theSheetNews.com

Stapp dissects TOML survey  

Dear Mayor Lehman and Members of the Town Council:

Last week I completed the Town’s “Resident Survey.” I shook my head in disbelief, a survey is not a vote. The survey asks residents for feedback. Are individuals who work and vote in Mammoth but live in Crowley precluded from participating? The “Resident Survey” included a box where a resident can identify themselves as a visitor, it makes no sense. What happens if a thousand elementary and middle school students (residents or visitors) complete the survey? Will their opinions count?

I assume the purpose for the survey is to provide political cover for Council now that it has reneged on decades of political commitments.

Survey question #4 asks residents to give Council permission to: “Further (emphasis added) reduce support for …” Measure A marketing and 2002 A housing. The question clearly acknowledges that Council has already reneged on these two Measures. How much “Further” is the Council anticipating reducing these voter approved Measures or is the Council simply asking for carte blanche?

The facts are that the Town has already reneged on it political commitments: 1) using marketing dollars to subsidize air service ($250,000), 2) diverting 18% of transit funds (Measure T) and 58% of housing funds to the Town’s General Fund. There is also the dispute with Parks and Rec over the use of Measure R monies to fund Whitmore Pool.

The survey also appears to be designed to frighten people into supporting an Admission Tax in lieu of cuts (a 3% surcharge on all lift tickets generates in excess of $2,000,000). According to the survey’s “CONTROVERSIAL CUTS,” one cut is to eliminate seven sworn officer positions from the Police Department.

It has been suggested that the Police Officers Association, POA, give up salaries and benefits in exchange for reducing the number of staff cuts from seven to five or four. This approach shifts the public safety levels of service to the POA. In other words, levels of public safety, an essential Council responsibility, will be established by the POA.

In regards to question #3: “Would you support raising new revenues…” The question gives several options, but every option omits cost per resident/visitor and estimated revenues. Withholding this information invalidates the survey. To wit: Very few property owners are going to vote for a $150 annual parcel tax.

As a Mammoth Resident and someone who cares deeply about Mammoth’s future, I would strongly suggest that Town Council scrap the “Resident Survey” and staff’s “Five Year Plan.” Instead focus on the next 20 months and the 2014 election. First, the Council should candidly identify the revenues being shifted from Measures A, 2002A, T and R which are being used for other purposes or shifted to the General Fund to fund the MLLA/Ballas settlement. Secondly, the Council needs to adopt a 20 month austerity budget using the revenues taken from the above mentioned Measures to bridge the 20 month budget. Thirdly, the Council needs to commit to putting on the 2014 ballot (or sooner) Measures to raise revenues, or Measures that memorialize shifting of monies from Measures A, 2002A, T and R.

Kirk Stapp
Former Councilman and Mayor
Mammoth Lakes

Police Union protests cuts 

Dear Editor:

The Mammoth Lakes Police Officers Association (MLPOA) would like to thank the residents, business owners, visitors, and part-time residents of Mammoth Lakes who have been supportive of us for the past 26 years. We would also like to express our sincere thank you for your support over the past couple of weeks during these trying times.

The MLPOA is very concerned about the decisions of the Town Council. We are concerned for your safety and ours if the Town follows through with its plan to lay-off 7 of the 17 sworn officers and eliminate 2 of the department’s 3 field supervisors. The Town Council’s plan also eliminates the Police Lieutenant position. This plan will result in a 41% reduction in sworn personnel from 17 to 10.

It is apparent that the Town Council would like to have the Mammoth Lakes Police Department be responsible for more than half their annual payment on the lawsuit they lost at the rate of $2 million a year. Proposed police department trims would save the Town more than $1 million/year.

Currently the budget for the MLPD is $4,820,415, which represents 27%of the general fund budget.

The Town’s proposed cuts to MLPD would equal 56% of the annual payment [to MLLA for the judgment] this year, 58% next year and 64% the following year.

Some have concluded that Mammoth Lakes doesn’t need so many police officers, and that it’s a nice quiet town with little crime. Don’t be fooled.The Mammoth Lakes Police Department handles hundreds of felony assaults, rapes, robberies, domestic violence, and burglaries. In 2011 alone, the department handled 7,422 incidents which required police action; of the 7,422 incidents, 3,154 of them were radio calls.

Thanks to our dedicated, skilled, and competent police force we are able to solve many of these crimes. It is only due to current staffing levels that MLPD can handle these crimes and incidents in a timely manner in which perpetrators are arrested. Such will not be the case with the proposed layoffs. Not only will the proposed reduction hamper the MLPD’s ability to quickly and competently solve crimes, other services the public has come to expect from the department will not be possible with a force of 10 officers. Those include but are not limited to:

• One of many recent examples involved a child molestation case. In this case, officers arrested the suspect as he was leaving the scene at the time of the event. If services were reduced at the time of this incident, there wouldn’t have been sufficient officers to respond in a timely manner and make the arrest.

• Officers will be very limited and may not be able to provide regular public service activities such as, helping tourists put on chains and/or pull people from a snow bank, jump starting cars, assist with lockouts, returning dogs to their owners, giving people rides home and the other daily activities that are part of the reason we live in Mammoth Lakes.

• Proactive activity that reduces crime will be substantially impacted. These activities would include bar checks, DUI patrol and an overall less visible police presence. We can anticipate an increase in drug activity, thefts, property crime, assaults, drunks and juvenile crime.

With the proposed plan, there will no longer be a School Resource Officer (SRO) or an officer assigned to the narcotics task force. In recent years the SRO prevented a planned school shooting by a student in which the student was arrested and handgun was recovered along with other evidence of the pre-planned event.

The drug problem in Mammoth Lakes is significant; however it is curtailed by the narcotics task force. Without narcotic enforcement, the drug problem will be out of control. A recent example was when a young person overdosed on heroin. The narcotics task force was able to work the case and ultimately arrest the individual who had supplied the victim with the drugs that killed him/her.

This will lead to more thefts, more property crime, and more assaults, not to mention the gang member drug dealers, who will come from Reno, Fresno and Los Angeles area to set up shop in an un-policed Mammoth Lakes.

Some have concluded that officers are overcompensated. Professional, quality law enforcement service is not cheap. In comparison, there are many agencies that have lesser benefit packages and many with higher. The existing MLPOA contract was approved by the Town Council and has been changed several times through negotiations. The contracts are through mutual agreement. Nothing has been forced upon Council.

What you don’t hear at the Council meetings is that during the last pre-bankruptcy mediation the MLPOA was asked to concede 24% in salary/benefits/personnel, while the other Town associations were asked to concede 10%. The MLPOA gave up 23% in salary/benefits/personnel, while the other creditors and associations gave up 10%. Because of the cuts given up by the MLPOA, the budget was approved by Council and the police department is operating within its approved budget.

It should also be known that the MLPOA and other employee associations voluntarily negotiated with the Town two years ago to help the Town meet their budget.

The employee associations were told by the Town during pre-bankruptcy that they “just need one last cut.” We all gave the Town what they wanted, and here we are two months later and they want to cut nearly half the police force. What about the clause in the MLPOA contract signed by the Town that states that the Town will maintain a staffing level for the police department at 17 officers?

This proposed plan will jeopardize the safety of our residents, visitors, and officers. The Town definitely has a problem, but the money for the down payment and annual installments already exists within the Town’s budget outside of public safety and other “essential services.”

All the advertising in the world or free transportation will not sell an unsafe community, even if the skiing is great. Who wants to have their skis stolen, car burglarized or become the victim of an assault? As those problems grow, tourism will shrink.

Whatever the final decision of the Council is, the damage to the police department is already done and might be irreversible. Many officers are seeking employment with other law enforcement agencies and will likely be hired, while others are retiring early. These vested officers will be difficult to replace in a Town where public safety and officer safety are not a priority. Hundreds of thousands of invested dollars will be unnecessarily lost because of the Council’s political decision to continue to attack the MLPOA.

Mammoth Lakes Police Officers Association (MLPOA)

Balancing point?

Dear Editor:

Proposition 30, on the November ballot, is a very important issue regarding school funding.

The Governor [Jerry Brown] and Legislature have placed Proposition 30 on the ballot as a means of balancing the state budget. Proposition 30 imposes a higher tax rate for high income earners (single filers over $250,000, married over $500,000 in annual income) along with increasing the sales tax rate by 1/4 cent for four years.

If Proposition 30 passes, schools will continue to receive the same amount we are currently receiving. It should be noted that the amount we currently receive is 20 percent less than what we were receiving four years ago.

If Proposition 30 fails, the state will immediately reduce education funding by nearly $2.5 million dollars to our local school districts for this school year and subsequent years in the amounts of:

• Big Pine USD: $112, 650

• Bishop USD: $941,734

• Death Valley USD: $67,303

• Eastern Sierra USD: $204,085

• Inyo Supt of Schools: $174,474

• Lone Pine USD: $205,029

• Mammoth USD: $494,911

• Mono Office of Ed.: $154,763

• Owens Valley USD: $37,447

• Round Valley District: $49,363

Total: $2,441,759

We hope this information about funding your local schools in the Eastern Sierra assists in your voting decisions.

Dr. Stacey Adler 

Mono Co. Superintendent of Schools 

760.934.0031

Dr. Terence K. McAteer

Inyo Co. Superintendent of Schools 760.873.3262

Twilight rezoning? 

Dear Editor:

Given our town’s long-term budget problems, some people have been floating the idea of rezoning single family homes for nightly rentals. This is a bad idea that would only compound the hardships that Mammoth residents are going to face the next 20 years. There has to be a balance between being a tourist destination and being a real town with real people.

The year-round residents of Mammoth are the backbone of the town– they provide the services that visitors and second homeowners rely on when they come to town, and they deserve to have real neighborhoods that aren’t compromised by nightly rentals. At least in condo complexes, there is on-site management to ensure problems from short-term visitors are taken care of (i.e., noise issues, proper garbage disposal, etc.). But single family neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts from vacationers.

Just because the town made a terrible mistake in entering into the development agreement with Terry Ballas and a bigger mistake in their handling of the litigation, doesn’t mean they should make an even bigger mistake by willfully undermining the character and charm of our neighborhoods.

The settlement is a long-term problem and we need long-term solutions that don’t fundamentally destroy what makes Mammoth a great place to live.

Jim Thompson
Mammoth Lakes

Whitmore: funds need to be found 

Dear Editor:

I write to express my wholehearted support of fully funding the town’s share of the operational costs of Whitmore Pool and Park. Cutting any funds that support our youth (as the funding of the operations at Whitmore clearly does) to close the deficit caused by the settlement reached with Ballas and MLLA is unconscionable. If there are any innocents in this whole sordid affair it is the youth of this community and they should bear no effect. Use Measure R money or Measure U money or move the funds necessary from MLT or hire a clerical assistant to the Town Manager, instead of an Assistant Town Manager, whatever it takes to preserve the Whitmore complex. The Mammoth Sharks, the MHS Baseball and Softball teams need these facilities, our kids need these facilities. What a great impression it will make on all those coming to use the new track to see closed and deteriorating fields as they come in from the Benton Crossing Road to the track.

Before one more trail is planned or built, before one more “wayfinding” sign is purchased, before one more penny goes to MLTPA, secure all of our parks and all of our youth programs! Supplanting is not an issue, the idea that there are currently “existing funds” for anything is ludicrous on its face after the settlement. The funds need to be found from whatever source to fully fund all the programs that benefit the youth of our community.

Brent Cook
Mammoth Lakes

Behind the badge

Dear Editor:

Over the past few years, the Mammoth Lakes Police Department has been the object of focus for the Mammoth Lakes Town Council. There have been so many words written recently regarding the details of what the town council has demanded of this agency that I will not revisit them, but the bottom line is this; councilmembers feel that MLPD officers are paid too much. Rick Wood said so at the last council meeting, and I am sure he is not the only one. I would be willing to bet my over-inflated salary that Mr. Wood, Mr. Eastman and the rest of the town council members don’t think that they make too much money. After all they are elected officials, übermenschen.

It is that same level of arrogance that has tainted this council for the last decade; the arrogance that got this town into a $42 million lawsuit in the first place. It is the same arrogance and ignorance that would opine that police officers are overpaid blue-collar plutocrats; hired guns that don’t earn their keep and hide behind the badge while making exorbitant wages off the backs of the taxpayers.

The reality is that according to a 2006 study by the Police Association for College Education, 22.6% of police officers in the United States have a four-year degree from an accredited college or university, and the number of officers with college degrees has been growing by 2% annually. In California, I believe that number is significantly higher. The national average of people with college degrees per capita is 27%. California police officers are the most highly trained professional law enforcement officers in the world. Retired and active California peace officers are in demand around the globe as trainers for emerging departments.

I do not have a degree, but my process for becoming a police officer started when I was a teenager and I made choices not to drink and drive or take drugs, or engage in other activities that would eliminate me as an officer candidate before I ever took the civil service exam. The hiring process took 18 months while I had to pass psychiatric testing, polygraph testing, and a background investigation that was so thorough many applicants didn’t make it. My training started in 1989 with a six month long stress academy with San Diego Police Department and then another four months of field training with a cadre of Field Training Officers (FTOs). The real process of becoming a police officer doesn’t kick into full gear until after the academy and the field work begins. Depending on where a new officer works, the foundation of his or her training isn’t finished until after 3-5 years in the field. Since graduating from the academy, my career has been a long string of specialized training schools, instructor schools, tactical schools, mob and riot training, active shooter response training, cultural sensitivity training and perishable skills refresher courses. California POST mandates much of this training and oversees all of it.

Beyond the formalized training that I have received over the course of my career, just working the streets of San Diego and Mammoth Lakes for the last 24 years has been an incredible education. I have been involved in three officer involved shootings, too many car chases to count, fights, the Rodney King riots, the 1996 RNC Convention and presidential debates between Clinton and Dole, all the while trying to stay “normal” while I raise four children and support a beautiful wife. I was gone way too many nights and days protecting the public when my wife and children needed me at home. I am sorry folks, but I don’t apologize for the pay and benefits that I received. My family and I earn every penny of pay and pension and so do the officers that I work with and their families.

The Mammoth Lakes Police Department has several hundred years’ worth of combined law enforcement experience based out of that mold- infested building the TOML wants to call a police station. Not only are we professional and educated, we have to conduct ourselves calmly in the face of violence and risk to our own safety on behalf of the public that we are sworn to protect. We have to work around the clock with frequent shift changes, and deal with challenging people and circumstances on a regular basis.

Consider: What training have town councilmembers received that qualifies them to run a major resort community … besides winning a popularity contest?

Being a police officer takes its toll on the body and mind. After 24 years of shift work I can’t get more than 5 hours of sleep a day, regardless of how exhausted I am. I have buried one of my academy mates and have attended the funerals of several other SDPD officers who were murdered in the line of duty.

Regardless of whether you love or hate law enforcement, when you need us, we are there for you. That includes government officials like the town councilmembers; people who with the exception of Mayor Matt Lehman and the late Skip Harvey refuse to even go on a ride-along to get an idea of what we do. No, it’s way easier to believe that we are overpaid and unskilled.

One important fact about cops is that, as a group, cops are very loyal like dogs, but like dogs when we keep getting kicked we will jump the fence and you won’t see us again.

People of Mammoth Lakes, I am afraid that many of you do not realize what a precious asset you have had in this police department, and now, due to the arrogant ham-handedness of the town council and their chronic mishandling of this department, the majority of your officers are done. Our faith in this town government is gone and individual officers are taking early retirement or are seeking employment elsewhere. We are here because we wanted to be, not because we had to be and unfortunately after years of being lied to, publicly berated by our employers, falsely accused of corruption, dragged before a grand jury and subsequently cleared by that grand jury, many officers no longer want to be here.

I have made so many good friends during my tenure here, there are so many dear Mammoth residents that have supported this department and worked with us to make Mammoth Lakes a safe resort destination and a safe place to live and raise families. From the depths of my heart I thank you people; the Cert Team and too many others to mention.

At this point, I don’t believe that anything the council could do will change the exodus that is in the process of happening. I am not saying this for shock value or out of pity for the officers; MLPD officers are as good as any in the state and they will find jobs in cities that support them. My pity is for the local citizens who didn’t ask for this to happen, but will have to live with the consequences. Your elected officials have broken it, and you are going to have to pay for it yet once again.

So what will the Town of Mammoth Lakes do when there aren’t enough officers to be able to function? I don’t know, that isn’t my problem anymore, I’m retiring and I am quite done with the mismanagement of this town by people that don’t even know what they don’t know. And what new officers will want to work here in the future; word gets around fast, and Mammoth Lakes, like Stockton, San Bernardino and Costa Mesa will be a “toxic city” – in other words a town with the stink of bankruptcy, enmity for public safety and financial uncertainty wafting around for years to come.

So after the dust settles and you need to call 911, you might want to call one of the councilmembers, maybe they will be able to help you.

As a parting note I want it known that this letter is my personal opinion and was written by me alone as an exercise of my First Amendment rights, I do not speak for the Administration or the officers of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department.

Jesse Gorham
Mammoth Lakes

Cage backs Peters for Supervisor District 4:

We all know that Mammoth is facing a steep uphill claim in order to overcome the economic recession of the last few years and the depressed property values that resulted. And now we need to deal with a staggering debt. We have a local election next month that gives us the opportunity to choose another Mono County Supervisor, and that choice is extremely important if we are to overcome the divide between the Town and County that has hampered achieving solutions that will help economic growth of our tourism economy both in Mammoth and the rest of the County.

I recommend and support Bob Peters to be elected to the 4th District seat, which now includes a portion of Mammoth.

Bob has been a business owner in Bridgeport for 13 years, and has been actively involved in Mono County service for 12 of those years. He has served on the County Tourism Commission and understands Mammoth’s problems, and has worked collaboratively to help not only Mammoth, but communities all over the County.  Bob understands the importance of Mammoth as the economic engine of Mono County and its effect on our rural areas.

The election of Bob Peters is of critical importance, and I urge all District 4 voters to join me in supporting him.

Tom Cage
Mammoth resident/business owner

Owed an explanation

Dear Editor:

I am writing in regard to the proposed use of voter approved funds in conjunction with the current fiscal difficulties of the Town and the settlement of the MLLA judgment.

Following the intent of the voters in passing the various measures has been a core principle of the Council since 1986. This  no longer appears to be true based upon the adoption of the FY 2012-13 budget and the Baseline Before Settlement Expenditures distributed as a part of the package presented to the public on September 27. Together, the two budgets include immediate and long term cuts to various voter approved funds.  The immediate cuts are described as a 10% reduction in Tourism, Transit, and Housing with restoration of up to 5% depending on TOT collections.  The 5-year projection includes a 18% diversion of Measure T (Transit) funds to the General Fund and a 58% diversion of Measure 2002A (Housing) funds to the General Fund. There was no specific presentation of this change in Town policy in conjunction with fiscal year budget or the baseline budget projections.

It appears that Council has already decided by year 5 to take roughly $700,000 of funds approved by the voters for transit and housing and re-direct them to other uses. This diversion of voter approved funds to purposes other than those intended by the voters should have been publicly vetted. Instead, it was embedded in a series of spreadsheets.

Given the importance that both the Council and public have placed on maintaining the intent of the voter approved measures, I am disappointed that these decisions did not get more specific mention.

As a part of your current discussions on settling the judgment, please schedule a public discussion on your planned direction for use of the voter approved funds. The Council owes the public a detailed explanation of why it is deviating from its prior commitments. If there is an emergency requiring temporary use of the funds for other purposes, that need and priority should be fully vetted in a public forum along with a timeline for restoring the funds to their original purposes.  Any future revenue above the baseline should be used to fund that restoration before being used elsewhere.  If the funding is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was approved, then the tax(es) should be repealed, not simply dumped into the general fund.

Related to this, there is a question regarding the amount of budget reductions that the Council is seeking. In the budget adopted in June, there was $550,000 (annually) available for paying the judgment. The judgment calls for $2 million per year.  This leaves a gap of $1.45 million per year, not $2 million.  What happened to the $550,000?

Bill Taylor
Mammoth Lakes

After the Great Debacle 

Dear Editor: 

After the “Great Debacle,” the “Settlement That Ate Mammoth,” whatever you want to call it, both George Shirk, editor of the Mammoth Times and Jack Lunch, publisher of The Sheet, wrote articles about that settlement. George, a thoughtful individual and nice guy, opined that now the litigation was settled, we should put it behind us, and move on. An end to the finger-pointing is a good thing, he said, the blame game and negative thinking, it’s counterproductive and won’t get us anywhere!  Jack Lunch, on the other hand, suggested that perhaps a little “oops” on the part of the Council might have been helpful; after all, he wrote, 13 people are going to lose their jobs, the Whitmore Park and Pool will be closed, etc.

Well, notwithstanding that George is an intelligent and well-intentioned individual, I think I have to give Lunch the nod on this one, except maybe he didn’t go far enough. Is finger-pointing and blame gaming helpful? Maybe not. But, on the other hand, Mammoth Lakes has just suffered a stunning cataclysm that will not be resolved for decades. A child born today will have graduated from college, and will have time to get married and have his/her own children before this $2 million per year debt is paid off. It is entirely likely that many more than 13 people will lose their jobs, but even if it is no more than that, these 13 people are not perpetrators of this disaster, they are the innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with it. “Why don’t the people responsible lose their jobs instead of us”, they ask? Not an unreasonable question. Well, part of the answer is that we don’t know for sure who is responsible;  as Lunch pointed out, no civic servant has come forward and said, “Mea culpa, I was in charge, I made the decision, it was my fault, I really am sorry.” Nor has any civic organization or group been empanelled to affix blame or determine responsibility.

Giving credit where credit is due, at least Rick Wood had the fortitude to allow that the question was, in fact, on the table. But why is it important to ask the question? Well, the first, and perhaps most significant answer is because if we don’t affix blame, we almost guarantee that it will happen again.  Those who don’t learn the lessons of history, the saying goes, are sure to repeat it. In Mammoth’s case, this is not unfamiliar ground. Previously, the Town went to war with Andrea Lawrence over Redevelopment. The outcome: Andrea won, the Town paid its own attorneys $5 million or so for their losing effort, and the Court required the Town to pay a similar sum to Andrea’s lawyers. $10 million down the drain with no civic benefit, and no responsibility for this disaster was ever fixed. To no one’s surprise, here we are again; history, sadly, repeats itself. Perhaps this time we should look closer. After all, one more of these terrific settlements and there won’t be any town left to point fingers over.

Paul Rudder
Mammoth Lakes

Get off that high horse 

Dear Editor:

Regarding the Mammoth Lakes Bear Cubs who lost their mother and Andy Geisel’s cover story in last week’s (Sept. 29) issue:

Warden Will Witzel of the California Dept. of Fish & Game works in the Law Enforcement Division.

Which means he enforces the law, it does not mean he is an authority on the biology, and behavioral assessment of the Black Bear. He is a game warden. He certainly can make assumptions about how old the cubs of the dead sow are and how much they weigh but his assumptions are not any more valid than Steve Searles, who has been working with the Mammoth Bears for more than 20 years, has studied these bears on a daily basis when they are not in hibernation, knows how many bears call the area around Mammoth Lakes home, knows where they hibernate and has become an expert in his own right by his observations, independent study and love of this species much like Diane Fossey became an expert and a protector of the Mountain Gorilla in Uganda. We need to remember that expertise is garnered by experiential knowledge and observation as well as by study in the academic institutions; that there is usually more than one way to achieve expertise as evidenced by such people as John Muir and James Audubon, neither of which were lettered and weighed down by titles.

My point is this: Mr. Witzel should get off his rather high horse and come back to earth and work with the man who has done so much for the bears of Mammoth Lakes and has been hired as our “bear specialist.” Yes, Mr. Witzel you work for the hallowed halls of California Department of Fish & Game but you are not the end all of knowledge having to do with the Black Bear. Evidently, the F & G was worried that Mr. Witzel’s assessment might be wrong since they sent a F&G biologist two-days later to make another assessment on the cubs. Why does it not amaze me that this F&G employee also sided with Mr. Witzel?

Next I have to wonder at the dislike California Dept. of F & G seem to have toward state-licensed wildlife rehabilitation facilities as shown by the quote of Andrew Hughan, a Sacramento-based DFG information officer who is quoted as saying: “there is no reason to put the cubs in rehab, their chances of survival is “very good,” and putting an animal in rehab is a “bad thing.” Is Mr. Hughan speaking from personal experience, and how does he know the bears’ chances of survival are “very good?”  and why is wildlife rehab a “bad thing?”

I would like to cite a February, 2011 article http://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/dfg-biologists-return-rehabbed-bear-cub-to-lassen-national-forest/ from the California Dept. of Fish & Game, stating that an orphaned “yearling” black bear cub was safely returned to its’ remote northern California home after it was found near death. The “yearling” cub spent 5 months at the same Lake Tahoe rehabilitation center, called Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, that Mr. Witzel and our Dept. of F&G seem to indicate as unnecessary and an inappropriate course of action and a “bad thing.”

By the way, the cub cited in the February 10, 2011 DFG article weighed 18 lbs. wghen he got to the Tahoe rehab center and left weighing 90 lbs.

Mr. Witzel made a bad decision, doesn’t want to work with Steve Searles and now is too arrogant to admit he is not an authority on the survival rate of yearling orphaned Black Bear cubs and that his own agency has a criteria on rehab for Black Bear cubs.

This criteria states that the cub must be clearly orphaned and in distress, as well as younger than 1 (one) year of age. These cubs are in distress, they just lost their best chance of survival their mother, they are younger than a year old, they are clearly orphaned and clearly distressed.

To say that these rehabilitation agencies are a “bad thing” is a cruel blow to the good work they have done in saving wildlife and returning it to the wild to live out the fulness of their lives. Many, many birds, mammals and reptiles have been treated, cared for and returned to their homes. The people who become wildlife rehabilitators take classes and depending on how in-depth they want to go with wildlife rehab, devote long hours to the care and feeding of their charges. We would not have the Whooping Crane if it were not for volunteers at the ICF (International Crane Foundation) caring, raising and showing how and where to migrate, for those young cranes.

To think that because animals have what we call “instinct” that they just have a blueprint for how to live is not true. Animals learn from their mother first of all and the young need to be shown. Young cranes learn the migration route from their parents and the “flock” and regarding hibernation, these young cubs would have learned from their mother the best location and the timing, where to find foods that would see them through the winter months. The mother was actively teaching them even as she died. Sure, there is a slim chance one of them might survive, but I doubt it. And why leave it to chance? I’m satisfied with Steve Searles’ assessment. He knows the Mammoth bears better than anyone else. He spends all his time studying these bears and has done so for more than 20 years, as opposed to Mr. Witzel or an F & G biologist, who comes from some other region or place and doesn’t spend 7 days a week working with these particular bears.

The rehab organization said they would take the cubs and care for them without any human imprinting and when the time came DFG could release them back into our forest where they belong. So tell me, DFG, what is the cost to you for allowing this? I say it is nothing, except someone’s ego is now involved.

Donna M. Willey
Mammoth Lakes 

Take off the blinders

Dear Editor:

It may not be entirely fair to the Advocates for Mammoth that they have become a lightning rod for those who are unhappy with the planning /variance process in the Town of Mammoth Lakes.

The Advocates have come to represent, fairly or not, the attitude held by some long-term Mammoth residents that what’s really great about Mammoth is the town and how it has existed during their entire tenure here as officially recognized “locals.”

The corollary to this feeling is that anything that challenges the status quo is inherently bad, misguided, greedy, or whatever.  I hate to break it to these self-appointed guardians of mediocrity, but what makes Mammoth great is where it is, not what it is.  The Town and its “amenities” have been, in many ways, an unfortunate given to our visitors. Take a look around. The failed businesses, the empty storefronts, the boarded-up restaurants, and the shabby, 70’s motels and condos are not signs of success. (And the difficulties of operating a business in this town didn’t start with the last recession.)

We don’t have to turn Mammoth into Disneyland to make it more attractive to visitors. What we need to do is to take off the blinders and consider projects that don’t fit the current rules with a more open mind.  And with a view to how they will (or won’t) contribute to our community’s transition from where we are to where we could be. Not whether they represent (God forbid!) change.

The guidelines for development are here to serve us, not the other way around.

Bob Davenport
Mammoth Lakes 

O’Connell says windfall 

Dear Editor:

Can we say windfall?  Nothing in the world will ever convince me that the Hot Creek/MLAA/Ballas development project would have ever come to pass, even if the Town of Mammoth Lakes had done handstands and somersaults to support the developers. Given what happened with the economy, the real estate industry, and the financial markets, this boondoggle down at the airport would never have happened. If MLLA had somehow proceeded, the project would probably have found itself upside down and bankrupt, with nothing but surveying stakes in the ground with little flags fluttering in the breeze.  It was a terrible idea in any event; who would have ever wanted to stay down there so far from the resort and the ski area?  MLLA should have thanked the TOML for dragging its feet, or doing whatever it was that saved their …

While the Town of Mammoth Lakes and its residents are licking their proverbial wounds, MLLA investors must be partying their heads off with champagne and caviar. Seriously, they made millions of dollars without turning over a single shovel of dirt, during one of the worst recessions and real estate markets in history!  They must be absolutely ecstatic about their investment.

Regardless of the conduct by TOML employees, in truth this was all about greed, so shame on MLLA, and may karma strike where it does.

Dan O’Connell
Mammoth Lakes

The fallout: Restructuring plan will gut Police Department 

On Thursday, the tsunami debris from the proposed airport litigation settlement with MLLA (Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition) finally reached Mammoth’s shores, and 13 more Town employees now face elimination, including seven police officers (one lieutenant, two sergeants and four patrolmen).

But first, let’s back up. The Town announced its deal with MLLA last Friday, after both weekly newspapers had come out. The basic terms: $48.5 million to be paid over 23 years to MLLA, and another $3.4 million to be paid to Terry Ballas over the next 30 years to finally solve all possible lingering legal entanglements from the infamous 1997 Hot Creek Development Agreement.

At Thursday night’s Special Town Council meeting in Suite Z, Bankruptcy attorneys Ken Klee and Michael Tuchin and Mediating Judge Elizabeth Perris (appearing via videoconference) explained to a standing-room audience why they believed the settlement deal was a good one for the Town.

But before that, they made sure to spend a proper amount of time fawning over their employers (Council), the judge and themselves.

Some choice samples: “Fortune smiled on this town when Elizabeth Perris was appointed [as mediator].” -Ken Klee.

“This settlement itself is a fantastic solution for this town.” -again, Ken Klee, who just happened to negotiate said settlement.

Tuchin characterized the process as “exhausting” and “grueling,” which is how I would feel if I were making $1 million a month publishing this paper. Instead, I listen to this crap and wonder why I didn’t go to law school.

Even Judge Perris got in on the act. Her phrase was “Herculean task.” She also took credit for making the recommendation which ultimately broke the stalemate and led to a settlement.

Do I hear a faint cry from the bleachers? Per-ris! Per-ris!

Imagine, all these egos on display and Rick Wood hadn’t even spoken yet.

Okay, okay … back to telling it straight – or maybe trying to read between the lines, because now we’re onto the editorial page.

From Michael Tuchin’s testimony, it appears as though the Town’s lowball offer in its initial bankruptcy plan (offering about ten cents on the dollar, or approximately $550,000/year for ten years), was not going to play in front of Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Holman, a real stickler whom Tuchin described as “wedded to due process.”

In a separate interview Wednesday afternoon, Town Manager Dave Wilbrecht told The Sheet that “We couldn’t read the Judge [Holman] well enough to know how it would’ve gone.”

Wilbrecht also said that Judge Perris saw two fairly serious flaws in the Town’s plan: 1.) CalPERS. 2.) She felt the Town had the money to pay.

According to Wilbrecht, CalPERS isn’t letting anyone off the hook (Stockton, San Bernardino, et. al.) because it’s leery of a domino effect. Let one entity wriggle out of its pension obligations and you’ll see a mad rush for the door. Wilbrecht suggested MLLA would’ve pulled CalPERS into the fight and we would’ve been even more outgunned.

As it was, the Town’s “burn rate” since declaring Chapter 9 has been about $1 million monthly, and it would’ve cost the Town another $2 to $5 million just to find out whether or not it was bankruptcy-eligible if it hadn’t settled.

Overall, Assistant Town Manager MMMartinez said the Town has spent $8.5 million on lawyers and professionals since the initial judgment was made against it in Mono County Superior Court in April 2008. She estimated we’ve spent $4 million since March of this year.

Prompting Paul Rudder to turn to me and deadpan “If they [Klee and Tuchin] do anything more to save the town money, we really will be bankrupt.”

Before public comment, each Town Councilmember had a say, each say a reflection on their personality. Eastman pointed to all the instances where Mammoth has dug in and pitched in to make itself a better community. As far as he’s concerned, we’ve done it [rallied] before and we’ll do it again.

Wood said the elephant in the room was based on two questions: 1.) How did this happen? 2.) Who’s to blame.

He then went into a long disavowal of his connection to anything, particularly the connection of that long and winding six-foot trunk stuck to his face.

He did, however, make sure to link his name to Mayor Matthew Lehman’s at every opportunity.

Lunch aside: I agree with Wood in that blame does little good and doesn’t move us forward. But even a half-ass “I could’ve done a few things differently” might be nice. You’re about to see 13 more people lose their jobs and the community’s about to lose Whitmore Pool and Park – a contemplated casualty in the draft restructuring plan. If pinning that tail on some donkey (and it’s just an analogy. Don’t be so thin-skinned. I’m not calling you an ass) will make ‘em feel better, be that donkey. 

And from Geisel’s desk … 

Several points and questions were raised during public comment on the Restructuring proposals, one of which was could Ballas come back and sue the Town again? Klee responded that the slate would be clean, and Ballas could only sue if there was a breach in the payment plan going forward. However, he also said later that if there was a shortfall in a payment, for example if the Town were only able to pay $1 million of one of its scheduled $2 million payments, a provision in the deal would mean Ballas could take the payment and the balance due would accrue at 7% interest until paid off.

John Wentworth suggested Council might want to consider priorities, such as whether it wants to pay off the settlement in 7 years or go the entire 23-year distance. Lehman agreed with that idea, noting that the interest is front-loaded, and it might be worth exploring what it might take to get rid of that early, in four years perhaps, and then start knocking down the principal.

Joe Mueller said he is concerned about cuts to the Police Department, but added that, “If we want things, we have to budget for them.” He also said that with 13% [T.O.T.] tax rates, the Town has enough of those, and he doesn’t favor anymore borrowing and then having taxpayers enact more measures to pay for it. Councilmember Wood agreed, saying he’s been of the position that taxing isn’t realistic, calling it a hindrance and not something Council wants to pursue.

John Walter cited the conspicuous absence of one of the airport debacle’s players, MMSA CEO Rusty Gregory. He asked if MMSA was aware of the settlement agreement and planned to participate. Lehman replied that Gregory and MMSA have been briefed on the settlement, but were not privilege to any of the negotiations.

“They’re learning about it the same as [the public] is,” he said. “We had to keep them in the dark about it the same as we had to keep the public in the dark.” He added that MMSA is not in favor of any imposed tax on lift tickets and the like. “They didn’t take that too well,” Lehman related. He did say MMSA indicated it MIGHT support a voluntary tax if were temporary, but didn’t elaborate on what sort of tax might warrant any consideration.

One of the most pointed observations came from John Vereuck. He criticized the “restructuring” as being little more than “cost-cutting,” pointing out that earlier in the Town’s existence, it ran with just 50 staff before ballooning to 130 employees at its peak five or six years ago. He also cautioned Council against talking about passing a tax. “No one’s got the stomach for that,” he said, garnering some applause for suggesting term limits on Council seats.

Dieter Fiebiger was worried about the 47% cut to the Police Department, but even more worried that he’d be 103 by the time the settlement is paid off! Meanwhile, after the meeting, MLPD Chief Dan Watson said he’s going to be trying to get his head around being 24% of the budget, but taking 47% of the cuts, and trying to come up with more ways to shore up both his staff and line item.

Wood indicated the Chapter 9 filing was good at least as a maneuver, one of the few moves the Town’s made during the past few years that’s worked. “The value of Chapter 9 was that it brought MLLA to the table,” he said. He also said he hopes that the soon-to-be-nullified DA would soon be used to attract industry [to the airport property] that’s suitable to the FAA … “and NOT housing.”

Before adjourning, Lehman apologized to the citizenry for the actions of Councils and staffs past. “Every time I drive by the airport, I wonder how we as a Town ended up owing $30 million on property that’s been unchanged since the beginning of time … with no tangible improvements, no structures,” he said in Council remarks. “It leaves me angry and frustrated. It’s a tough pill to swallow. I wanted the number to be a lot closer to zero.”

He concluded by wondering, “Is this legal justice, or a victory of sheer greed?”

The Town is scheduled to appear in Bankruptcy Court on Oct. 19 to seek approval to begin the process under which it would execute the terms of the settlement. Next step from there would be petitioning the court to modify the Writ of Mandate down from the previous amount of $43 million to the settlement amount of $29.5 million. From there, the Town would go before Judge Thomas Holman to have the Chapter 9 filing dismissed, which would likely occur sometime in November.

Council is expected to approve a final list of employee cuts and reductions by its regular meeting on Dec. 5 in order to allow sufficient time to implement layoffs.

For more coverage of this story, see Geisel’s piece on community reaction, and also the text of Councilman Michael Raimondo’s letter.

People are happy it’s over, if not about the terms 

Last Friday, the Town of Mammoth Lakes announced the terms and details of its $29.5 million settlement with Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition (MLLA). Since then, locals who had read it online exhibited a wide variety of thoughts on the terms details. One detail that stuck out to local Bob Solheim: when the Town chose to release it:

“I was surprised at how many folks didn’t even know the PR was out,” he said. “The timing the Town used skipped an entire news cycle, and people read the newspapers here, they just do. The Town effectively seemed to black out a lot of people from knowing about it and possibly attending Thursday night’s special meeting.”

Solheim said he is happy to have closure, and thinks the Town is trying to put the best face on a horrible situation, but called the $2 million annually over 23 years payment scenario “quite a millstone” around the Town’s neck.

“Industry has been reducing its budgets, and I’m not downplaying the amount the Town needs to cut … it’s a lot, but it should be able to take a 10% reduction even after all the previous cuts, and still remain effective,” he said. “Reorganization, outsourcing and having the unions bid to compete … all those are the right things to do.” What isn’t the right thing to do, he countered, is suggest the public tax itself to help pay the judgment. “I have no support for taxes, and I hope the Town has the good sense not to use cuts to the Police Department and so on as leverage to help sell the public on a tax increase,” Solheim said.

Neal Levin, a Mammoth resident with extensive accounting experience, said he’s glad a settlement was reached, but cautioned, “We’ll have to wait and see how the town funds these payments…who loses their job, what services are cut, etc. before we can say the deal was a good one.” Levin said he’d like to see whether the Town has any legal recourse against those originally responsible for the debacle. “If not, at least those responsible should no longer hold office in this town or be ‘consulted’ in the future on ANY town business.”

Don McPherson pointed out that the settlement figure is almost identical to a proposed offer of $29 million that had been rejected earlier by the Town. “Now we’re right back where we started a year or so ago, and we spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to get here,” he said. McPherson is also critical of one of the settlement’s restructuring pitches, which involves, “Creating opportunities for the public to be more involved in government by establishing a far-reaching volunteer program, with opportunities in areas such as customer service, visitor services and neighborhood patrols.”

“I’m not going to volunteer to jump on a snowplow,” he said, railing against levels of service that could be gutted to unworkable extremes. “As a taxpayer, why should I?”

A “taxing” thought …

The Town has suggested the public may wish to enact some form of tax to help pay down the settlement. This has met with stiff resistance.

Locals Diane Eagle and Mary Canada both said they are “opposed to any new taxes,” no matter what form they might take. “I’ll fight that,” Eagle firmly stated. “They got themselves into this, let them get themselves out of it. Don’t look at us [taxpayers].” Ann Gimpel’s comment also was even more direct in terms of taxes: “No taxation without representation. Sound familiar?”

Greg Newbry, however, said he was in favor of a specific type of taxation to help remedy the situation. “I’m for a south county sales tax increase in addition to perhaps a recreation tax; we need this to go away,” he wrote in. “For Mammoth to succeed, we need to get this problem behind us.”

Second homeowner and multiple property owner Peter Dach, who urged Council last week to take its chances in front of a bankruptcy judge, was apparently queasy upon learning of the settlement. “$48.5 million? That is a good deal?,” he asked rhetorically. “[I want to know] what is the real story … pensions, salaries, pictures of someone with farm animals? I’m nauseous.”

A few locals summarily blasted the judgment. One business owner called the settlement “horrible” and said, “[Council] sold us out.” Another went so far as to call it “completely (colorful expletive) up.” Suggestions for how to obtain the $2 million annually ranged from turning over the Police Department to the Mono County Sheriff’s Department to giving Ballas and MLLA deeds to the municipal park and ride lot and the Bell Shaped Parcel, and “telling them to hit the road.”

Linda Wright reserved most of her comments for now, but didn’t seem to be too keen on the final figure. “Wow … $29.5 million! And I thought my daughter’s wedding was expensive!”

Optimists club?

Russ Norton, who was involved in the airport in the 1990s as a member of the Airport Advisory Committee, said there were a lot of “ignorant, arrogant mistakes” made by the Town staff and Council at the time. Today, he’s pragmatic about the settlement. “Nothing’s going to change anything; it’s over, let’s go on and drive forward,” he said. “What we have is what there is … we’ll survive. The Town’s made cuts and I haven’t realized any hardships. There might be some changes, but it will all be okay.”

Contractor Tim Flynn said he had some reservations initially, but seems to share Norton’s cautious optimism. “As for the settlement, what is 98 cents on the dollar? That’s what we ended up with, basically,” he posited. “We just came up $2 million short in our budget and now we’re adding another $2 million. How do we come up with that? It’s simple math, but it doesn’t add up.” The thing that has irritated him since the beginning of the MLLA negotiations: “The veil of secrecy. We had this confidentiality agreement with MLLA, and there was this sense that it was the unions getting in and trying to save entitlements, at the expense of fiscal responsibility, and small business and the taxpayers.”

Flynn went on to say that he’s also glad it’s finally over. “I’m preferring to stay positive about it. “We’re moving forward. I’m confident we’ll find the money and get it done. In five years, we won’t be talking about it anymore.”

He also thinks the public needs to take into consideration some of the many “variables” in play during the negotiations. “I don’t necessarily fault Council,” he added. “They had to deal with … lawyers, a bankruptcy judge … they were under a lot of pressure over details we can’t imagine. It wasn’t easy for them. We had to appoint a Council member by default, nobody wanted to run, that’s how bad it was. We gotta cut them some slack.”

And Flynn’s also of the opinion that Chapter 9 wasn’t the way to go. “I’m not a fan of bankruptcy. If I ran the Town as a business, I wouldn’t want a Chapter 9 on my record,” he said. “It reflects on people personally, as individuals, and I don’t think we want to risk that as a town at that level.”

Mike Coco is of a like mind. “I’m happy it’s over and done. I might not like [the settlement] entirely, but sometimes we have to do things in life we don’t like in order to move forward,” Coco opined. “As my mom used to say, we have to learn from our mistakes.” He is, however, not a fan of the community enacting any new taxes to pay it down. “No. Not interested,” he stated. “Let the Town figure out how to do that for themselves. The public and local businesses have enough on our plate to deal with.”

Mammoth resident Pam Basso is another local happy the settlement’s over. She’s also not too sullen on the terms. “I think we made a good deal. It was $44 million plus, so it could have been worse,” she opined. “The whole town has been dragged through this for so many years. Time to look ahead and get on with our lives.”

Basso also expressed relief at the Town’s decision not to pursue Chapter 9. “I worry about what it would do to investors who have been hesitant to come here, in part because of what a bankruptcy might have meant to property values, which don’t need any more problems.” She agreed with Flynn that perception could have a significant impact on future business and tourism. That said, she also suggested it might be time for other changes. “Now we just need to start over with a whole new Town Council,” Basso added.

Clint Hyde posed a pointed question to the Bridgeport community that harkens back to the award of $30 million, made by a jury in a Bridgeport courtroom, by a predominately north county jury. “How do the folks in Bridgeport who awarded the judgment feel about us now? I’d really like to know,” he queried. “Are they happy about the settlement? Did we have this coming to us? Or do they feel sad? ‘Gee, we’re sorry, we didn’t mean for it to go this far?’”

Hyde also protested MLLA’s ability under state law to buy the rights to the judgment, which he suggested was akin to gambling in Vegas. It might be legal, he acknowledged, but added he personally finds it “immoral.”

A CPA’s take

Dear Editor:

President Obama was honest when he said he wanted to remake America.  Now that both conventions are over and the surrogates have spoken, please evaluate the performance of the president without the partisan homily.

Mr. Obama ran on a platform (2008) to fix the economy, fix health care, bring both sides closer together, and have a transparent White House. In my opinion, this has not been accomplished.

Mr. Obama was elected with a mandate to fix the economy. Yes, he inherited a horrible mess, jobs were being hemorrhaged at an alarming rate, Wall Street greed was out of control, the housing market was plummeting and the middle class contracting.

However, we currently have the smallest labor force in over 38 years and the lowest labor participation percentage in history. That is hardly fixing the economy.

In Charlotte, President Clinton stated no prior president could have fixed the broken economy. That said, President Obama signed up for the task and you can make your own judgment if it is fixed. Can we afford another four years of bailouts, stimulus, social engineering, substantial increases of families in poverty and increasing unemployment lines?

Instead of focusing on the economy, Mr. Obama opted for a go-for-broke pursuit of progressive social legislation. His focus on Obamacare polarized the faithful and Mr. Obama endorsed the effort to abuse Congressional procedure to ram the bill through. So much for “working with the other side.” That entitlement passed by a very narrow partisan margin, hardly an overwhelming mandate. Healthcare and Medicare still need to be fixed and neither side has made even a minimum effort. To finance the healthcare bill, he moved over $700 billion from Medicare, currently underfunded by $83 trillion (see www.usdebtclock.com). And we continue to borrow more money to finance our broken economy from anyone who will lend it.

There is a current proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy, or the Buffett rule.  Non-partisan evaluation says this will result in $99,000,000,000 of additional tax revenue. The budget deficit for 2012 is anticipated to be over $1,000,000,000,000 and our national debt is over $16,000,000,000,000 (yes, lots of zeros).

To put this in perspective, if you have a credit card debt of $16,000 and you pay $99 per year on that debt, how many years will it take to reduce the credit card balance to zero (with no interest) – 161 years. That is the effect of the proposed tax increase will have on the national debt without any future annual deficits. Do you think the government will have a balanced budget? Not likely anytime soon.

The Republicans have resisted the new social legislation and have resisted any new tax increases. But according to FactCheck.org and the Congressional Budget Office, the only group for which tax rates did not reach a 30-year low was households in the top 1 percent of all earners. Meanwhile, rates for those in the middle dropped to a 30-year low of 11.1 percent.

The nation’s current string of trillion-dollar deficits ris a result of historically high spending and historically low revenue. President Obama’s spending levels are near the highest level since WWII, measured as a percentage of the nation’s gross national domestic product. And, the tax receipts were the lowest since 1950 as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product.

Mr. Obama is requesting voters elect him to a second term to finish the job. After his [convention acceptance] speech, his agenda appears to be a continuation of the first … more government spending (investment?), more failed subsidies for Solyndra (taxpayer guarantees), cap and trade (higher energy costs) and support for Obamacare at any cost.

To support European-style socialism, the Republicans may need to agree to a value-added tax to finance a permanently larger welfare state.

Politics, in America, is a full contact blood sport and the American people are suffering because the two sides cannot come together to solve the enormous problems facing this great nation.  Most elected officials are only interested in the next election, not the next generation and we continue to accept that dangerous behavior due to our apathy.  The general population feels impotent.

If the elected officials are not doing the job they were hired for, it is time to put them in the unemployment line.  Maybe then they will get the message-fix the mess you created or we will replace you with someone who will.

Greg Lippincott, CPA
Bishop

Carolyn Crawford’s worst nightmare

Dear Editor:

At first I was like, here comes another letter (penned by Carolyn Crawford in the Aug. 25 issue) promoting bigotry and more obnoxious, so-called dialogue. Then I read it again. I must say that I feel much more enthusiastic about Paul Ryan than I did before. As a man, I can only say, “Go Packers!”

Unfortunately, there is a bit of misinformation in Carolyn’s letter, titled “Your Worst Nightmare.” Much like political gaffes, which take issues out of context, the aforementioned “Let Women Die Bill,” also known as the “Protect Life Act,” is taken completely out of the political context. The context is Obamacare. Obamacare in this context is understood as having infamously disregarded individual’s consciences and moral choices, so this Republican legislation is, I believe, a reaction of gross power against an aggression of gross power. However, whether one policy is good or not is true and regardless of which party said so. The real question to ask is what Pontius Pilate asks, “What is Truth?” -John 18:38

I agree with Carolyn that we should not have abortions done in the alley. She says she is old enough to remember “the days of back-alley abortion deaths.” I am old enough to remember them, too. They go on today, just in a different form; women getting killed or infected from the abortion facilities which do not meet health standards. Just because it is legalized, does not mean it is safe or good to do. I also agree with Carolyn that in the case that a pregnancy which would kill both the mother and the child, as in rare ectopic pregnancies, there ought to be an opportunity for an abortion. (I suggest that readers research this valuable topic, because I do believe that this is the only one that both sides of the pregnancy debate could possibly agree on.)

What I find most strange about her letter, is that women’s reproductive organs are called “hoo-ha” and “glands.” I do not know if this is how normal people talk about the body, but I cannot think that such language allows one to think that the body is sacred or even good.

To my knowledge sexual organs are not sugar-free and guilt-free candy, rather I am told they are an integral and intimate part of the human person. It does seem that in calling something a “hoo-ha” it is a pleasure object, but I don’t believe women are pleasure objects, which is why I object to such language.

Carolyn did acknowledge that this

“debate” was about reproduction (or the lack thereof) when she wrote: “anti-choice zealots could wipe out decades’ worth of your reproductive rights.” However, I must disagree with her statement for two reasons. First is the term “anti-choice.” You can always choose to do something if it is

physically possible. Physical ability is there whether something is legal or not. What choice means is about a possible choice, but a moral right to assert actions against another party.

Second, is the term “reproductive rights.” Reproductive refers to reproducing. But abortion refers to not reproducing. Abortion refers to aborting as in ending or terminating. Ergo, “reproductive rights” really means “non-productive rights.” So what is really meant is the protection by law to choose to abort the consequences of reproduction.

As I end, please allow me to say what drives me to write such an article. First, I believe that babies are people. Second,  that these people are being murdered legally and publicly. And If I believe that a mass genocide is going on, one worse than World War II, then I must ask am I doing enough? Should I not be fighting tooth and nail against this potentially satanic cult of children sacrifice?

I was once a fetus. I was once two, four and then eight cells. There is nothing that makes me different from that fetus in any dramatic sense. Peter Singer even said so in his book, Practical Ethics. Singer is logically consistent when he notes that there is nothing very different from a one month baby to a one year-old baby. He says kill both of them if you feel like it. But if I can vote to kill babies, why can’t someone else vote to kill me? Can the government kill me when it wants to?

I entirely agree with Humanae Vitae, and encyclical letter from Pope Paul VI on the Regulation of Birth (July 25, 1968), where it says, “A man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.”

After being used, a woman has two choices: accept the wrong or push it off onto the child.

Michael Naaden
June Lake

Rudder corrects Dahlgren

Dear Editor:

I happened to see the letter in your paper from Dick Dahlgren. In it, he described the landmark decision by the California courts which prevented LADWP from de-watering Rush Creek.

He then went on to congratulate some guy on his CalTrout  board, an attorney in Southern California, for his “brilliant’ strategy in suing LADWP et. al, and getting a restraining order against them, preventing the dewatering and setting the stage for a great victory for the Eastern Sierra and the trout. Well, here’s where age has caught up with Dick and his memory; his facts just aren’t straight.

How do I know? I was there.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon one day, and my office got a call from Bill Murano, then Judge of the Mono County Justice Court, who wanted to know if someone in the office would take on LADWP pro-bono and try to prevent them from turning off Rush Creek.

My long-time partner, Ed Forstenzer, an outdoor guy and no flunky

for the establishment, allowed as he would. Ed immediately set to, meeting with Dick and Doc Randol and doing the research and crafting a complaint and a request for a writ of mandate that would be, if granted, the first such restraining order ordered against the LADWP in about 100 years. All this was done in 24 hours to avoid the fish being killed.

At this point, SCE unleashed its hordes of lawyers, but, when the dust settled, Ed had won the day, Rush Creek would live, and history was made! The rest was pretty much mopping up, as LADWP took a beating the likes of which it couldn’t believe would even happen. Imagine our surprise when this McInerney guy, Dick’s lawyer in Southern California, leapt into action with every media outlet in the state, taking credit for work he never did.

Ed shook his head at the “gratitude” he was shown for saving CalTrout’s bacon, but, modest as he is, he never raised a word in protest at the time. So, the myth goes on in the minds of Dick and others, but, for those of us who were here, I’m pleased to set the record straight. It was a local “hero” that won the day, our very own soon to become judge, Ed Forstenzer; not some stranger from Southern California.    

Paul Rudder
Mammoth Lakes

Best Summer Ever

Dear Editor:

You’ve been hearing a lot about the “Best Summer Ever” and how many local businesses are reporting visitations above previous years. Word from festivals, events and restaurants are reporting record attendance. Several new events were added to this summer’s lineup, and trails are busy with happy outdoor enthusiasts; the list goes on.

While mother nature plays a significant role in Mammoth’s successes and failures, I’m confident that this past summer, “The Best Summer Ever,” was not a coincidence, and that it was attributable directly to the efforts of a community that has united together in the face of paramount adversities, making  purposeful exertions to change.

Plans are already in the works for Summer 2013. Two new sporting events are being coordinated to bookend summer: a Half Marathon in the month of June and a weeklong resurrection of the Kamikaze Mountain Bike event with a festive twist.

Both events will incorporate the entire community of Mammoth Lakes and both will work to encroach on our shoulder seasons. These events should be made official in coming weeks and when they are, we will need everyone’s help to promote them early and often.

I encourage every local business, non-profit, event, individual citizen, etc. to make continued efforts to update your clients/visitors/friends as to what is happening in Mammoth Lakes. If you have not done it already, call or email Mammoth Lakes Tourism and ask them to add you to the Tuesday email update.  This update provides a professional and consistent message of current events in Mammoth, and you can cut-and-paste it into your own letterhead. Many letters of “thanks” have been received by those using this email update.

Finally, I want to offer a heartfelt “thank you” to all the individuals and businesses working behind the scenes to drive the Best Summer Ever message home. Our entire community should be proud of the great service and hospitality they offered our visitors this summer; we cannot underestimate the importance of word-of-mouth marketing.

Matthew Lehman
Mayor, Town of Mammoth Lakes

SOS: Coastal cleanup day

Join FOI and MLTPA for Coastal Cleanup Day, the final SOS Volunteer Trails Day of the summer, this Saturday, Sept. 15. Gather @ Horseshoe Lake at 8:30 a.m. for a bagel breakfast courtesy of Old New York Deli, then deploy around Twin Lakes, Horseshoe Lake and Lakes Mamie, Mary and George. Lunch afterward hosted Horseshoe, courtesy of the Java Joint! Don’t forget there will be giveaways!

Wear long pants and close-toed shoes. Gloves, tools and trash bags are provided. More info: Email Drew, call 805.405.7577, or visit the www.mltpa.org or www.friendsoftheinyo.org.

Watch for more next weekend on the upcoming FOI Member & Volunteer Weekend, Sept. 28-29.

New Troutlaw Roundup

The Eastern Sierra Fishing Coalition announces the launch of its new “Troutlaw Roundup” derby, designed to promote local businesses and stock Eastern Sierra lakes with Alpers trout weighing at least 5 pounds or greater.

The Eastern Sierra Fishing Coalition is selling 100 tagged Alpers Trout as part of next year’s “Troutlaw Roundup” derby being promoted in magazines, newspapers, radio, posters and news outlets throughout California. Businesses have the opportunity to purchase their own Alpers Trout, to be stocked in local waters for $200, along with a donated prize to be part of the derby. Each fish will be tagged with a prize redeemable through the Eastern Sierra Fishing Coalition’s website.

Individuals interested in purchasing a fish to promote their business can do so by contacting Mammoth Lakes Tourism’s Whitney Lennon or Alicia Vennos with Mono County Tourism. Fish available on a first-come, first-served bases until the 100 fish are sold. Dates for next year’s derby are still being finalized. Proceeds from events help stocking local waters.

Library calling all artists

Calling all Mammoth Lakes and Eastern Sierra Artists: the Mammoth Library wants you! Located across from Mammoth High School, next to the skating rink, the Library has lots a of great space to hang your works of art, including the Gallery Walls of the Elie Randol Reading Room. If you have paintings, photos, sketches or other works, but no place to display them, or never thought you’d put them on display, this is your opportunity, regardless of age or ability, to submit your work for consideration.

Last day is technically Sept. 20, but contact Sulin at 760.934.2820 or Bill at 760.934.8670 in any case to get your entry in ASAP! Works selected will hang Oct. 1-Nov. 30. No nudity, profanity or otherwise “unsuitable” entries, please. Must be framed and ready to hang, max weight: 50 pounds. More info: Suzanne, 760.934.5645.

“Thrill the World 2″

The survey results are in! Dance workshops will be Saturdays from 1-3 p.m. @ BUHS East Gym starting Sept. 15. And the charity that received the most votes is The Eastern Sierra Breast Cancer Alliance, so we will be donating all our proceeds to them.

We are asking everyone to make a one-time donation of at least $3 to cover event expenses and support the cause. So, prepare to get your cobwebs on, and practice your zombie march and roar. For up to the minute news, follow “Thrill the World” on Facebook.

Burnham mental health talk

Jordan Burnham will present a very special talk for the public on Mental Health this coming Wednesday, Sept. 19, from 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the Mammoth Lakes Library’s Elie Randol Room.

Burnham will share experiences and insight on his struggle with depression, including his attempt to take his own life, and how his survival propelled him to begin to deal with his depression and learn healthier coping mechanisms.

Today, Jordan’s physical body is still recovering, but he has found emotional wellness through counseling, and a strong support system. In 2011, an ESPN special edition of its E:60 series on his experiences, “The Jordan Burnham Story,” was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Mono County Office of Education and the Mammoth Library are proud sponsors of Jordan Burnham for this community event. Burnham will also speak to Middle and High School students in Inyo and Mono counties.

Information or questions: call the Mono County Office of Education at 760.934.0031 and speak with Ana Danielson or Didi Tergesen.

An Eastern Sierra stream closed to fishing since the mid-1990s will be opened on Sept. 16 to a limited number of registrants to the Fly Fishing Faire. There will be no limit on the number of brook trout that anglers can catch and keep.

The Mammoth Lakes Faire, presented by the Southwest Council Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) has special permission that allows fly-fishers the opportunity to catch and remove an unlimited number of brook trout from Silver Creek, a tributary of the Walker River.

“Sometime in the future, Silver Creek will be inhabited exclusively by Lahonton cutthroat trout,” according to Dawne Becker Emery, environmental scientist, California Department of Fish and Game.

Emery, of the aquatic restoration and recovery division, will serve as volunteer group leader and guide on the brook trout “catch and keep” and electro-shocking trip, said Michael Schweit, president of the Southwest Council FFF.

In addition to the Silver Creek brook trout outing, the Sept. 13-16 Faire will feature fly-tying demonstrations and instruction, fly-fishing classes, youth and adult casting instruction, free seminars and related activities. Headquartered at Cerro Coso Community College, 101 College Parkway in Mammoth, the Faire will be a potpourri of every aspect of the sport utilizing both the school and nearby Eastern Sierra waters.

Adult admission is $10 with children and teens age 16 and under admitted free. One admission is good for all Faire days. Registration, class, film and seminar information is available on-line at the Southwest Council FFF site.

The day-long Silver Creek brook trout event will depart from and return to the Cerro Coso College event headquarters.

According to Emery, “A few volunteer efforts by angling have occurred over the years as well as some Silver Creek poaching. Other than those instances, it’s been closed for years.

“All brookies will need to be dispatched, and can either be taken by the volunteer or properly disposed of if too small. All Lahonton cutthroat trout (LCT) will need to be returned to the water, hopefully unharmed. Participants will hear a brief lecture on identifying brookies vs. Lahontan cutts and must fill out volunteer forms. This will all occur at streamside, then participants can follow the water to wherever they’d like to fish.

“The creek is wadeable, but the openness and clear water may be more conducive to bankside angling. For the electro-shocking, I have a limited number of dip nets and would probably need only three netters, one bucket person. Participants can trade-off if there is a lot of interest,” she concluded.

Reservations to the Silver Creek brook trout outing and all other classes, seminars and activities at the SWC FFF Mammoth Fly Fishing Faire are on a first-come, first-served basis at www.regonline.com/flyfishingfaire or by calling 818.757.3474.

Gaines rails against rural fire fees

Dear Editor: 

Despite my efforts to stop it by referendum and legislation, the illegal fire tax is being assessed on more than 825,000 rural Californians starting this month, including 4,207 in Mono County.

This so-called fee was passed in 2011 to extract up to $150 per habitable structure from property owners. The tax will not provide any more fire protection and will actually make it harder for local fire agencies to raise the money they need to keep people safe. It’s a lose-lose proposition for the people in my district and for anyone concerned with public safety and the rule of law.

This tax should have been subject to a 2/3 vote in the legislature just like every other tax, but the Democrats called it a fee to get around that requirement. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is planning to file a lawsuit disputing the fee’s legality and I hope it gets overturned as soon as possible.

Until that happens, though, the State Board of Equalization (BOE) has already begun mailing the first bills for the new fire tax this month and hopes to have all bills sent by December. The BOE has also begun mailing an advance notice to the affected property owners to warn them that the bills are coming, and to provide them with a brochure explaining the “fee.”

No matter how many mailers or explanations or warnings any agency sends out, it doesn’t make this tax any more right or more legal. It was, is and always will be a shakedown of rural property owners that takes their money every single year but gives them zero in the way of additional fire protection.

Wildfires are currently raging out of control across the North State and they won’t be put out by the phantom protections promised in this bogus tax.  We need more firefighters, bulldozers, trucks and the other equipment that does the hard work of fighting these wildfires and protecting us, our homes and our property.  This tax leaves us no safer, only poorer and more skeptical than ever of a government that takes and spends taxpayer dollars with no regard to the law or to fairness.

I wanted to share with you several resources you can use to equip yourselves with information:

Visit www.calfirefee.com to see if you live in a “State Responsibility Area” and will be paying this tax. For questions regarding your bill, contact 888.310.6447. For more information regarding the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association efforts, visit www.firetaxprotest.org.

Note: Gaines represents the 1st Senate District, which includes all or parts of Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento and Sierra counties.

State Sen. Ted Gaines
R-Roseville

Cars over pedestrians

Lunch:

I write to remind CalTrans or TOML that the pedestrian yield light between the Post Office and Base Camp Cafe has been out for the better half of this summer.

This clearly shows that automobile traffic is more important than pedestrian safety. When a stoplight intended for cars malfunctions, it is fixed immediately.

While you are fixing this signal, why not replace the yellow LED’s with red ones so the LAliens get the picture when the flashers are on.

On a better note:  Congratulations to Grace Church for taking first in Coed Softball this year. Watch your back; We’re coming for you.

Scott Calvert, E-Z Duzit Softball Club
Mammoth Lakes

Anything goes 

The following is a two-parter.

The first letter was sent by the Town’s Community Development Department to Philip Hertzog, owner of Mammoth Outdoor Sports and Value Sports, regarding violations of the Town’s outdoor sales ordinances.

The second letter is Tom Cage’s response to the Town’s letter.

Dear Mr. Hertzog:

This letter is in reference to the outdoor sales (tents) that have been occurring at both Mammoth Outdoor Sports and Value Sports over the past several months. We have received several complaints regarding outdoor sales at both businesses. In response to the complaints we have reviewed the outdoor sales permits for both businesses and have determined that both businesses are operating outside of the permit limits. Outdoor sales at both businesses have been taking place almost continuously this summer, which does not comply with the Town’s requirements regarding outdoor sales. The Town’s Municipal Code limits outdoor sales to a total of nine days per year.

Additionally, signage related to outdoor sales (banners) is limited to 20 square feet as well as a limitation of only one banner per business. The Municipal Code also includes the following limitations regarding banners:

“17.40.100.N.1.b.iii. Special sales and promotional banners, including parking lot sales and going out of business sales, may be allowed for a period or periods of not longer than a total of thirty days per year. A permit may be issued for not less than two consecutive days, up to thirty days.”

Based on visual inspections of the tent sales, the banners that have accompanied the tent sales appear to exceed the size requirement and have likely been installed for more than the thirty day limitation and also exceed the limitation of one banner per business.

Any future banner installations will require a banner permit and must meet all Municipal Code requirements as applicable. Please ensure that any banners installed at either business meet the Town’s signage requirements and a permit is obtained.

We appreciate you obtaining the outdoor sales permit for both businesses; however, both have exceeded the above listed limit for 2012. Additionally, we are still waiting for the property owner signature on the outdoor sales application for Value Sports in order to finalize the permit. Because the excessive outdoor sales over the past several months exceed the permit limits of nine days total of outdoor sales, no further outdoor sales will be allowed for either business through the end of the year. Mammoth Outdoor Sports will require a new outdoor sales permit for 2013 and at that point you can schedule the sales days for the next three year period to best suit your business needs.

Please note that this letter constitutes the courtesy warning regarding outdoor sales. We appreciate your continued conformance with our Municipal Code requirements so we can avoid any future code compliance actions, such as citations with associated fines. Please obtain the property owner signature for the Value Sports permit as soon as possible so the permit is complete.

Thank you for your compliance, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions regarding outdoor sales.

Sandra Moberly
Senior Planner 

Cage responded with a letter to Community Development Director Mark Wardlaw 

Dear Mark: 

You are asking them to cease on the banners which were put up and have remained up at Mammoth Outdoor Sports continuously all summer. An additional banner and their latest yard sale was put up on Aug. 23, the date of the letter. This has occurred without a break and will most likely continue until who knows when. You are telling them that they are not allowed any more outdoor sales for the rest of the calendar year and should reapply in 2013 for next year’s permits. Of course, there are a lot of sales in town during the month of October.

You are confirming that they don’t even have a valid permit to conduct parking lot sales at Value Sports because they have not gotten the owner’s signature? He lives in town for godsakes. How hard is it to get a signature? Yet Value Sports has continued to have sales beyond the size, banner and time frame allowed and gone totally unchecked without a valid permit.

QUESTION: WHY SHOULD I BOTHER WITH ANY PERMIT OR FOLLOW ANY RULES WITH REGARD TO SIGNAGE, BANNERS, TIME IN THE PARKING LOT OR FEES TO THE TOWN?

You are not fining a perpetual abuser. You are not limiting them to anything in the future. You are not enforcing the code or ordinance now, which they are clearly in violation of and have been all summer. Obviously, no one seems to care about how it makes the town look.

THIS IS A JOKE, RIGHT? I AM BEING PUNKED, RIGHT???

I am always asked, ‘so what do you recommend’? Well, for starters, you could explain to them that they have been out an estimated number of days this summer which has used up their days for the next (x) number of years. Second, you could say they have violated the banner rules of size and here is the first fine, no warning. And finally, you could say that if there are any other violations, you will be cited at the rate of additional fines for each violation. And the fines will continue to escalate and if not paid they will be attached to the property owner. Which I believe the ordinance allows you to do.

May I remind you how much you, the town, has received (or about to receive) in bed tax penalties on R1 rentals? May I remind you, the town, why have ordinances in place that are ignored? Are you not selectively enforcing ordinances? Could this lead to an abuser of some other ordinance to cry foul?

As a matter of fact, I am not even sure if my permit is valid for this year or if I needed to renew it? Why bother? Why pay? And yes, let’s put up another sales banner that is 20 sq. feet. It pales in comparison. Last year, I had a banner up at P3 for discount ski rentals on the weekends; I received a letter within a month and complied.

Well, get that letter ready again, my banner will go up as soon as the season starts and will be there every day, why not, nothing is enforced.

Holy Mother of Pearl, please tell me I am being punked and that the rules do not apply to Mammoth Outdoor Sports and Value Sports because they are ???? well, heck, just because they contribute so much to the town. They sure seem to operate outside of any rules that the rest of us work under.

Tom Cage
Kittredge Sports/P3