SOMETIMES A CHEAP SKATE IS A GOOD THING
Mammoth Lakes Town Council held a workshop with the Parks and Recreation Commission on Wednesday to discuss a way to prioritize locals in services like summer camps and town facilities.
“I love that Mammoth is a tourism destination for everybody, but I feel that we are, in a way, failing our local kids in that they don’t get to participate.,” Councilmember Amanda Rice said at the meeting. “Making [these programs more affordable and accessible to our local families is one of my goals.”
Patricia Robertson, Executive Director of Eastern Sierra Community Housing, brought her two elementary school-aged kids to the meeting, and emphasized the need for affordable programming.
One proposed solution to the problem was to implement higher fees on non-residents and for-profit organizations, which got shut down by the USFS because it was likely illegal on the basis of a non-discrimination clause which requires public activities on federal land to be open to all, regardless of residency.
Also, it’s not very easy to determine what “residency” really means in Mammoth, considering the concentration of part-timers and second homeowners.
Most of the programs, such as the Mountain Bike camp, take place on federal land, so that concept was a no-go, unless the town wanted to try to host the programs entirely on town land and update the infrastructure to do so.
The alternative, which was favored by the Commission, suggests town residents utilize one-on-one, in-person registration at selected time periods (such as times during the off-season).
Summer camps were outlined as high demand, low capacity programs. The written goal outlined in the staff report for these camps, under the proposed solution, is to provide a minimum of 1 camp per child with a maximum camp enrollment of 3 camps per child with expanded in-person registration.
This year, the Winter Skate Membership followed this model and offered a 50% discount during the month of October if people registered in-person.
They sold roughly 415 memberships (not including Mammoth Lakes Youth Hockey memberships) under that system this year, compared to 25 last year.
To buffer financial limitations, the alternative includes an expansion of available scholarships.
The Council recommended the Commission come back with a proposed resolution for approval.
Also at the meeting, the town reviewed their pre-audit 2022-24 Fund Balance, in which they set aside $1,350,000 to cover projected costs from the Division of State Architects (DSA) for the town’s MACC project. The town plans to “continue to work with DSA to determine if this is required,” wrote Rob Patterson, Mammoth Lakes Town Manager in his report.
“Our desire is to secure necessary funding and move forward with the purchase and sale agreement to obtain the property and prepare bid documents for construction,” he stated. “The anticipated cost escalation is roughly 5% per year so any delays are costly.”
Also in the budget, staff put more money towards housing – this time, aimed at reaching a target Area Median Income (AMI) of 150% to 200% and increasing long-term housing through home ownership.
It pulled from four sources of funding to achieve that goal. The first three sources were $1.0M allocated from the General Fund, $1.3M from the Tourism reserve, and $1.2M from the Housing reserve. The remaining funds pull from the $5.6M Housing Now! undesignated fund balance.
The town plans to explore options for small site development, either directly through the Town or with an external partnership.
“The Town has been successful in addressing the needs of our lowest income earners with the restricted funding opportunities provided by State grants,” Patterson wrote in the report. “These elements were key in the development of the first two phases of the Parcel. However, these programs are limited to 80% of Area Median Income (AMI) which is not a large percentage of the need within our community.”
Speaking of that – the Parcel is still having trouble filling up.
“My disappointment is that we started this project when we did and it’s now Thanksgiving and we still haven’t put people in all those units – it just somehow upsets me terribly,” Mammoth Mayor Bill Sauser said.
He said he’d heard of more communication issues with Buckingham Property Management, in which Parcel applicants are being contacted about their move-in date after they’d already committed to paying the month’s rent in their current residence.
Patterson said the issue may be that the Town made the interest list early on in the project’s development, but that Sauser’s concerns had not been on his radar. They are hoping to make changes to this process for the Kingfisher, the second phase of the Parcel.
The Kingfisher will also cater to 80% AMI and below.
Another Housing Now! program, their Lease to Locals program, which seeks to incentivize second home-owners to rent their properties to long-term rentals rather than short-term rentals, is also experiencing a slow start.
As of November 12, four properties had been leased, six property owners were actively interested and nine said they would be interested in the future. An additional 29 households didn’t qualify for the program, and another 23 households reached out to the program but lost interest once they learned more about it.
If the program doesn’t pick up soon to meet the Council’s goals, Patterson said the goal trajectories could be extended or the funds could be reallocated to another housing program.
Councilmember Chris Bubser said the program may just need a bit of time before people become aware of it.
