Summer of Stewardship programs. Local trails and camping sites with 20-30 trees downed could be handled by FOI and its volunteer crews, letting the INF and its crews focus on large scale work.

“We are already planning for the Inyo needing extra help,” Stacy Corless, FOI Executive Director, said. Corless said that FOI’s help will extend to an annual trails trip with the PCT Association staged out of the Red’s Pack Station on June 30-July 6.

Environmental concerns are also part of the strategy. “As we remove, we’ll be mindful of wildlife and environment protection,” Farley pointed out.

The INF is seeking any experienced retired or volunteer tree fallers and saw cutters. Contact the local INF offices or Friends of the Inyo to sign up.

Image courtesy Sierra Club Books

How has Hal Clifford’s treatise on the corporate ski industry held up to the test of time?

“Skiing is not simply dying; skiing is being killed.” It’s been 10 years since author Hal Clifford wrote that line in his 2002 book, “Downhill Slide,” the controversial and at times scathing critique of the corporate ski industry. Clifford laid out a meticulous case as to why a highly developed form of international tourism had become “bad for skiing, ski towns and the environment.”

Was he right? Is death inevitable, or are rumors of its impending demise greatly exaggerated? Clifford’s book was taken as a forecast of sorts at the time, illustrating patterns that had been forming during the decades leading up to the book, and preparing the reader for what he thought were the shapes of things to come. Today, part of it does read like a history book, showing those of us who choose to recreate in the “new world order” of corporate ski areas how we got here.

Looking back, Clifford thinks his prognostication was pretty accurate. “The demographic realities around the ski industry have been inexorable, and the sport is increasingly a hobby of the 1% in the major ski areas,” Clifford said. “I recently did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and realized it would cost someone about $3,000 to buy decent off-the-rack skis, boots and bindings. And that’s just the beginning. To my eye, nothing’s really changed in the trajectory of the industry.”

In the book, he detailed skiing’s modest, practical beginnings and how those morphed into sport and recreation, which began to accelerate after WWII. As ski areas emerged, demand increased, and the ski bum town, and its “gypsies who held part-time jobs to follow the snow” lifestyle began to give way to major real estate investment and more affluent clientele.

American Skiing, Vail Resorts, Intrawest, Starwood Capital Group and other big money owners soon bought into ski areas coast to coast, dumping lots of money into “if you build it they will come” infrastructure resembling theme parks. Forget rope tows … think “It’s A Small Skiing World.”

Was the demise of the small ski area and the ski bum lifestyle somewhat inevitable, given the upturn in skiing that was sparked after WWII?

Clifford in Telluride for the 2010 Mountainfilm Festival premier of his documentary “Stone River.” (Photo: Take One Creative)

“Probably. As I noted in the book, we have an American tendency to take something charming and original and commodify it (i.e. Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, the Hard Rock Cafe, Santa Fe style … you get the idea),” Clifford observed. Ski culture was similar to surf culture, he noted, though he added there have been many more geographic opportunities to commercialize skiing.

“This isn’t necessarily an entirely bad thing … the only way to preserve something is to put it in amber, and who wants to live in that?” he said.

Mammoth Mountain Ski Area CEO Rusty Gregory keeps a copy of the book in his office. Gregory said in retrospect he admires Clifford as a writer, and thinks he got some things right and a few things wrong 10 years ago.

“He really nailed the characterization of die-hard skiers and idiosyncratic towns that are part of ski areas. Mammoth is certainly emblematic of one of those towns,” Gregory stated. “But I disagree with his thesis that skiing was going to remain unchanged and also that it was going to ‘snap back’ to its hardcore skiing origins. Almost as if we need to take over the means of production and return it to the proletariat, back to the hardcore skiers.”

Gregory pointed to the growth of the ski industry, which logged 60 million skier days in the U.S. alone last year. “It grew when other activities were shrinking. Intrinsic appeal of the sport in the form ski resorts offered was attractive. People went more often and got enthused and were willing to pay higher prices.”

On economics, he also took issue with Clifford’s assertion that capital seeking profit was inconsistent with profitability. “The facts don’t support that,” Gregory opined. “It’s agnostic … it doesn’t have a face. He tried to put an emotion and ‘character’ to capital, which I don’t think is accurate.

“Capital’s required to do anything, and it has to make a profit. Capitalism is what enables innovators. Steve Jobs was able to sustain innovation, but loved the space he was in, and made enough money to plow back into other great ideas. Same with the ski industry. Ski makers looked to customers and gave them new ways to ride. Jake Burton brought on snowboarding as well. Is he one of the radicals or a capital innovator? He’s probably both.”

Meanwhile, Clifford thinks today’s ski industry has become a vehicle by which mountain towns are building out, becoming more a part of the American mainstream. “A drive up the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado is starting to look like a drive through other parts of America,” he said. “What’s problematic is how there is still so much boom and bust associated with the real estate side of the industry. And while economic development is a fine thing, it needs a more stable foundation than what the ski industry real estate boom has provided.”

Real estate, Gregory commented, is still a component, but subject to booms and bust, even though ski resorts themselves have flourished. “He was right about it in that it’s a one time liquidation type of commodity … you buy it, you build on it, you sell it and it’s gone, and you can use the ski area as a loss leader for real estate. Real estate isn’t a bad business, but it’s risky and volatile …  he was right about that, too. It was true 10 years ago and it’s true now, and probably true before he wrote the book. You should do it in a smart, portfolio way, and timing has to be accurate, and you’d better have enough money put away for a rainy day.”

In addition to littering Wall Street stock trading floors with buy and sell tickets, Clifford pitched in “Downhill Slide” that ski area expansion was dangerous to the environment. Wildlife was being pushed out from what were natural habitats and subsequently mistreated. Fishing, he indicated, was negatively impacted, and ski area expansion put a strain on power and water, and increased carbon footprints.

Measures put in place since, either through government mandates or green trending, have attempted to mitigate some of those issues. Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, for example, has implemented an extensive recycling program and runs much of its vehicle fleet on cleaner-burning biodiesel, among other measures.

And a decade later, it seems the era of the independently-owned ski area isn’t over, at least not yet, with Arapahoe Basin and Loveland in Colorado, Jackson Hole in Wyoming and Wolf Laurel in North Carolina still in operation.

Gregory noted that indie ski areas are great, and there’s certainly a place for them in the market, but at the end of the day, all ski areas share the same profit-loss model, whether it’s corporate capital or private money that drives the bottom line. “It’s all about running the lifts and selling tickets. You hope for good snow years, and you sell more tickets during peak times than you do during midweek. It’s the same everywhere.”

Clifford, who has since added the role of filmmaker to his resume, remains more pessimistic on his view of the industry’s future. “There are possibilities for community-ownership, cooperatives and similar business models to get a toe-hold and hang on. They can make a living in the uphill transport business, and you still see lots of small ski areas doing so,” he said. “But it’s not easy, and with the challenges posed by climate change, demographics and [economics], it’s not a business I’d want to get into, or one I’d recommend for my kids.”

By Dave Leonard

Have you ever wanted to try telemark skiing but didn’t know where to start? Well, help is at hand for the tele-curious in the form of a new instructional DVD entitled “Modern Telemark: Art and Technique” by local freeheel legend Urmas Franosch.

Urmas has an impressive resume: he is a former member of the US National Professional Ski Instructors of America Nordic Demonstration Team, a senior examiner and instructor at Mammoth Mountain with more than twenty years experience of teaching, coaching and guiding. Urmas is the real deal and this video is a great introduction to the sport of telemark skiing.

Urmas draws on his twenty years of teaching experience to present a well organised, step by step approach to learning modern telemark skiing. Like any good ski instructor, Urmas focuses on efficiency and economy of movement to teach good, functional telemark technique. He presents a series of clear and concise progressions with both remedial and developmental exercises to help the student master each step.

This may sound too structured but, despite his years of teaching, Urmas is no ski school poodle or mechanical drill master; he rips. Urmas is clearly passionate about freeheel skiing and there is plenty of high energy skiing footage to inspire you to hit the slopes. There are also many valuable tips for upper level tactics in the bumps and steeps for the already competent freeheel skier. This DVD is expertly filmed on Mammoth Mountain and part of its appeal lies in trying to identify where every run was filmed.

I would highly recommend this DVD to alpine skiers looking to try something new as well as to experienced telemark skiers hoping to improve. It is just like having a private lesson with Urmas which you can revisit time and again.

Speaking of which; Urmas conducts telemark lessons and workshops through Mammoth Mountain Ski School.

Pick up a copy of his DVD at Booky Joint in the Vons shopping Center.

Ninth nixes 8 …

California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who championed same-sex marriage while Mayor of San Francisco, was one of those who celebrated a decision last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled unconstitutional Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot measure that banned same sex marriage.

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the majority 2-1 opinion for the three-member panel.

The majority affirmed a lower court’s ruling, which drew on the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent in declaring that Proposition 8 violated the civil rights of people in same-sex marriages. The court’s ruling hinges on the fact that thousands of gays and lesbians were able to marry in California in the months leading up to the November 2008 vote on the ballot measure. The court found that there is a higher burden for removing rights that have already been awarded.

Same-sex marriages will not be able to resume immediately in California, since the court temporarily continued an order blocking them while litigation continues.      -AP/Los Angeles Times

Voters seek clarity on pot

It would appear that local governments aren’t the only ones tired of the lack of clarity on regulations and distribution when it comes to medical marijuana.

According to data from Probolsky Research shows that a majority of voters (59.2%) would support the California Medical Marijuana Regulation Act, a potential initiative for the November ballot. This initiative is intended to meet the calls of local officials who have asked for more guidance in developing consistent and clear guidelines on medical marijuana distribution, but clearly Californians want clearer and concrete guidance as well.

Specifically, this measure would create a state enforcement division to regulate and control all entities involved in the commercial cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and sale of medical marijuana in California; it also requires their mandatory registration with the state and establishes a state excise tax on all medical marijuana grown for sale in California.     -California County News

By Paul Oster

Q: We still want to purchase a condo in Mammoth but the media is so full of negative things and we don’t think any of that helps local real estate values. Can you give us your outlook?

A: There is no doubt that Mammoth is experiencing some troubling times, but it really doesn’t seem much different from any other period during the last 30 years (it seems like one long Chinese curse). One difference is today we have all sorts of immediate media and commentary. The airport judgment, now more commonly referred to as MLLA (Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition), is the biggie at the moment. But we’ve dealt with many things in the past, and it’s all a matter of perspective. I can remember times when the earth wouldn’t stop moving and we wondered why anyone would even come here let alone buy here. Buyers can have good reasons for not buying, and constantly rattling buildings can be a good one.

One thing I am often pointing out to people is that Mammoth and the Eastern Sierra have some serious obstructions to making change. And we will always have them. The powerful Sierra Club and the land use laws and environmental regulations of the State of California are big ones. The sucking sound of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is another. The high percentage of land (about 95%) owned and controlled by the government, and the bureaucracy that goes with it, is another. While these entities make significant progress (and daily operating) far more difficult, they are also why this area remains so pristine and accessible. And that may become the most valuable thing of all. It has been referred to as “The Accidental National Park.” (A brief visit to Cabo San Lucas last year, my first in a decade, showed me the ruination of a beautiful resort area to over-development.) But these restraints inevitably create real problems for anybody who tries to do just about anything. I could cite a long list of those broken by the obstructions, and most were truly attempting quality endeavors.

Mammoth survived a million earthquakes in the 1980s and ‘90s. If I had a dollar for every person who told me Mammoth was “going to blow,” I could certainly retire. And there is no doubt that the earthquakes and “volcano scare” destroyed real estate values. But the early ‘80s recession, sky-high interest rates, and the 1986 tax law changes didn’t help either. Some of those days were pretty crazy, and it did make you question yourself. Today we rarely hear it discussed. And very little property was ever damaged during all of that. The long-time owner of State Farm Insurance here in Mammoth, who at one time had up to 80% of the town insured, said he never had a claim based on earthquake damage. Meanwhile, areas of California that have been devastated by earthquakes, like the Bay Area, still have very high real estate values.

Mammoth has had many other dramas in the past; the MLRA embezzlement case, hantavirus mania, and so many others. The wild swings of snow volume from season to season have always been here, and each one provides their challenge. The last two might be the extremes. Last winter was down right demoralizing. The length of season and volume of snow were just too much. This winter is just the opposite. We live in chaotic times, even for Mother Nature. This year, Mammoth’s high elevation and the Ski Area’s commitment to a high quality snowmaking system has kept the town from experiencing complete disaster.

Right now the 800-pound gorilla in Mammoth is the $30 million (now $42 million) judgment that is owed MLLA. Many potential real estate buyers are on the fence until this is resolved. The Town may even end up filing for bankruptcy. We’ll see. But just like San Francisco has survived

earthquakes, Orange County has survived, and thrived after bankruptcy. (Anybody here from Orange County?) And Mammoth’s potential bankruptcy wouldn’t be the result of gross fiscal mismanagement. And how far behind are the state of California and the good ‘ol USA from that inevitability?

Most people really don’t even know what this judgment is all about. I certainly don’t, but I know more than I should. What I don’t think most people comprehend is that this is a catastrophic cost associated with acquiring our new regular air service.

The two are closely interconnected.

I hope it’s worth it. The MLLA judgment is about a potential real estate development that somehow the Town tampered with. But it is really about capturing air service. Since we all like to blame, maybe we should blame the Sierra Club. My regular readers know how disgusted I am with the whole thing.

How did the lawyers who represented the Town at trial ever let the jury even begin to think that a fractional condo development behind the east set of hangars could net a $30 million profit? Especially when the local fractional projects 80|50 and Tallus were already in receivership. I’ve watched lawyers bring appraisers to tears in tax appeal hearings over next to nothing.

Did they just forget about cross-examination?

I had a dream that I was negotiating a deal with MLLA to satisfy the judgment. The Town was giving MLLA their development rights and a 100-year lease to the airport land and waiving all the development fees (after all, that’s what the judgment is based on).

The Town was canning air service and returning the airport to a modest general aviation airport. We were getting two monkeys off our backs at once. It was genius. I was even throwing in the Bell Parcel for the interest and attorney’s fees. That is a beautiful piece of property but it is greatly compromised for development. These guys want to “acquire land in Mammoth,” so let ’em have it.

But, alas, I woke up before I could get the deal done. Damn, this would be the deal of my life. MLLA would only go for it in a dream. In the real world they know the development rights and lease are worthless. As much rubbish at the time of trial as it is now. And they know the judgment is a farce.

Sure, some people screwed up and the whole thing is a parade of unfortunate circumstances, but MLLA wouldn’t give you 2 cents for the development rights and a lease for what they expect to collect $30+ million on. We’re just hosed on this farcical judgment. And MLLA is like a pack of ravenous coyotes stumbling upon a fresh road kill. They don’t want anything to do with Mammoth other than rape and pillage, and once they’re done they’ll be gone for good.

We can only hope the karma of the Eastern Sierra rains down upon them all. The only question I have left is: do we have one last chance in court, this time in front of a bankruptcy judge, to prove the judgment is a farce?

If the Mayan calendar doesn’t get us, Mammoth is going to remain much the same for the next decade. (At least we got our new Chair 5!) Real estate values may continue to go down, but probably not by much. It is simple supply and demand. With no new units under construction, the supply will remain static.

As an anecdote, last October we brought a bank owned single-family residence that looked great in the photos and was priced in the low $200k range. The property offering was a good opportunity but required a cash buyer and the buyer was going to need additional cash and a contractor competent at construction management.

But the photos in the MLS (and Internet) and the price brought a good 100+ buyers out of the woodwork. The property was seriously overbid. The demand, at deflated values and lower price points is real. There are just too many people who want to be here. This demand is greater than in the ‘80s and ‘90s, partially due to the Mammoth Value Pass.

Today’s buyer in Mammoth is not buying on speculation like so many in the 2000s. The buyers are users and looking for an escape hatch. Most need to escape, and recreate. And most want to “share” with family and friends. Most want income potential to protect the back-end.

Most need to escape, and recreate …

Happy President’s Weekend!

Paul Oster is Broker/ Owner of RE/MAX of Mammoth. A recent archive of his past Q&A columns and other writings, as well as the ability to make comments, can be found at www.MammothRealEstateBlog.com. For legal, accounting, construction, etc., advice, seek out the appropriate professional.

Mammoth Lakes Town Council voted Wednesday to give Elizabeth Tenney’s Gateway Project $250,000 out of the Public Arts Fund, effectively overruling its own Public Arts Commission.

In a letter to Council submitted prior to Wednesday’s regular meetng, Arts Commission Chairman Nick Holst said he did not support Tenney’s request. “My response is still, ‘this is not public art,’” he wrote.

In fact, he added, “by duplicating the sign on both sides of the road it appears more monolithic  and intrusive and resembles much more a park entrance where one expects to pay an entrance fee. All it needs is a kiosk in the middle of the road where the town can collect money. That is not an image the town should promote.”

Those who stuck around for Wednesday’s 10 p.m. discussion, however, appeared to have a few more guns in their holsters.

Supporters of the project included Snowcreek’s Chuck Lande, MMSA’s Vice President of Real Estate Jim Smith and Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce President Brent Truax.

Lande said the Gateway project lies within the parameters of what the people who wrote the ordinance intended. He also noted that the Main Street District Plan calls for an entrance marker of some kind.

Smith challenged the Arts Commission’s assertion that the monument is not art. Smith said he knows Larry Walker (the project’s designer) and that it’s offensive to categorize his work as otherwise.

Lunch’s aside: At least that’s what I think he said. Once he casually threw out the word “vernacular” in a sentence, I may have been too stunned to think clearly. 

Truax observed that in the hospitality industry, first contact and last contact are tremendously important and that’s what this sign represents.

Councilman Skip Harvey wasn’t too thrilled about overriding the Arts Commission, but said he was willing to be convinced otherwise, and ultimately was.

The dissenting voice on Council was Mayor Jo Bacon, who said the project sounded more like marketing than public art and should be funded by another mechanism.

She also noted that the project was rejected for Measure R funding consideration and that the petition before Council just seemed like the next best and most convenient follow-up money grab.

The Arts Commission may not have done itself any favors with its staunch support of a Steven and Janice Kabala-designed entrance sign which the PAC initially wanted to place on Highway 203 where a current entrance sign is located (just as you’re heading up the hill on the right after turning off 395).

However, the United States Forest Service rejected this replacement sign.

In response, the Arts Commission identified a new proposed location on Meridian Blvd.

Begging the obvious question as to who the hell would want to spend $138,000 for a sign on an arterial road that the vast majority of visitors would never see?

That sign is now permanently mothballed.

Domo Arigato Mr. Ribaudo

Consultant Carl Ribaudo was on hand Wednesday to present the findings of the Measure U Steering Committee, which had been entrusted with the task of setting up ground rules as to how Measure U monies will be administered.

Council accepted the committee’s recommendation that a three-person application committee be established, consisting of a Mobility Commissioner, a Recreation Commissioner and one at-large member who is affiliated with the local arts community.

However, this three-person committe will not be put in place until after the initial, test-drive spring funding cycle. The initial Measure U funding process will be vetted by the Steering Committee.

Steering Committee member Jim Smith argued persuasively that it was best for the committee to handle the initial awards to ensure the timeliness of getting some projects in the ground this summer.

Let’s stick together

The start of the meeting was dominated by discussion of the airport litigation.

As John Vereuck said, “I think we’re here tonight because of the P.R. that came out from the other side. I think it’s a ploy to divide us. No one in this room is the opposition.”

The ultimate conflict between the Town and Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition is over the term “basic services.”

Obviously, MLLA thinks the Town can do with a lot less than the Town thinks it can do without.

But as Teri Stehlik said, if the Town’s not viable, there won’t be any money to pay off the judgment anyway.

In addition to the $42 million judgment the Town currently owes, Town Manager David Wilbrecht said the Town expects to spend $400,000 this fiscal year on legal expenses related to the ongoing litigation.

Local resident Leigh Gaasch said she would object to any settlement which suggests a property tax levy.

Supervisors Bell Diversion Pipeline vote not legit

At Tuesday’s Mono County Board of Supervisors’ meeting, Supervisors, by a 3-2 vote, thought they had committed to taking $60,000 from the County’s contingency fund to help pay for a pipeline to keep fish from freezing at Conway Ranch.

By Wednesday, they learned they hadn’t committed anything at all.

In an email on Wednesday morning, County Assistant Finance Director Roberta Reed pointed out to the Supervisors that  “even though the Motion passed to remove these funds from contingency for the Bell Diversion, Government Code section 29125 requires a 4/5’s vote in order for me to legally take this money from contingency.”

Supervisors Larry Johnston and Vikki Bauer had dissented on Tuesday.

When asked by The Sheet why she hadn’t brought this up at the meeting when the Supervisors were taking their vote, Reed said, “I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t know the code section off the top of my head. In hindsight, I should have said something.”

So now it’s back to the drawing board for the pipeline funding, after a more than two-hour discussion of the issue at Tuesday’s meeting. The funding will have to be reviewed as a policy item and voted upon again during the County’s mid-year budget review, which begins on Feb. 22, according to Reed.

Supervisor Hap Hazard, who made the motion Tuesday, didn’t feel that the setback was detrimental to the project.

“It is not an error that can’t be corrected,” Hazard said on Thursday.

The pipeline is a small piece of a bigger issue. Dubbed the Bell Diversion Pipeline, it needs to be installed at the Conway Ranch in order to keep fish from dying.  An extreme freeze on Dec. 31, 2010 resulted in the destruction of the majority of Inland Aquaculture Group’s fish inventory. IAG runs the Conway Ranch under an agreement with Mono County.

IAG went to the Supervisors in the fall of 2011 to request help in funding the pipeline. In addition to the Supervisors’ support, the Mono County Fisheries Commission was going to supply approximately $25,000 toward the project from some leftover grant money it had.

Bids for the project came in higher than the County was expecting, so Supervisors denied installing the pipeline. IAG, not wanting to repeat the slaughter of 2010, took all the fish out of the problem ditch this winter, according to Fisheries Commission Chair, Steve Marti.

Marti explained that the ditch is lined with willows. In the winter, the willows become bent over with snow and create a dam, not allowing the water to flow freely to the raceway containing the fish. The water freezes, creating even more of a problem.

“The pipeline eliminates the issue because it makes the water accessible,” Marti said. “The willows don’t get in the way.”

He went on to say that now would be an ideal time to install the pipeline because the fish are not in the raceway and won’t be until April when fishing season opens.

Supervisor Byng Hunt also pointed out that this year’s light winter would make for an ideal opportunity to install the pipeline because there is less snow than usual.

Tip of the iceberg

The need for the pipeline is just one thing among many needed at the Conway Ranch and within the general Mono County fishing industry.

In recent years, the Department of Fish and Game has greatly decreased its fish supply to the County, according to many at the meeting. At one point it went from 33,000 pounds of fish stocked to 1,000 pounds. The decrease in supply from the state agency highlights the need for Mono County to become self-sufficient. The Conway Ranch is a critical piece of that independence.

“With DFG falling further out of the picture, Conway is filling a void,” Marti explained.

However, until the Ranch can act as a true hatchery instead of just a pass-through facility, it cannot live up to its full potential. Currently, because of grant restrictions that are being negotiated with Caltrans, Conway Ranch is not allowed to build a barn where it would be able grow fish from egg to adult. The Ranch is simply purchasing fish from out of the area, bringing them to raceways, and then selling them to local waters for stocking. It is a costly process for the Conway Ranch and is not sustainable.

By being allowed to grow their own fish, the Ranch could not only stock more in local waters, it could also reduce the price of the fish to its customers, which include Mono County.

The most recent meeting between the County and Caltrans was held on Jan. 25. According to Raven Angeles of IAG and the Conway Ranch Foundation, at that meeting, “we made a little headway.”

One request made by the public was to have the County simply buy-out Caltrans from the grant. The Board wasn’t sure that was economically feasible and said it was something that should continue to be discussed.

In the audience on Tuesday was Ronnie Kovach, a fishing marketing guru from Southern California who has fished Eastern Sierra waters all his life. His stance on the state of fishing in the Eastern Sierra was alarming to more than one person in the room.

“Right now you have product failure,” Kovach said. “Southern California is marketing, ‘Save money, save gas.’ Why go to the Sierra for 8-10 inch fish when you can get trophy trout of 5-20 pounds in Irvine.”

On the heels of a dry winter, a below-average fishing season could further degrade the local economy.

“You need economic sustainability,” Kovach said. “You are in a 911 situation and you need all hands on deck. You will lose the people if you don’t have the product. The cache you once had is like Cinderella’s coach — it is turning into a pumpkin.”

“If you’re going to have Conway, make it a showcase,” added former Supervisor Ed Inwood. “If you nickel and dime it, it won’t work. Set your priorities and get with it. We’re way behind.”

While none of the Supervisors felt that the resolution that the Fisheries Commission had put before them was the correct mechanisms for awarding the $60,000, Supervisor Hazard, who had been under the impression that the money had already been approved and allocated last fall, strongly supported taking action to allocate money for the pipe.

He moved to open the bidding process for the project once again; to allocate $60,000 from the County’s contingency fund, and to review the resolution in eight days when the County began its mid-year budget review process.

Board Chairwoman Vikki Bauer said she could not support any action right now due to looming budget issues, which she could not discuss on Tuesday, and simply said, “things have changed,” before voting no. Supervisor Larry Johnston voted no as well.

As mentioned earlier, the monetary portion of the vote did not have enough support to be upheld, and will have to be taken up once again next week.

By Stephen Kalish

Not for the first time, the Town of Mammoth Lakes has important choices to make in planning and developing Mammoth-Yosemite Airport (MMH). The Town must now decide how it might break a nearly decade-long impasse with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over future airport development necessary to safely accommodate large commercial aircraft at MMH.

Achieving resolution will not be easy, and will involve local decision-makers — town staff, commissioners, and council members — who have heretofore mostly stayed away from airport planning issues, and in any event lack familiarity with FAA procedures and airport design guidelines.

In retrospect, it has not worked out well for the Town to cede so much decision-making and oversight responsibility to its airport manager and consulting airport engineer, neither of whom raised red flags at crucial moments over planned development at the airport that could be seen as violating FAA grant assurances or potentially getting in the way of future airport expansion.

MMH exists as a mostly independent fiefdom — an outlying piece of Town real estate operating without  meaningful Town oversight— lorded over by its Airport Manager, Bill Manning; beholden to Reinard Brandley, its sole-source consulting airport engineer, to produce FAA grant applications; perennially in need of Town subsidies; and locked in regrettable compacts with its development partner, Terry Ballas.

These marquee actors were all on stage in 1997, when Ballas approached the Town about developing the airport to generate private profits and public revenue. Working for both the Town and Ballas, Brandley produced essential documents for inclusion into the 1997 Development Agreement, and later did engineering work for Hot Creek’s hangar project. Manning failed to pass on concerns faxed to him from the FAA ahead of the Town’s approval of the development agreement with Ballas.

Over the past fifteen years, the trio of Manning, Brandley and Ballas have neither maintained nor created an FAA-compliant airport. Instead, they have enabled a public-private land development partnership that has leased, swapped, developed, and otherwise appropriated Town-owned (but owned subject to FAA grant assurances) airport land for commercial profit-making purposes.

Confronted with an airport too small for large jets, such as Boeing 757s, Mammoth Mountain convinced first Horizon Airlines and then United Airlines to bring in smaller — but still large — aircraft with guaranteed subsidies. (Mammoth Mountain has been the driving force in bringing air service to MMH.) The Town, along with some divisions within the FAA, signed on, but with no plan or commitment to upgrade and expand MMH to accommodate this new fleet of what are categorized in the industry as regional jets.

The current FAA-approved Airport Layout Plan (ALP) dates from December 2000. Subsequent draft — also prepared by the duopoly of Manning and Brandley — were not received favorably by the FAA, which eventually consigned them to the wastebasket.

A major stumbling block is that Hot Creek’s leased corporate hangars are located too close to the taxiway and runway. Airport specific operation procedures for Bombardier Q400 aircraft are required because of these deficiencies. The hangars fronting the runway are located where a relocated taxiway should be built.

The FAA — the usually silent and often reluctant behind-the-scenes partner in this drama — will apparently not make any more grants for new construction until the Town drafts, submits, and obtains FAA approval for an updated ALP. (Environmental approvals are also required.)

Mammoth Mountain, speaking by all appearances as if it is the Town, wants an expensive new  passenger terminal — ideally funded by an FAA airport improvement grant — to accommodate the  increasing number of flights per day that they forecast will be arriving during the next few years.

Mammoth Mountain successfully lobbied the FAA for a grant to prepare a Terminal Area Development Plan. Using FAA grant money from the 2008 runway rehabilitation project, Brandley (reporting to Manning) has prepared an Airport Layout Plan Update Narrative  (ALPUN). (The draft ALP is part of the ALPUN.) Both documents  were presented to the Town’s Airport Commission and released for public comment late last summer.

But the draft ALP fails to conform to FAA guidance to prepare a layout plan compliant with FAA airport design standards for existing critical design aircraft (the Q400), and future design aircraft (proposed were the B737-500 and Airbus A319). The thrust of the draft is that the FAA should accept the airport about as it is now, but upgrade its rating to allow larger aircraft in the near future.

Written comments on the draft

ALPUN by the FAA spotlighted the close-in location and excessive height of the hangars in relation to the taxiway, taxilane, and runway, and the lack of adequate separation between the runway and parallel taxiway which is required for  large aircraft operations.

The crux of the problem with the draft ALP is that it does not tackle moving Hot Creek’s hangars, and consequently cannot propose an airport expansion plan (beyond sketching in a new passenger terminal and a relatively short runway extension). As evidenced by the FAA’s comments, it never stood a chance of being approved.

Some good news: Town Manager Dave Wilbrecht has made moves in the past few months to “take back the airport,” assigning Community Development planners and Public Works staff to assist the Airport Commission in evaluating and editing the draft ALP.  The Airport Commission is in need of all the help and staff support it can muster.

And, in what may have been more a public relations initiative than serious outreach for advice, the Town has retained, for $20,000, the firm of Mead & Hunt, an outside airport design and engineering firm, to do a professional peer review of Brandley’s draft ALP, and to evaluate and respond to FAA and public comments.

That report was released on the Town’s website on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

Meanwhile, Ballas has resurfaced with ideas about exercising his remaining development options on unexpired leases that are part of the 1997 development agreement. The Town has been working with Ballas to develop a restaurant and retail project at the airport. But while he and the Town view his lease options as vacant airport land ripe for commercial development, the FAA might see it as reserved aeronautical land, protected by grant assurances for needed airport expansion.

Although the Town claims not to need more airport land for aeronautical uses, and in any event reiterates that it remains bound by the development agreements with Ballas and Hot Creek, they do not discuss where else Hot Creek’s hangars could be relocated to if not on airport land now designated for commercial development.

Mead & Hunt’s report suggests the FAA will eventually want the parallel taxiway moved, and add that this would resolve the problem of the hangars being too close to the runway — without proposing where to put homeless hangars.

Since 1997, the Town has viewed its airport property as developable, for-profit real estate. This mindset shows no sign of changing anytime soon. At this point, there is no local consensus, and hardly any acknowledgement, that larger aircraft require a larger airport.

Mead & Hunt will present their peer review study and recommendations to the Airport Commission on Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 28 from 3-5 pm in Suite Z. I encourage decision-makers and the general public to attend. It should be an interesting meeting.

Jill Kinmont Boothe with long-time friend and mentor Dave McCoy. (Photos courtesy Dave McCoy and Jill Kinmont Boothe Collection)

Jill Kinmont Boothe, an Eastern Sierra icon, passed away on Feb. 9. She was a week shy of her 76th birthday.

A national ski champion who had a Sports Illustrated cover on her resume, Jill’s career was cut short by a ski accident in the winter of 1955 which left her a quadriplegic, Kinmont Boothe rose above her physical limitations to become an accomplished schoolteacher and artist.

As husband John Boothe,  who married Jill in 1976, said this week, “I never thought of her as a disabled person … I didn’t look at it that way. She came off as normal in a minute.”

The couple met in 1973. At the time, John, born and raised in Bishop, was working as a truckdriver (he retired about five years ago) and Jill was spending the summer in Bishop teaching on the Paiute reservation.

As fate would have it, they lived right next door to each other that summer. When she returned to teach in the Los Angeles area that fall, John said he arranged his schedule so he could spend weekends with her in Pacific Palisades.

Kinmont Boothe and her husband, John.

They married in 1976.

A movie based upon Jill’s life, “The Other Side of the Mountain,” came out around that time. The movie was based upon a 1966 book written by E.G. Valens called “A Long Way Up.”

As John recalls, the Boothes had to temporarily unlist their number after the movie came out because of all the phone calls.

“It slowed down after four or five years,” he said.

As the book lays out in fairly vivid detail, Jill encountered more than her share of life loss and disappointment.

The two loves of her youth, skiers Dick “Mad Dog” Buek and Buddy Werner, died in a plane crash and avalanche respectively before either had reached the age of 30.

The person who inspired her passion for academics at UCLA, Lee Zadroga, succumbed to complications stemming from polio just a few years after she met him.

But before he died, Zadroga wrote the following in a recommendation letter to UCLA in support of renewal of Jill’s academic scholarship:

“During a brief but remarkably successful athletic career Jill Kinmont won a fine reputation as the best kind of competitor. Her conduct since an accident ended that career, the courage and persistence with which she has overcome tremendous obstacles, has made her one of the most admired figures in international sports. The qualities of character and ability which have gained for her this reputation are equally manifested in her career as an aspiring teacher.”

And that career was no gimme. This was in the era before handicap-access. She was rejected for jobs time and again because she was wheelchair-bound and could not climb stairs.

Ultimately, Jill and her parents moved to Seattle, Washington, where she obtained her teaching credential and then a first job as a remedial reading teacher at Mercer Island school.

She ultimately taught in the Bishop elementary schools from 1975-1996.

Jill and Andrea Mead Lawrence at the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

When asked Thursday if Jill was the best skier he ever coached. Dave McCoy said, “I don’t think you should say things like that. She worked like crazy to make herself better. She didn’t want to beat anyone else particularly. She just wanted to better herself. She was that kind of person – every day she had to do better. And she helped other people be what they wanted to be.”

John Boothe talked about one student from her Beverly Hills days who wrote years later and said he’d been put in her class to “catch up.” He just wanted her to know that he had indeed caught up – and passed the Bar Exam.

“The world gets screwed up going after yesterdays,” said McCoy. “It’s about now.” And Jill Kinmont Boothe was always about now. Her younger brother Jerry said Thursday that she was “always optimistic to the end.”

A memorial service for Jill will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Masonic cemetery near Bishop Airport on East Line Street. A reception will follow in the Home Ec. Building at the Tri-County Fairgrounds. Donations in Jill’s memory can be made to the Jill Kinmont Indian Education Fund, 310 Sunland Drive, Bishop, Calif. 93514.

Jill in a Bishop classroom.