Page 2: Hot Stove League

For several weeks, there was a sign outside Perry’s Italian Cafe proclaiming that The Stove was coming. The sign also bore The Stove’s logo.

The apparent plan of Cafe owner Glenn Taylor was to operate both The Stove (breakfast and lunch) and Perry’s (dinner) out of one location.

Whether this plan can be implemented, however, is for the courts to decide.

Destination Mammoth

Mammoth Mountain CEO Rusty Gregory held a “fireside chat” with Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra staff and volunteers on Tuesday. After the meeting, I received the following email: “ … The report my wife heard from a friend who was at the meeting was that Rusty Gregory was there and said he is abandoning the goal of being a Destination Resort in favor of being family friendly, with most folks coming from Southern California, and a few from San Francisco––or something to that effect.”

So I called Rusty yesterday for comment. His reply: “Not close to accurate.”

Gregory said MMSA is redoubling its marketing efforts in Southern California, which he says is also the best way to build destination business. In a nutshell: Take care of your base and the rest will follow.

Gregory also said MMSA is hyper-focused on the family market, which represents 48% of its business.

Fesko and Peters rejoined 

Tim Fesko and Bob Peters renewed their battle for the District 4 Supervisor’s seat in Mono County by facing off at a Republican Party candidates’ night on Tuesday in Bridgeport.

My observation: Fesko is coming on strong. This will be competitive. Despite several questions which attempted to push Fesko’s buttons on a variety of topics, notably the legal entanglement with his brother Greg, he kept his cool.

And smartly, Fesko settled the suit and a gag order has been issued by the judge so it will no longer be a factor in the campaign.

Greg Fesko said via email, “Due to gag order as part of the settlement of the lawsuit I cannot provide any details. Tim and his wife Mary settled with us and the matter is closed. Wish I could go into more detail because it would make for some interesting reading.”

Anyway, as I see it, you’ve got a “Thousand Points of Light. Stay the Course” moderate Republican in Peters taking on a Tea Party-type in Fesko.

Some differences in their policy positions are stark.

While Fesko believes that North County would be better served by marketing to the Reno area and over in Sacramento, Peters said, “Our major market is Southern California. He ranked the Central Valley #2.

In some areas, however, they see things similarly.

In regard to County management, Peters said, “Too much power is concentrated in too few hands at the moment.”

Fesko believes the tail is wagging the dog, that the current Board has ceded too much power to CAO Jim Arkens. “Upper management is dominating the Board,” he said.

And while consolidating departments looks great on paper and theoretically saves money, “we may be opening ourselves up to a huge lawsuit because we do not have the proper layers [of government],” he added.

As an example, he pointed out that Arkens now has three management titles. not only is he the County Administrator, but he’s also the Assessor and head of Human Resources.

So imagine this, said Fesko. How does anyone make a complaint against the CAO? To make a complaint, you have to go through H.R, er, the CAO.

And if the CAO is the H.R. manager … boy, it sure sounds like you’ve got to suck up to Jim Arkens if you want a career at the County, because if you happen to fall into disfavor, he’s the same dude who’s gonna conduct the job interviews. Judge, jury and prosecutor all rolled into one – and all with the blind support and allegiance of the Supervisors who made him king; Hunt, Bauer and Hazard.

It’ll be interesting to see how Arkens counts to three once a new Board sits in January. Can he replace Bauer and Hazard with two of the three newly elected members of the Board?

In regard to the Probation Department position filled this week, The Sheet spoke to CAO Jim Arkens on Thursday. He said he was not involved in the interview process, contradicting what Tim Hansen said in Kirkner’s story on page six.

He said the interview panel consisted of Brian Muir, Tim Kendall and Julie Tiede, and that there were six or seven applicants for the job.

Karen Humiston was the second person extended an offer. The first person offered the job did not take it.

When asked why the Interim Director had not been offered the job, Arkens said, “Interims have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.” He suggested we talk to Tim Kendall, as the D.A.’s department has a lot of interaction with probation.

“I didn’t make the ultimate decision … I don’t know why the CAO would refer you over to me,” said Kendall. “In regards to the interaction with our department, she [the Interim] did fine. She did a qualified job.”

“I sit in on multiple interview panels,” he added. “We rank ‘em qualified or unqualified.”