Council turns the page
Mammoth’s Council talks about what’s next following Measure Z.
With Measure Z [the nightly rental ballot initiative] behind us, an issue Councilman Colin Fernie acknowledged to be a “tremendous time suck,” The Sheet canvassed various Councilmembers this week to get a sense of what their priorities would be moving forward.
Mayor Michael Raimondo listed his top priorities as the Village parking issue and T.O.T. generation.
As Raimondo said, “Without [increased] T.O.T, nothing gets done. Nothing happens without money.”
The parking issue has plagued the Village at Mammoth ever since it first opened in 2003. In lieu of having additional parking built at the time, the Town accepted an acre of land (located next to the Westin at Canyon and Hillside) as mitigation.
A private-public partnership involving the Town, Intrawest and Ski Area to build a parking structure on that acre fell apart in 2006.
The land has sat fallow ever since.
On a temporary basis anyway, Raimondo proposes putting 40 to 42 surface parking spots on the Hillside site. He also proposes leveling the Community Center and turning that property into a parking lot (it already currently is, though not in any official, managed capacity).
The idea would be to have both these sites available while the Town figures out a way to finance a parking structure on the community center site.
When asked about his top three priorities, Mayor Pro-Tem Shields Richardson said, “Tourism, Tourism and Tourism.”
“We have to work on getting people here … we want all these neat things in town, but don’t know how to pay for them.”
Richardson was recently in Telluride, Colorado and noted that during his offseason visit, Telluride was hosting a 500-guest Rotary International function, which wouldn’t have been possible if not for Telluride’s stand-alone conference center.
Raimondo said the Bell-Shaped parcel would be an ideal site for an event-type facility, if not conference center, and he is happy to get it rezoned after he talks to the six neighboring residents who might object.
“Hollywood Bowl has lots of neighbors,” he said. “They’ve got the best seats in the house.”
The police facility, said Richardson, is a done deal, essentially because it has to be. The lease on the current building expires in 2017 and Council is determined not to renew.
“We gotta keep looking forward,” he said. “Try to find commonality and macro buy-in.”
Councilman Colin Fernie’s top priorities are improving the Town’s amenity package and continued overall improvement of the resort. As the proposed multi-use facility/community center for Mammoth Creek Park would constitute a major amenity upgrade, he is interested in seeing the project move forward.
“The rink is not functional as it is,” he observed, “and the Community Center could fall apart on its own in a stiff wind.”
Fernie’s other priority is to continue to push progressivism. We need to figure out how to engage millennials and cater to their travel patterns, he said.
Councilmember Jo Bacon ranked her priorities as follows:
1. Hire a Finance Director and straighten out the department.
2. Push for a regional solid waste solution.
3. Hire a third party mediator to help with upcoming union negotiations, which she said may prove contentious.
The Community Center and Police Facility do not qualify as priorities per se just because they are already in the pipeline.
She said the Community Center is tied into the multi-use facility relocation, implying that she is in favor of the MCPW plan.
Bacon disagreed sharply with Raimondo’s plan to install some temporary parking on the Hillside lot next to the Westin. “It’ll cost way too much for just forty spots,” she said.
She does agree that the Community Center site should be looked at as a possible long-term Village parking solution, particularly because the site is already disturbed.
Councilman John Wentworth could not be reached for comment by press time.
