Bond For Glory
Holler says no public vote will be necessary.
This week, Town of Mammoth Lakes (TOML) Town Manager Dan Holler and Finance Director Rob Patterson announced that the Multi-Use Facility (MUF) at Mammoth Creek Park West could be financed using a combination of public bonds and all of the Measure U and R funds currently saved since the measures were passed in 2008.
The announcement came at Tuesday’s Mammoth Lakes Recreation (MLR) Board of Directors Meeting, along with the announcement that the bonds could be approved by Town Council without being subject to a public vote.
Patterson presented two alternatives for funding construction of the MUF, which Holler reported is still a $9.5 million project. Both scenarios involved leveraging the roughly $6 million currently sitting in reserve from unspent Measure U and Measure R tax revenue.
In the first scenario, titled “One and Done,” all of the $6 million in Measure U and R funds currently in the bank would be allocated for construction of Phase I of the MUF. It was not clear what Phase I of the MUF entailed, but that phase of construction project was expected to cost $6.5 million. The “One and Done” scenario relied upon an additional $500,000 of expected revenue from Measure R and U rolling in for FY 2017-2018.
If approved, the One and Done scenario would eliminate funds for any other large capital projects, including Trails Capital Funding and the Mammoth Arts and Culture Center (MACC), for the next three years. Additionally, the remaining $3 million required to finance the completion of the MUF could not be allocated from Measures R and U for at least another three years.
The second scenario was called “Broad Coverage,” and involved debt issuance in the form of bonds to finance $13.5 million in projects over the next five to ten years. Separate bonds would be issued for repayment from Measures R and U respectively. In the five year plan, an initial Trails Capital Funding of $500,000 for 2016-2017 would be made, with subsequent annual allocations of $300,000 for the next ten years. It includes a $1 million budget for potential requests over the next ten years, and $2.5 million in funding for the MACC. In the five year plan, which includes funding for just Phase I of the MUF, the
