FINAL DESTINATION
My poor daughter.
She’s just learning the price of fashion.
This week she comes to me and says she’s identified six items online that she absolutely “has to have” for school. Will I buy them? All it takes is a credit card.
She pouts. She pleads. She tells me she’s got a “style.”
But I am resolute. Which is a change in the face of such an onslaught.
Maybe my attendance as the local “Doormats Anonymous” meetings is paying dividends.
We develop a list of chores for her to complete.
And then I make her come on a research drive-along.
You see, it’s been my impression lately as I drive through town and through the state that I’m seeing a lot of vehicles with expired registration tags. And I thought to myself, if we would spend just a modest amount of time on enforcement, the state could raise money collecting fees owed from the scofflaws versus inventing new ways to make law-abiding citizens pay more.
So I said, c’mon daughter, we’re gonna canvass a few parking lots and see how many expired registration stickers we can find.
She looks at me like I’m the biggest dumbass who ever lived. But she’s got shopping to do. So she humors me and comes along.
At the Mahogany Smoked Meats parking lot we check the eight cars currently parked.
Seven are current.
At the Grocery Outlet, the ratio is 22-2.
At Smart and Final, it’s 31-3.
By then time we get to Vons, she refused to leave the car. Tells me to keep the AC on while she texts her friends and watches TikTok videos.
60-4 at Vons.
The overall ratio of compliant/non-compliant is 12-1.
Much better than I expected.
So much for hypotheses.
But at least I didn’t punish my daughter further by making her attend my annual Mountain Shadows HOA meeting last Saturday.
The most interesting part of the meeting came when current HOA board member Michael Tikunoff talked about what was happening at Hidden Valley Condos, where he owns two units.
The complex has a total of 84 units.
It was non-renewed by State Farm, forcing it to shop for new insurance carriers.
The result? The complex’s annual premium increased by almost 1,000%, rising from $31,000 to approximately $294,000.
The existing $31,000 policy had provided $30 million in coverage.
What this means to complex owners: An assessment this year, and then a 20% hike in his HOA fees for next year.
The issue with State Farm was in how state law is written regarding rate increases.
State Farm can only raise the rate by a certain percentage each year. It had just gotten done paying a $900,000 claim to replace roofs at Hidden Valley. But had only received permission from California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to raise rates 20% in 2024.
Which means it could have only increased the Hidden Valley premium by $6,000.
So the conversation at the Mountain Shadows HOA meeting was: Barring Armaggedon, we can’t make a claim lest we get dropped, too.
What else did I learn at my annual meeting? That spas, per the health department, can only be set at a maximum for 102 degrees.
That there are 128 units total in Mountain Shadows, 84 of which have STR permits.
That ten units in the complex are long-term rentals.
Er, make that 11, since Tikunoff told me this week that he’d decided to rent his Mountain Shadows unit long-term.
He said the bloom is off the rose in terms of the Pandemic heyday of Airbnb.
That his units, which formerly rented for 180 nights a year, had rented 280 nights/year coming out of the pandemic but that has retreated back to the norm (~180).
In 2022, he said he rented one unit for all 31 days in May.
This year, he rented that same unit for zero days. Zilch. Nada.
The graphics below are from the Resident Sentiment survey conducted by Mammoth Lakes Tourism in late 2023.
Complete survey findings are expected to be presented to the MLT Board at its September meeting.
The survey, conducted by a firm called Future Partners, was advertised for via a postcard mailing and received 261 responses.
Focus Partners also held three focus groups with residents, business owners and second homeowners.
Overall, 74% of survey respondents were property owners and 82% live here full-time.
In summary, “residents are very likely to recommend Mammoth as a place to visit for a leisure vacation, but not as likely to recommend it as a place to live and not likely to recommend it as a place to start/open a business.
“Most residents feel that their voice is not heard and suggest that MLT focus more on resident needs.”
Which is perhaps why Betsy Truax was hired by MLT as Community Engagement Director.
But I still don’t quite get it. If you feel your voice isn’t being heard, that’s a town government/leadership issue. It’s Council’s job to set budgets and priorities – not MLT’s job to backfill areas of neglect. Although I suppose that’s exactly what we’ve done … by redefining MLT’s mission from Destination Marketing to Destination Management.
As a Final Destination, that sure seems like a horror movie. Marketing seems a whole lot easier to track and quantify.
