T&R grapples with Council requests

Commissioners Colasardo, Sauser and Stehlik at Tuesday’s Special Meeting (Photo: Kirkner)

At a special meeting on Tuesday night, the Tourism and Recreation Commission reviewed requests that had been passed down to it from Town Council regarding the Measure R funding cycles, and how awards are currently being determined. See halfway through Lunch’s report from the Council meeting where the requests were developed, “So what did Council talk about?” https://thesheetnews.com/archives/3226, to get up to speed.

Tourism and Recreation Director Danna Stroud explained on Tuesday that there were a few things Council had asked the Commission to review. These included dealing with the perception issue that there are conflicts of interest when the Commission makes its award recommendations, and using a point system when awarding Measure R funding, among other things.

Commission Chair Bill Sauser expressed  his thoughts that the notion of a conflict of interest was a non-issue.

“The only perceived conflict was Knud [Svendsen] because he works for Mammoth Mountain, but his employer is supportive of all the programs so it’s a moot point,” Sauser said.

Stroud added that Council did feel that a conflict of interest would be difficult to prove at the Tourism and Recreation level because the Commission does not have any authority to spend money. It was, however, still on the list of items to review.

“Trying to justify not giving money to a group is the only mistake we’ve made,” Sauser continued. “A group was unhappy with how the money was allotted and is now politicking council members.”

The group Sauser was referring to is Mammoth Nordic which asked for $355,000 in funding when there was only about $120,000 in the pot for spring awards.

Commissioner Teri Stehlik then turned to the requested point system. “A point system is no more objective than what we’ve done,” she said. “Perhaps if it’s a tight race between two projects, then we could use points, but putting a point on each project is not going to make it more applicable.”

Both Stehlik and Sauser felt that if Council wanted to understand the Commission’s process then it should have a workshop with the Commission, come sit in at Commission meetings, or have the Commission meetings taped for later review.

Commission Tony Colasardo pointed out that an evaluation was needed of the whole Measure R process, which was the intent from the very beginning of the Measure’s implementation, as a review of the process is built into the ordinance. So the Commission began to discuss the potential of reconvening the Measure R Steering Committee every two years to review and evaluate the successes and failures of the process.

For more on this story pick up a copy of this Friday’s print version of The Sheet.