Page 2: Land trade advances
There’s nothing like a hotly contested campaign for the U.S. Senate to grease the skids in Washington, D.C.
Mammoth Mountain Ski Area’s proposed Main Lodge land trade cleared a hurdle this week when it was finally passed through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
So here’s the skinny.
Committee Chair Mary Landrieu (Dem.) is in a runoff election for her Senate seat against current Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy.
Both want to appear like champions of the Keystone XL pipeline project which would transport shale oil from Canada to the Texas gulf coast.
As Cassidy is in the process of sponsoring a bill in the House promoting such legislation, Landrieu is doing the same on the Senate side.
The hope is that Mammoth’s land trade is tacked on as a rider to Landrieu’s bill.
In essence, said MMSA CEO Rusty Gregory, we are like a piece of confetti in this political ballroom.
“We are one procedure short of getting our bill in front of the President for his signature,” said MMSA CAO Ron Cohen. “We’re further than we’ve ever been. We have people in D.C. working on this. We’re not being passive.”
Personal injury case settles
The civil trial against Mammoth Mountains Ski Area (MMSA) and Michael Colbert, the manager of their subsidiary Mammoth Snowmobile Adventures, settled on Monday for an undisclosed amount. The trial started last week, with four days of jury selection, opening statements, and a full day of witness testimony on Friday. Orit and Amit Hendlemen of Los Angeles were reportedly asking for $7 million after suffering severe injuries in a snowmobile accident during a tour on the Mountain in 2010.
Most of the terms of the settlement are confidential, although the terms were mutually acceptable to both parties and there was no admission of liability on the Mountain’s part. Ron Cohen, Mammoth CAO, described it as a “costive defense settlement,” meaning that cost of settling was less than the cost to see the trial through. But that’s not to assume Mammoth paid the Hendlemens their asking price. “Once you get into a trial, whether you’re the plaintiff or the defendant, you start to think differently. You may be willing to take less than when you started and you may be willing to pay more than when you started,” Cohen said.
“We stand by our operations and the care we give,” he continued. “As a company, we are very appreciative of the straight talk the jury panel gave about personal responsibility and assumption of risk. Nobody would ever want an accident like that to happen. We wish the Hendlemens the best of luck going forward.”
Ormat, MCWD in formal negotiations
The Mammoth Community Water District and Ormat Technologies, Inc. have agreed to enter into formal negotiations seeking to resolve MCWD concerns regarding the company’s proposed geothermal expansion project, Casa Diablo IV Geothermal Project (Project). The goal of the negotiations is to develop a mutually acceptable monitoring and mitigation program that will protect the community’s water supply during the Project’s operation. Both parties will have their experts participating in the negotiations and expect to make substantive progress towards their mutual goal within the next 60 days.
For more information, please visit MCWD’s website at: http://www.mcwd.dst.ca.us.
MLT workshop
You gotta hand it Mammoth Lakes Tourism (MLT).
Under fire these past many months for not being transparent enough as an organization, MLT countered with an exhaustive 3.5 hour workshop detailing its scope of work on Wednesday evening at the U.S. Forest Service Auditorium.
The best news: TOT collection for June-September 2014 represented the fourth record summer in a row. Year-over year:
June up 8.6%, July up 8.2%, August up 10.1%, September up 9.4%
A sign of the age: Sarah Mettee, reporting on MLT’s digital campaign, said that search marketing yielded more than 92,000 visitors to the Mammoth Lakes Tourism site … where they spent an average of 86 seconds. Mettee called this a “really great, engaged audience” which according to net metrics is probably very true, and yet … 86 seconds? You’d have to figure that most folks should be able to last longer than 86 seconds, right?
I was particularly impressed with the fact that MLT brought in consultant Denise Miller from SMARI (Strategic Marketing Research) to do a second and more thorough visitor study, following up on a previous 2013 study conducted by Leisure Trends.
As Urdi said in a follow-up conversation Thursday, “We don’t do anything based upon [our own subjective] opinion.” Whenever possible, he likes to get numbers. And if he doesn’t trust the numbers he has, he’s not shy about getting a second opinion.
Most of Wednesday’s workshop will be posted to the MLT’s Industry Insider website. The SMARI report will not be posted, but is available upon request.
Support bears with a bear claw
So, Sue Ebersold at the Breakfast Club, to stick with a food theme, is in a pickle.
She’s had a bear repeatedly break into her shop for the past week or so.
However, she refuses to sign a bear depredation permit.
Despite the fact that Wildlife Officer Steve Searles camped out in his truck a few nights back and caught the bear in the act, zinging him with five rounds of pellets as he approached the front door, the bear has since returned.
Overall, there have been four break-ins thus far.
This is the first time Ebersold has had a bear problem at her restaurant since she’s been in business (27+ years).
If you’d like to help Sue reinforce her shop against bear intrusion (the bear has already ripped apart both the front and back doors, as well as a set of windows), Searles the marketing whisperer suggested folks head on down to the Breakfast Club for a bear claw.
