WHITE RABBIT
I’m late, I’m late … not much time to write editorial this week, since I need to get down to Bishop. I was asked this morning to remove newspaper boxes from Schat restaurant properties.
Apparently, Aaron was not a fan of last week’s editorial.
A leftover item from last week. Bird Scooters has already pulled the plug on its Mammoth experiment. Bird rep Taylor Kenney told Mammoth’s Council at last week’s meeting that their local fleet manager couldn’t commit to the job and they likely wouldn’t be able to find/train a replacement for the remaining summer/fall months.
“We heavily rely on the local manager to ‘rebalance’” explained Kenney. Rebalancing refers to keeping scooters charged and in the proper locations. She said Bird had terrific rebalancing at the beginning (i.e the first month).
Mayor Lynda Salcido said she had received many comments regarding the approximate two-month Bird experiment. “None [were] to the positive,” she said.
At Mammoth’s Planning and Economic Development Commission meeting Tuesday, the comic highlight occurred when I.T. Director Nate Greenberg’s internet connection cut out before he could deliver a broadband update. Cue the “less than Optimum” jokes.
Town Code Compliance Officer Jena Carter said she is very busy with bears/trash complaints. The other 25% of her cases regard unpermitted work.
There was broad discussion about traffic concerns emanating from the Village at Mammoth. Public Works Director Haislip Hayes described it as a “no-win” situation. Further development only promises to make it worse.
The initial discussion focused on egress from the Village parking lot. Despite signs telling motorists to turn left onto Berner, GPS advises motorists to head straight and access downtown via residential neighborhoods.
As one can imagine, residents are hardly thrilled.
Later in the meeting, Town staff talked about a Forest Trail traffic study it had conducted in February.
A regular study is a provision of the North Village Specific Plan to make sure the Forest Trail neighborhood isn’t overwhelmed by new traffic.
The study count showed traffic still hadn’t met actionable thresholds.
But it did kind of suggest … okay, so you turn left at Berner out of the parking lot and you get to Forest Trail. Do you make a left so you can make another left and join the mobs heading down from the mountain and into the Minaret vortex? Or do you make an easy right onto Forest Trail?
It would seem that the alleviation of the Berner traffic problem funneling to Alpine Circle would only contribute to a Forest Trail problem.
And from Klusmire … he forwarded me a San Francisco Chronicle story by Rachel Swan with the subhead: Tahoe’s housing crisis is so bad ski resorts are lodging workers in campsites, tiny homes
The story describes a Palisades ski resort in Tahoe experiment of opening a campground near Highway 89, where workers could park their vans and brave the snowy months with no heat, water or electricity. Palisades operated and maintained the campsite, which boasted a single amenity: waterless toilets with holding tanks underneath.
Palisades secured a special-use permit to lease the campground from the U.S. Forest Service, hoping to promote van living as an alternative for people with nowhere else to go.
“The idea was, in part, can we tap into this ‘van life’ lifestyle?” U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Jonathan Cook-Fisher recalled, noting how Palisades drew inspiration from a social media trend when it launched a “pilot program” with six campsites on the paved surface of Granite Flat Campground.
A spokesperson for Palisades said many employees were living in vans or mobile homes already and needed a “steady, predictable, safe place to park without having to move frequently.”
“We saw the campground as a viable solution,” spokesperson Kat Walton said.
Palisades and the Forest Service plan to expand the program to up to 26 campsites this winter — possibly with electric hookups, Walton said — other employers are seeking to replicate it.
