Letters to the editor
Smurf this!
Dear Editor:
Imagine my concern upon receiving my “gift,” the fruits of a $36,000, 4-1 Town Council vote that took place at the May 4 meeting: a pre-sorted postcard with the 8-UP glittered die-cut klondike stickers attached to the front. The postcard boasted opposite:
“As a local, you deserve a set of one-of-a-kind stickers representing the NEW Mammoth Lakes brand. This is the ONLY distribution of this “locals only” sticker set so STICK WISELY! Enjoy!” -Mammoth Lakes Tourism
Now, imagine my dismay and sadness as I’d immediately proceeded to check the mixed recycling and trash barrels, to finally remove handfuls of identical postcards with stickers attached! Apparently, these postcards worked better in concept, right? Yeah, that was a great disbursement of funds … yeah, and this town has a population of 14,000. Right.
This absurd effort to dispatch such largesse of monies we just do not have to waste in the first place, was originally spearheaded by Mammoth Lakes Tourism Executive Director Urdi (apparently “spurred by the reaction from his friends … when he told them he was moving to Mammoth Lakes” May 6 Council Briefs, the Sheet). The vote occurred in the wake of a certain singular airport-related event that effectively bankrupted the Town and many residents collective faith in our Town Government to act in our best interests.
We’ve witnessed time and again how some agendas just take priority over other less pressing agendas approved by this Council. Furthermore, by ‘resident’ I refer to the people who actually live and work and raise families here, Full-Time. Not the second and third homeowners who use our Town as a bragging right.
So, as if an Executive Director title in Mammoth Lakes was not impressive enough to Urdi’s brilliant colleagues who just couldn’t place the geography of this area in relation to a (single call) designation (Mammoth) created to brand the ski area by MMSA marketing years ago, Urdi felt overwhelmingly compelled to further his ego by convincing Town Council they couldn’t let such opportunity pass for a paltry sum as $36,000, right?
Well, that’s that. Use these $36,000 stickers WISELY.
Helen Koetler
Mammoth Lakes
PS. Note to Urdi: if you can’t behave as a fiscally responsible citizen/official of this Town, will you please leave? Note to Town Council (with the exception of the one dissenting vote): Not very smart and certainly not very classy! Shame on you. Note to Office: Our population IS NOT 14,000. BTW, we all understand that.
Keep it here
Dear Editor:
According to the parking flyer put out by Bluesapalooza organizers, the Mammoth High School Rotary International Interact Club was the beneficiary of the paid parking program for the recent Bluesapalooza event in Mammoth Lakes. Apparently, the Interact Club puts on local activities for the purpose of raising funds for humanitarian services, including focusing on improving the quality of life in developing foreign countries.
The Rotarians raised $4,417, according to one of their members, which is a nice sum and they are to be commended for their efforts. However, I would be highly chagrined to hear that any part of this money was going to another country for any reason and, according to this source, it is.
The closing off of Minaret Road for the Bluesa event was an inconvenience for the town, but, I for one, am fine with that as long as I know the money being raised is going toward a local or at least an American cause. What’s wrong with improving the quality of life in Mammoth Lakes? In America? We could sure use a boost right now.
Lyn Dunlap
Mammoth Lakes
A Potterville (sans Harry)
Dear Editor:
Alexis De Tocqueville once described America this way: “a tumult of anarchy.” This disorder can especially be seen during unsettled economic times. As a kid from lower middle-class roots, my father once told me about the Great Depression. Shocked I was upon learning that while people were starving, millionaires were made by the sackful. The rich during the Depression became mega-rich.
Economic theory is quite simple. Let’s say you and I have jobs with duties that include purchasing valuable artworks and one is for sale. If your bankroll is $1 million and mine is $1.2 million, who do you think is going to purchase the artwork? Like the greed-driven Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it’s easy to manipulate the game when you hold all the cards.
There is a nagging belief that this community is in dire need of yet more empty condos and mansions and that every square inch of property inside the federal land that surrounds us should be up for grabs. Those with the most to gain find themselves in power-positions and do all they can to further their personal goals under the guise of “courageous economic development.” Translation: Put up more buildings and parking lots.
I once lived in Park City, Utah before southern California developers got ahold of it. As Mammoth Lakes is today, Park City used to be: quaint, laid-back and pristine. It was Edenic.
Today in Park City with a population less than Mammoth’s, every big-box retailer now exists and every square inch of available land has been developed. I cannot stomach a return to my former home due to the reckless overdevelopment. Fortunes have been made for developers and realtors, but that mountain town now resembles any overdeveloped, affluent southern California community.
Even with an international airport nearby, seven golf courses, a world-famous film festival, and not just one, but three major ski resorts, property values in Park City sans earthquakes, have nevertheless plummeted. Too much development is clearly a very real problem. Less is truly more.
People need rural. People need space. People need distance from urban decay. This is why we live here. This is why we play here. As John Denver put it, “Life in the city can make you crazy.” Yet there are those that want to replicate that same dog-eat-dog urban environment right here in the beautiful Sierra and develop, develop, develop, because that’s what they’ve always done.
It is doubtful that the majority of Mammoth Lakes residents favor the dismantling of the town’s pleasant ambiance and insisting their home looks like the overdeveloped area from which they previous left. Contrary to one political movement’s ideology, a rural, tree-hugging, arts-laden and oh, so liberal (the original “live-and-let-live” definition of liberal, not the neocon’s non-stop, demonized “anything goes” version) community philosophy is very Californian. It is also unequivocally very American.
What is also very American is the growing, unacceptable dissatisfaction of exploited people being told “let them eat cake,” while the Mr. Potters relentlessly make their move. Recently, one elected official publicly lamented that availability of affordable housing in Mammoth Lakes might encourage undocumented workers to move to our area. One would hope that this sort of warm-and-fuzzy logic isn’t a signal that Bedford Falls is morphing into Potterville.
Dennis Kostecki
Mammoth Lakes
State Parks, Committee a joke
Dear Editor:
In last week’s issue (Vol. 9, No. 33), there was a letter to the editor that brought up how State Parks has protected the California Gulls on Mono Lake.
Here are the facts: In the past when the lake levels were 50 feet higher, Negit Island and Pahoa Island were the only places that gulls could nest in Mono Lake. All the islands that are exposed now were under water. When the water dropped 50 feet, a land bridge to Negit Island as well as many new islands in the lake were exposed. This gave access to predators, such as coyotes, to predate nesting gulls on Negit Island.
Now that the water is 50 feet lower, the gulls have found better habitat on the rock islands to the east of Negit Island. The water in Mono Lake will never regain the level that it did before the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power started diverting tributaries into the aqueduct.
The gulls, being smarter than humans, found better habitat to nest. THERE HAS NOT BEEN ANY NESTING OF GULLS ON EITHER PAHOA OR NEGIT ISLANDS IN MORE THAN 30 YEARS! Yet State Parks maintains the original county limit zone of one mile around both islands!
The waters of Mono Lake started to rise after the agreement with LADWP to mitigate the water flowing into Mono Lake and keep Mono Lake from drying up. The land bridge was covered with about six feet of water but the off shore rocks remained. The habits of nesting gulls changed. They now exclusively nest on offshore rocks and islands. It’s better habitat and they have not moved back to Negit Island. This will never change until the LADWP completely stops diversions of tributary waters all together.
Now that water level of Mono Lake has risen, there is a new gull rookery at the “Old Marina” adjacent to U.S. 395. It has been there for over ten years. State Parks and Mono Lake Committee’s claims that they have saved the California Gulls is ludicrous. Both claimed victory as they turned the Old Marina into a “Rest Area” and built redwood boardwalks within 100 yards of the Old Marina California Gull nesting area. Yet they maintain that no can approach either Negit Island or Pahoa Island within a mile until the first of August due to disturbance of nesting gulls.
I repeat: gulls haven’t nested there for more than 30 years. However, in June, during the annual gull (torture) count on Mono Lake, the Mono Lake Committee offers a tour to join the gull count for about $140. No one else is allowed near the islands or to conduct business near the islands. The gull count does not occur on either Negit or Pahoa islands but on off shore habitat. When asked why both the islands are off limits, the answer is, “Gulls will maybe nest there again.”
I guess that the Mono Lake Committee and the State Parks seem to think that the local residents are just blind. The only thing that the State Parks has tried to save is their own jobs. The incestuous relationship with the State Parks and the Mono Lake Committee is well known. Working State Park employees have had positions on the Mono Lake Committee’s board of directors.
Again State Parks is an unwelcome presence in the Mono Basin. State Parks duplicates the same duties and areas as the Forest Service. “The Mono Lake Tufa Reserve and Mono Lake is Closed?” Absurd! Nothing is closed and will not be until the Mono Lake Scenic Area run by the U.S. Forest Service is closed. The State Parks has nothing here to close. Again, facilities here haven’t skipped a beat. It is a constant question of tourists. “I wanted to get here and see Mono Lake before it closes.”
HUH? There are no State Park facilities or land to close! It is a joke.
Tom Crowe
Lee Vining
