A FAIR MAULING
Now I know why the California FAIR Plan is hiking rates a staggering 29% (beginning Oct. 15, 2026).
My stalwart and genius insurance broker Eric Olson (Mammoth Insurance) managed to get me off the FAIR Plan before my renewal this summer – I’m now with Bamboo Insurance.
Unfortunately, Bamboo does not offer home insurance policies in Mammoth. Just Bishop.
Anyway, I receive FOUR letters in the mail from the FAIR Plan yesterday.
Four identical pieces of mail. All with the same heading. “Termination Confirmation Notice.”
Why spend 78 cents on postage when you can spend $3.12 to accomplish the same thing?
The 29% increase, by the way, merely represents an average hike for FAIR’s 700,000 customers.
Some areas may see a doubling of premiums.
Meanwhile, FAIR is also sticking it to the agents selling the policies, reducing commissions from 10% to 7% for new business and from 8% to 3% for renewals.
I guess someone’s got to replenish the coffers after the Palisades Fire.
I’m sure no one at the home office is taking a pay cut.
I had FAIR Plan coverage for my 2022 fire loss. It sucked. Good riddance.
A couple of items from Wednesday’s council meeting.
The first was an agenda item regarding potential Mobile Home Park Regulation and Rent Control.
Town Attorney Andy Morris brought in a former colleague (Sergio Rudin) from his old law firm (Best, Best and Krieger) to make the presentation.
Rudin says implementing a rent control ordinance for mobile home parks is doable, but it comes with risk.
Notably, said Rudin, “cities have spent up to $2 million [in legal fees] defending rent control policy.”
One municipality, Capitola, not only spent $1.5 million, but then eventually repealed its ordinance anyway.
The message from Rudin seemed pretty clear. You’ve got a town with only two mobile home parks anyway. Are you sure you want to go down this road?
And no one from the Sierra Holiday Park (off Azimuth) is complaining.
But lame duck Mayor Amanda Rice seemed sure about heading down the road. She suggested modeling a local ordinance on AB 1128, state assembly legislation which calls for rent caps at the lower of 5% or 3% plus CPI.
However, Mono Supervisor Jennifer Kreitz noted that AB 1128 has been streamlined to only apply to the city of Torrance.
Another lame duck, Councilman John Wentworth, more pragmatically suggested, “Let’s do some fact-finding here.” Community Development Director Nolan Bobroff echoed a desire “to engage with both park owners and residents.”
Basically, the Town as mediator in the dispute between Ski Trails owners and residents may be a far better and more efficient solution than legislation.
The Town also approved a land use/swap agreement with the Mammoth Unified School District (MUSD) by a unanimous 3-0 vote (Sauser absent and Bubser quit).
The agreement transfers 2.5 acres within The Parcel to MUSD control. By virtue of Measure J, passed in November 2024, MUSD has a pile of money available to build workforce housing for its staff.
A first phase would encompass 24 units (see graphic p. 15).
In return, MUSD will give the Town the six acres behind the library which currently houses the Town’s “Pickleball complex” on the former ice rink concrete slab.
The irony, of course, is that the Town would not put a roof on the rink when it was located behind the library. The argument was that it didn’t own the property. And the Town made a fuss about how difficult it would be to acquire it.
Clearly, so difficult.
Clearly, so much more important to place a massive white tent smack dab in the middle of Mammoth Creek Park.
I managed to do a second batch of introductory interviews with the remaining Mammoth Town Council candidates.
The only candidate whom we could not corral is Tarek Nuttall, owner of Highland Plumbing.
We did, however, speak with Lakota Mikulicich, Mark Barrow and Jason Elwell, all of whom are in their 30s.
Lakota Mikulicich was born and raised in the Eastern Sierra, lived in Swall Meadows, and graduated from Bishop High School.
She attended an international college in Nairobi, Kenya, where she majored in journalism.
Post-college, she did humanitarian aid work before returning to the area in 2019.
She worked for Mammoth Mountain in various roles, and then Nomadness Rentals before opening her own small business (in housekeeping and property management). She also has a real estate license.
Mikulicich, a millennial, said it’s time for next-generation leadership.
“I have insight as to what our workforce experiences on the daily,” she said.
Her priorities include housing for the “missing middle” workforce, bear mitigation (bringing back a wildlife specialist position), support of small business and wildfire prevention.
Her family lost its home in the Round Fire of 2015. “It’s personal for me,” she said.
Mark Barrow, 31, works in Information Technology (IT) for the Mono County Office of Education (MCOE).
He is also concurrently studying to obtain a graduate degree in cybersecurity from an online university (Western Governors).
When Barrow graduated from Miami (Ohio) University in January, 2020, he was heading into the Peace Corps.
Covid had other plans.
Instead, Barrow hopped in a friend’s car and headed West.
He’s been a liftie, trail host, baker … he’s been at MCOE for the past three years.
Why is he running? “I’ve been on the receiving end of [the Town’s] housing policy,” he says, a policy which he equates to the famous Goya painting of “Saturn Devouring his Son.”
*I know. I had to look it up. In the painting, Saturn eats one of his children due to a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him.
“But I love being here. And I want to be a [more active] community member.”
Jason Elwell, 37, has worked for Mammoth Mountain for the past six years. He is a lead vacation specialist with the 1.800.MAMMOTH team.
He is also a licensed cosmetologist (he has a booth at the Tangled Web) and is also currently working towards a bachelor’s degree online.
He’s running for office because he’s disgusted with the political direction at the federal level.
“I was DOGE’d out of The Parcel and affordable housing,” he explains.
When asked to elaborate, he said the Trump Administration’s DOGE efforts at the start of 2025 affected both housing grants and ultimately rents.
“Parcel rents became too expensive,” he says.
He ended up finding a roommate and renting a house for cheaper. But this, he says, was fortuitous, “kind of about who you know.”
He believes Mammoth needs to hold corporations more responsible when it comes to building/contributing to housing mitigation.
He’s also repulsed by Mammoth’s contract with Flock Safety, and decries it as an invasion of privacy.
Finally, I attended the Inyo Supervisors budget workshop on August 12.
The big takeaway, courtesy of Inyo County Auditor-Controller Amy Shepherd: “The reality is … I think we’re gonna be okay for this year.”
Of note, Inyo County typically relies on the cost savings from unfilled positions to sort of act as a reserve.
But as Supervisor Trina Orrill pointed out, “vacancies have been reduced significantly.”
Likely because county employment is a safe haven in an uncertain economy.
The open secret is that the county is in a de facto hiring freeze.
Bishop City Council will discuss commercial air service subsidy at its meeting on Monday the 24th.
The proposal is to fund it by taking $35,000 out of the Chambers BTID revenue.
There are four candidates for two Bishop Council positions this fall.
Tyler Beadle and Aaron Schat are challenging incumbents Stephen Muchovej and Karen Schwartz.
