Letter to the Editor
We’re not anxious, just desperate!
Dear Editor:
We may or may not be naïve, as the editor of this fine publication would have you believe, but we’re not dumb at the Mammoth Leadership Forum! We know that time is running out. After all, it’s the holiday season and, of course, your thoughts turn to … electoral politics??!! Well, fact of the matter is that the election season is right around the corner. And, while we are not anxious about the upcoming election, we are desperate to have you join us in this effort. Why are we desperate? Because to be a community-wide organization, we have to have community-wide participation. We want the next Town Council to be truly representative of our entire electorate, not just a few people who go to Town Council meetings and know all the players. That means more than just voting on Election Day, it means participating in the process that gets people to run for office in the first place. If we don’t have the best candidates running, then your vote on Election Day won’t be able to change anything. Change comes from what we are doing now, but it has to be real change with all views represented, not just a few. Now I know, you are getting home from work after working hard all day. You want something to eat, maybe something to drink, you want to watch the news on tv, relax, and take it easy. You probably don’t want to be the news. But if you knew how important what you have to say is, you would come down and join us at the Rafters on Tuesday, Dec. 10, at 6 p.m. You’re thinking it’s going to be a bunch of people who already know each other and have already talked about this and won’t have time or interest for your views. Not so! Our whole goal is to be inclusive, to welcome members of our community who maybe in the past have been upset about how things have been running, but didn’t believe you could personally make a difference. Yes you can.
We have made substantial progress on identifying good, solid potential candidates for the Town Council. We started out with a list of more than 50 names. Considering how small Mammoth is, the list was very impressive. Our conclusion is that the shortage of people willing to run for Council and occupy all the other elected and appointed positions in town is not because we don’t have lots of good people, it’s just because people are put off by the process and the controversy. Now we are interviewing potential candidates, and soon we will be talking about the issues.
Not all candidates will think alike, and that’s where the “forum” comes in to the Mammoth Leadership Forum. But to be a real broadly-based, inclusive organization, not just an advocacy group with a narrow agenda, we need your participation. We need your voice to give us your views on the last ten years of Town governance. You may be happy with how things are going right now, you may not, but, most of all, we need to hear from you, so we can tell people running for office what Mammoth is thinking. Please come and join us; the Rafters is a very congenial location, they give us our own room, and the refreshments are very refreshing. I hope to see you there.
Paul Rudder
Mammoth Lakes
