THE Jury IS OUT: MUSD lobbies for bond extension
Mammoth Unified School District Staff and HMC Architects held a workshop Monday evening to discuss Measure J, which seeks to raise $70 million over 25 years via an extension of the current school bond, which levies $37 per $100,000 in assessed valuation.
The District plans to use the funds in four principal areas, prioritized by 18-year school board member Shana Stapp as follows.
1. Adding bathrooms and classrooms for a new grade level – TK, or Transitional Kindergarten.
Providing TK is a state mandate.
2. HVAC. Adding air-conditioning to existing facilties.
3. Adding 18 units of staff housing.
4. Adding a 10,000-square foot Fieldhouse for high school athletics.
The meeting was held in the Mammoth High School MPR.
The argument the School District is making on behalf of J is that it doesn’t represent a new tax so much as an extension of what taxpayers are already on the hook for.
But when it came to divulging some numbers on the cost-breakdown of the listed projects, there was some hesitation on Stapp’s part.
She claimed that MUSD and its consultants couldn’t get to the feasibility studies and actual plans until/unless J was passed.
Then it was, “Oh, we can post some of those slides and numbers on the website by tomorrow.”
Then, the consultants were shamed into posting a project overview slide on a projector screen hanging over the MPR stage.
Once you saw the slide, you couldn’t really blame MUSD or HMC Architects for their obfuscation.
Because the cost estimates for the various projects were … jaw-dropping.
For example, the staff housing component (preferred location: the former ice rink site behind Mammoth Lakers Library).
Nine duplexes, providing a total of 18-units of housing.
Estimated price tag: $25.1 million, or a staggering $1.4 million per unit.
No wonder the teachers were reportedly 79% in favor of the bond.
Or how about the contemplated Fieldhouse.
10,000-square feet (or approximately one-quarter the size of the Town’s new Ice Rink/Recreation Center) for $14.5 million.
By comparison, the Town’s cost for phase one of the CRC came in at $17.3 million.
The other major components had price tags of $9 million (HVAC) and $10 million (TK)
So the question I asked myself as I was busy picking my jaw off the floor was simple: Why did the District decide to mix in needs (HVAC and TK) with the pricey wants (Fieldhouse) and absurdities (~$3 million Duplexes)?
I suggested at the meeting that the bond ask should have been for a shorter duration and only encompassed HVAC and TK, as the other two bloated items amounted to “poison pills.”
Shana Stapp had this reply the next morning via text: “Every time MUSD places something on the ballot it costs us about $25,000. This is more money not spent on our students or the projects.”
$25,000 represents less than four-hundredths of one percent of the ask.
We’ve largely ignored Measure K (Mono County’s bid to raise the county’s TOT rate from 12% to 15%) because Mammoth’s Measure L bid is for roughly four times the money, but it’s still a case of tone-deaf politicians making a money grab over the objections of local business owners and the larger community.
The June Lake Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors is unanimously opposed to K.
As Jeremy Ross, owner of Ernie’s Tackle Shop, said, June Lake businesses had been pursuing the creation of a TBID (Tourism Business Improvement District) for a few years. District 3 Supervisor Bob Gardner had attended Chamber meetings and expressed support for the idea.
Until it came time for the June Lake Chamber to ask County Supervisors for a $49,000 loan to hire a TBID consultant.
Gardner withdrew his support at the last minute and killed the TBID push.
June Lake Chamber President Amanda Spencer fears if K passes and the room tax balloons to 15%, there’s no more room for a TBID ask.
Further, Ross said the $1 million Supervisors hope to raise with the rate increase will hardly make a dent in housing people – you might house four people per year … somewhere in the county, not necessarily June Lake.
“I don’t see how June Lake benefits, and we’re the ones who are gonna pay this.”
Ross said discretionary spending from visitors was noticeably down this summer.
Spencer added, “The fees … are killing people. And K … is a general tax. If passed, revenues would go to the general fund. As opposed to if we’d had a TBID, the money would have gone to us [Chamber].”
“People have lost faith in how the county spends its money.”
There is a certain irony in Gardner pushing a tax hike to build housing after he helped quash the Mobil Mart’s housing proposal in Lee Vining.
Speaking of housing, I did attend the Parcel update given by Jennie Reed of Buckingham Property Management at the Mono County Supes meeting on Tuesday.
Reed said 60% of the applicants for the Sawyer were ultimately turned away because they were over the income limits.
She said the dedicated 80% of AMI (Area Median Income) units were fairly easy to fill. The 60% units have been a different story. And what’s mostly left are studios and one-bedrooms.
A single person working full-time would have to make less than $18.87/ hour to qualify.
So if K & L pass, bed tax rates would effectively become 15% and 16% in Mono County and Mammoth Lakes respectively.
For comparison sake, let’s look at the bed tax rates for competing resorts via booking.com.
Jackson Hole 11%
Park City: 13.12%
Truckee: 12%
Big Bear: 9%
Breckenridge: 11.68%
Sun Valley: 11%
Aspen: 11.3%
If you think a few percentage points don’t matter to a customer, consider the following. According to DestiMetrics, a data-gathering division of Inntopia, the upbeat booking momentum recorded in August for the coming winter cooled considerably in September. In its monthly Market Briefing, price-sensitivity was the dominant message as cautious consumers evaluated economic news and stepped back significantly on winter bookings.
“… The booking pace in September, which measures bookings taken during the month versus last year, retreated considerably and as of Sept. 30 was down 15.9 percent with arrivals declining in all six months from September through March. The decreases ranged from a 7.4 percent drop in bookings for October arrivals to a concerning 15.8 percent drop in bookings for December—primarily for the week before Christmas—and a striking 31.2 percent plunge for February.”
Final note: If I’m the Mammoth Lakes Fire Protection District, I’m a little pissed. Because its bond measure (M) deserves to pass – I’m 100% in support. But when you’re parked next to three dogs (J, K, L) on a ballot, it’s asking a lot of the voter to separate the wheat from the chaff and vote ‘yes’ on one and ‘no’ on the other three.
