Letters to the Editor
Party like Brando!
Dear Editor:
A couple of weeks ago, your paper published a letter from a Ms. Karen Fisher, in which she said “there is a real danger that investors will take over entire neighborhoods for the sole purpose of turning a private residence into a de-facto hotel.”
This is, in a nutshell, almost the entire argument and concern of the Let Mammoth Decide people; to wit if the Council gets to make a decision, they will allow the Knolls to be turned into a commercial district with unrestricted lodging activity destroying the residential character of the neighborhood.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The members of Council have stated over and over that they would never pass any ordinance that undermined the obligations of CC & R’s on neighborhoods that have them. The Knolls does have CC&R’s, so the possibility that there will be an ordinance doing what Ms. Fisher alleges, followed by an army of “investors” whose purpose is to convert the Knolls into a red-light district filled with drunken partygoers is simply not on the table, not in the cards, not going to happen.
However that does not stop the stories going around about how home rentals have been utilized by screaming hordes of inebriated college kids who have terrified entire neighborhoods like Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” Our police department, on the other hand, does not seem to have any record of these horrible alleged happenings. Why?, because of simple economics. Houses in Mammoth Lakes are expensive to rent nightly. Kids just don’t have the money to spend on a nightly rental that costs $1,000 per night or more. The overwhelming majority of home rentals in Mammoth are for people 35 and older, and most of them have kids because a home rental makes it easier for two or three couples and their kids to organize a vacation and keep track of the little ones. Anyone with kids will tell you, by 8 p.m., they don’t have any energy left to get drunk and carouse and even if they did, it would wake up the kids.
Sadly, this issue is being taken over by sensational claims of what might happen, what may happen, or what could happen. Yes, and we could have a volcano erupt tomorrow, but it’s not very likely.
As Kirk Stapp noted in a bizarre letter to the Editor last week, “We are a destination resort that relies on tourism dollars.” Yes, he’s right, and while we have an obligation not to screw things up for the very fortunate few who get to live in an extremely upscale neighborhood, they have an equal responsibility not to damage the very economy that provides jobs, businesses, income and taxes for the rest of us. The Knolls deserves to be protected, we all get that, and it should be. But this is the cost. A $50,000 expenditure from the public treasury to pass an ordinance freezing zoning in place, which would then necessitate another $20,000 election if Council made a proposal to unfreeze certain zoning. This is a potential disaster for Mammoth. Make no mistake, the goal here is to protect the Knolls at any cost, as long as that cost is paid for by public taxes, lost jobs, or damaged economy, not the personal finances of the people fronting this initiative. That’s what is at stake here, and this initiative deserves a strong no vote from anyone in Mammoth who works for a living or cares about encouraging tourism, not destroying it.
The Council has pledged to protect the interests of the Knolls and any other neighborhood with CC & R’s. We should give them a chance to come up with a reasonable balance between private interests and the public welfare. If the Councilmembers were to go back on their word, there would be plenty of time and opportunity to pass this ordinance and I would help do so. But to do so now is a pre-emptive strike that will cost a fortune in public money and cause damage to our tourist economy that can ill afford it after four years of drought, merely to accomplish personal and private goals for a small group. It should be rejected.
Paul Rudder
Mammoth Lakes
