Letters to the editor
Response to Hogan …
Dear Mammoth Lakes:
On Jan. 18, Mammoth Lakes Town Council is slated to consider a proposal from the Town to the U.S. Forest Service to formalize their partnership and establish the Mammoth Lakes Trail System, a fully integrated program of trails and related information resources. This proposal is consistent with the adopted objectives of the Town and implements the direction provided by the Town through earlier agreements. MLTPA supports the Town’s proposal; it speaks to innovative solutions, critical partnerships, and the resilliency of this community.
This board believes that partnerships like the proposed trails program create efficiencies and opportunities in the best of times. With the current fiscal difficulties of governments at all levels, partnerships may be the only way to continue to provide an acceptable level of public service. We believe that this community must find forward-looking solutions to these unprecedented challenges. We must do this together, as a fully engaged community.
The MLTPA Board of Directors has prepared a point-by-point analysis detailing the errors and inaccuracies in Sandy Hogan’s letter to the editors of the local papers last week. It is available at www.mltpa.org. Absent an amended vision for the future of outdoor recreation in this community, MLTPA will remain hard at work fulfilling its contractual obligations to the Town, developing new ideas and solutions to shared challenges, and delivering professional technical capacity to beleaguered public agencies.
MLTPA is committed to Mammoth Lakes and its future as the finest alpine-recreation community in the country. The Town Council’s decision on Jan. 18 will help turn that vision into a reality.
Will Aldrich, Jay Deinken,
Jim Smith, Bill Taylor,
Joyce Turner, John Urdi,
John Wentworth
MLTPA Board of Directors
For the 99%
Dear Editor:
No one likes to pay taxes and most people will admit to doing what they can to keep their tax obligations as low as possible. And most of the people I know including small- to medium-sized business owners cannot afford a lobbyist to ensure that their tax obligations remain at zero or below. A report recently released by publiccampaign.org shows that 30 large corporations in America including GE, Verizon, FedEx, PG&E, Wells Fargo and Boeing paid more for lobbying than they paid in federal taxes in 2008, ‘09 and ‘10. In fact, each of these companies and 25 more mentioned in the report had tax rebates even though they had substantial profits for 2010. In total these large corporations paid $476 million dollars over three years lobbying Congress. This amounts to $400,000 per day, every day of the year.
This is one of the reasons a group of eastside residents from Mammoth to Lone Pine have gathered in Bishop on three occasions to stand on the street in support of the 99% of us who are not properly represented by Congress. We will gather publicly every other Sunday at Bishop City Park including Christmas Day and on into 2012 in support of a more democratic and just society. We believe that corporations are not people and that money is not free speech. We believe in making political, economic and social choices based on values not political parties. Please exercise your first amendment rights and join us at the Bishop City Park at noon on Dec. 25, Jan. 1, Jan. 15, Jan. 22 and every other Sunday as we enter the 2012 election cycle.
Mary Pipersky
Sunny Slopes
