Great Zombie Jesus … again!

Dear Editor:

“It seems that he has deemed the proposed Mammoth Lakes Gateway Monument Park a monumental waste of time, as well as a completely misguided effort on the part of [Tenney]”

Yup! But now it’s a monument park? A monument to what? Urban narcissism? Destination resort envy? Seriously … a tourist attraction? It used to be a Gateway and now it’s a Monument Park? I believe that is called “mission creep.” If this effort moves forward, who knows how complicated and expensive it will get? Look at the Ice Rink for example.

Here’s the inexpensive solution: we have a Visitor’s Center. Mammoth Mountain Ski Area has a big old woolly mammoth statue that will probably have to be moved for its Main Lodge redevelopment. If we need a gateway,  move MMSA’s mammoth statue to the Visitor’s Center. Let the stakeholders do it. Not public employees. Let the stakeholders handle the engineering and transportation. I’m sure they have the capability.

Tenney’s been serving on Mammoth’s Planning Commission for 10 years. She is hardly a private citizen. She’s one of the core leaders of this town. And with her position of influence in this community, it seems as though she could be putting her efforts to projects that encourage recreation and enhance the accessibility to our environment in a non-destructive way.

I like the way the Post Office turned out. But flowers are one thing. The Gateway project is another, a ridiculous waste of time and money that serves no purpose whatsoever.

Do we really need to take time and effort from public employees in the town’s most difficult period? That seems irresponsible to me. What’s the payback besides personal gratification justified by more empty promises of prosperity?

In rejoinder to the list of evasions and reasons why you can’t attend to the sample projects I suggested:

Sherwin Area Recreation Plan (SHARP) … Mammoth Lakes Trails and Public Access finished the plan.  The Town needs to move forward on it. You, Ms. Tenney, are on the Planning Commission. Shouldn’t TOML be putting more effort into implementation or can we expect SHARP to take years to complete? Do you want me to liaise with MLTPA as special envoy from Town? What can I do to help?

Municipal Natatorium … not a rec center with pool. A natatorium. The lack of a good facility for serious aquatic training is the most glaring lack in a town supposedly dedicated to recreation. We have more than $1 million dollars a year coming in from Prop R and Measure U. We should use those funds for big things. And who says the swimming has to be free? Sell passes like MMSA does. Season, monthly and daily passes. Let’s make it work. It’s a needed facility.

I don’t know how there can be an estimate of the maintenance costs without detailed architectural plans.  Let’s get together with the architect of your choice and talk about how we can generate comprehensive design for the natatorium and what we can do to make it affordable like using waste geothermal water from the Geothermal Plant for heating the water (good idea Dr. Bourne). And solar electric for the lights and wind turbines for the pumps. Designed right, it could be a model people from all over the world would study. There’s your tourist attraction.

If we re-task the funds for Whitmore Pool and partner with Mono County Education and design reasonable user fee schedule, we could afford a real natatorium in town near Cerro Coso and our other schools. The natatorium would act as an attractor for students to enroll in Cerro Coso, which is part of the core of Mammoth’s future economy. The natatorium will pay for itself in the long run.

South Frontage Road … in March last year, I wrote a critique of the Downtown Neighborhood District Plan NDP in The Sheet which said in part:

“Provide direct access from 203 to each of the 5 streets in the Sierra Valley Sites: Callahan, Joaquin, Lupin, Mono and Manzanita. I would also add a new driveway through the berm in front of Schat’s/Base Camp and another at Slocums/Wave Rave. Then all the existing businesses on the existing frontage road can be entered directly from Hwy 203. And no car has to drive down the frontage road to get to any of the existing businesses.

That would allow closing the entire length of the frontage road from Laurel Mountain Rd. to Callahan to vehicle traffic and converting the frontage road into one long pedestrian mall where pedestrians and cars would no longer have to compete and give locals a safe and fun mall to commute to and from work and for other errands. Most year round and long term residents live in the downtown. A pedestrian mall to Old Mammoth Road, easily accessible from anywhere in the area is an obvious necessity for people getting to and from many places of employment and for running errands.”

The above is part of a longer critique of the DNDP.  You can see that here: http://pancyl.com/MainStreetRedevelopment.htm.

Town Clean Up and Center St.  — which needs to be done continually and not just once a year to pull weeds.  Take a look at Center St. and try telling yourself we’re a World Class Destination Resort. Your time can be spent on more productive efforts than putting up a sign that tells everybody who just drove 6 hours to get to Mammoth that they are in Mammoth.

The Minaret Mall Public Space … I wrote a letter to the Sheet a couple of years ago describing my idea, or “vision” in Mammoth speak. See it here:  http://pancyl.com/PublicSpace.htm.

Acquiring the Shady Rest Tract … given it’s fragmented ownership and hard economic times for those who sought to make profit from real estate development, there will never be a better time to work on its acquisition. The Town wouldn’t even have to buy out all of them, just the 30-40 most desperate owners and with that leverage, could be such a pain in the ass to the other owners that they would sell cheap and be happy to be done with it. Do you want me to write some letters?  I’ll be glad to. I can’t afford the postage, though.

As an aside, if I was MMSA, that’s exactly what I’d be doing: quietly buying out the individual owners of the Shady Rest Tract. It would turn the whole area into a gold mine if turned into a real Central Park. Property values in the Sierra Valley Sites and on all the streets surrounding it would increase. And it would put the Downtown NDP in a whole different light.

I see things that can and should be done and many things that shouldn’t.  I don’t have the power and influence of Tenney or the money of Gregory to work the town into my image. I applied for a position on the Recreation Commission so I could help move SHARP along and bring focus on the need for our Natatorium and for the acquisition of the Shady Rest Tract and it’s necessary conversion to our Central Park, but I wasn’t [chosen] to sit on that commission.

So all I can do is tell you my ideas as a private citizen and hope that the ruling clique acts on them. And if you get bent because I see things differently than you, well …

Ken Warner
Mammoth Lakes

Colin Wolf, I hate you

Dear Mr. Colin Wolf,

I am writing you this letter to express my horror and disgust at your recent Spirit Hood article (The Sheet, April 2). I am not only offended by your article but ashamed to have considered you one of the top writers for this so-called paper. Pre-SHA (Spirit Hood article) whilst reading your column, I would always enjoy a nice chuckle. I might even go so far as laughing out loud on occasion. However, with the publication of this Spirit Hood article, not only did I shed some tears, but I lost some friends.

My family of Spirit Hoods has always been close to my heart and typically on top of my head. I wore each and every one of them with pride; the owl (Mr. Hooter), the wolf (Colin), the leopard (Li-Lo), the panda (Mr. Peabody), the bear (Berry), the lion (Leo), the rabbit (Mr. Thumper Jr.), the hawk (Mr. America), the dog (Cujo), the frog (Jumpy Jumperton), and the pig (Mr. Piggles). My Spirit friends have been there for me when no one else was. They have been my strength when I was weak, my voice when I could not speak, my eyes when I could not see. They saw the best there was in me.

But now, because of your slander of my beloved Spirit friends, people look at me like I am a crazy hat lady wearing a ‘dead carcass’ on my head. They point and laugh and snicker behind my back. My fashion sense has always been ahead of it’s time: that’s why I knew when I saw these lovely creatures my smartest move was to relinquish my life savings and drop $6,000 to be the proud owner of my Spirit family. I did not care that my boyfriend said he would leave me. I knew I was making the right decision.

Now YOU have gone and ruined everything with this stupid article of yours. You should never be allowed to show your face in public with the idiotic views you have,

I hate you Colin Wolf. I hate you.

Kelly Gardner
Mammoth Lakes