Letters:
The Village: It’s not “a tumor!”
Dear Editor:
In response to Skip Harvey’s irresponsible, one-sided letter and his defense of the Queen of the Mammoth Advocates, Sharon Clark in his incendiary response to Peter Maw, I am one of the little people that work in the Village, or as Skip Harvey affectionately called it, “the tumor.” Skip, I am not one of your constituents. You remember them … your voters that are all about maintaining the status quo and who squash any proposed sustainable development and economic well-being under the guise of “the environment.”
By working in the “tumor” I am trying to live and foster the American Dream, unlike the Advocates who have advanced to a financially-sound time in their lives. They can spend their idle time compromising the right to that very dream, which others such as myself are trying to obtain.
First of all, shame on you for kicking us while we are down. Don’t flatter yourself or your constituents by blaming predecessors and Intrawest for “the tumor.” Anyone with half a brain knows that malignancies do not grow without some bad cells. And as we can all see, based on the current state of our town, there are some carcinogenic influences on your panel. Certainly when you referred to my place of employment as “the ghost village” you recalled the misappropriation of allocated funds necessary for a parking structure.
How could you, the Council, Starwood and Intrawest possibly forget the millions of dollars that seem to have disappeared? And has it ever crossed your closed mind that perhaps a lack of parking could have contributed to “the ghost village?”
While I understand there were other entities involved in the parking structure debacle, I cannot help but feel that you and Council did nothing to help the situation. How proud you must be in having a hand in the slow demise of a place of business that gives people such as myself the opportunity to live in a town we cherish.
You do not realize what the “tumor” means to those that visit our town and how sad they are to see the current state it is in. Granted, CNL has not helped, but despite its flaws, the Village is still a nice place to gather and recreate. Imagine what it could be under different circumstances! You and your fellow malignancies should bear in mind that this town is not about you, and not just for you and the Advocates.
Note to certain members of Town Council; this is a resort town; therefore it is a tourist-driven economy. We want to make them happy! When visitors ask me why the Village and our town are in such a state, I make sure to tell them to thank certain members of our lovely Town Council and Skip Harvey for the mighty coup de grace to our town, in addition to a bad economy. At least you and your panel can say you never miss a genuine opportunity — when it suits your agenda, of course.
Thanks to you and all of your verbal support of the Village, I wonder (much like those that have already left town) about how much longer I will have a job to support myself so that I may finish school and maybe even one day take your job. Seems to me that it is not the Village that is the problem; it is you and your minions who are the real enemies of the town.
Mr. Harvey, your agenda and position are the true blight of our town, not the Village. You are supposed to be a part of the solution, not the problem.
Angela Olson
Manager, Chato Boutique
Mammoth Lakes
Hang on, Skip, not done yet …
Skip, I feel compelled to comment on your letter to the editor regarding Peter Maw. I find it very appalling that the vocal minority of our Town can write and say anything it wants without any comment from you or others on Town Council. Yet when young hard-working citizens of our community state the facts, you take their comments to be a personal attack on you. You really need to take a hard look at your approach!
I stand behind Peter’s remarks and feel they were very factual and to the point. To attribute what he said in his letter as a personal attack againts you, or consider it derogatory in nature, is completely unfounded. However, the retort from you to Peter seemed no less than a personal attack on your part. Your comments do not sound like the Skip Harvey that I know, the Skip Harvey that I voted for. So, now that we agree to disagree about personal feelings and attacks, let’s get to the facts.
What has the Town or should I clarify, the Town Council done since you have been in office? I know we have had joint workshops, economic roundtables, strategic planning, district planning, steering committees, blue-ribbon committees, Mammoth moving forward, etc., but with all of this said and done it seems to be a smoke screen for “no growth.” While I think these things are necessary and would be a step in the right direction, there seems to be no desire on the part of Council to implement any ideas from these forums.
Your words say you want development, but your actions point in a different direction, and we all know actions speak louder. Case in point: the appointment of Sharon Clark to the Planning Commission. This action only confirmed what we all know: that three of you are “no growth,” “anti business” and “status quo.” [Clark’s] appointment replaced a business person in the community with a non-business person.
The young people packing up and leaving town are in fact doing so because of your decisions, not due to the past. We had a very vibrant, productive community, but look at it today … no growth, no development! Have you looked to see how much the Village and 80|50 developers have put into the coffers of this town? Millions, my friend, and in your lifetime you will never see that type of extortion again! Need I point out how many times they had to paint the outside of their buildings? I believe it was 3, even after the Planning Commission approved it each time.
Perhaps you were sold a pot of gold, but wanted three and possibly even more. The Village is not complete and cannot be successful until it is. At the pace that Council is moving and under your watchful eye, there seems to be no end in sight. I ask all of you to answer some very simple questions about the Village: Where is the parking that was promised, and what did the Town do with the $3.2 million? Not your fault, you say? It’s always easy to displace the blame, and pass it on to the people who left town, the very people who contributed a huge tax base to our town, which you have no idea what to do with.
I am outraged by your attack on the very lifeline of the town, a hard-working community-driven young person, one who usually does not come to meetings, who has no political base and no one to fight for him. He and others like him are disenfranchised, yet are the very core of our existence … individuals that go to school, try to make a living, try to raise their families and just plain try to get by. These are the people who are packing up and leaving, and in case you were not aware they are the FUTURE!
I really think that most of Town Council is completely out of touch with the community and this lifeline I refer to. Have any of you been to the Village lately? Have you talked to business owners, any of their staff, or better yet the individuals who patronize these businesses and want to see the Village thrive and be a success story? I am sorry but you just do not get it, just as you missed the whole point of Peter Maw’s comments. I can only hope that Peter and the rest of our young community will not retreat, but rather use this as a rallying point to speak out, to know that they count and do have a voice. While we have another year and a half to go before some of these seats are up for election, maybe our young community should fight for change NOW! I am not sure we can afford to wait.
With any luck this will be a turning point in our town. Peter, unite your peers, your friends, your business partners and continue the fight. Show everyone that we are a resort town and not a retirement community!
Skip, in the foreseeable future let’s discuss the Clearwater Project: 3 years, 26 meetings and $1 million in cost. Or perhaps Mammoth Crossing: 5 years, 50 meetings and again millions in cost. There probably should also be conversation about Council’s lack of control over Town staff. You should concentrate and focus on getting your house in order before attacking a local, hard-working community taxpayer!
John Vereuck
Mammoth Lakes
