Letters to the Editor
Single issues matter
Dear Editor:
I’ve been living part-time in Mammoth for a long time and observing how the town works from the sidelines. I felt compelled to write this letter given my observations on the current election. Although the editor of the Mammoth Times recently admonished the town to not allow a single issue to sway the election, it is the deflection and avoidance of a single issue from a couple of the candidates that is exactly what should get everyone’s attention. Of course, I’m referring to single family home rentals.
It is not an accident that last year, the leaders of the pro-single family nightly rental efforts never advocated for a town-wide referendum on the issue — since everyone knows a majority of the town’s residents and voters are opposed to nightly home rentals and the measure would fail. Instead, they tried to convince just three members of the Town Council to pursue the idea, and they very nearly succeeded.
Now we have three entirely new people about to join the Council, whose two holdover members are comprised of one member who is in favor of nightly home rentals (Michael Raimondo) and one who is opposed (Jo Bacon). If two pro-single family home rental candidates win this election, we may see this issue move forward in the near future.
While some think we shouldn’t allow a single issue to sway the election, how a candidate deals with a single issue can be immensely revealing. There are two candidates in the election that have hemmed and hawed on the issue: John Wentworth and Colin Fernie. However, everyone knows that anyone who lives in Mammoth has a strong opinion on nightly rentals, so these candidates can’t refuse to take an official position, especially when that lack of a position conflicts with their past actions, statements, or worse, closed door conversations.
I would say to these candidates — if you are secretly in favor of expanding nightly home rentals, come out and say so. Be open and honest and we can have an open and honest election!
To their credit, it appears that some candidates have taken a clear public position on the single family rental issue — both Karen Sibert and Cleland Hoff are obviously opposed to nightly home rentals; Elena Blomgren seems to be in favor only if put to the voters; and Deb Pierrel is well known to be in favor of single family rentals in Mammoth.
Doug Stanton
Mammoth Lakes/Irvine
Kostecki on sortition
Dear Editor:
With massive dysfunction and institutional corruption in American politics, bound up with a widening economic gap between people today, perhaps it is time to consider a lottery system to select our representatives. In the system of Demarchy all qualified citizen’s names would be put in a computer “hat” with representatives drawn from that hat. Each would serve for a single term only and if their name is drawn they must serve. Selection of each representative would be made according to the demographics of the area, i.e., a ranching community would draw ranchers, a Hispanic neighborhood would draw Latinos, a laboring community would draw working people and so on. Those drawn would be compensated an adequate salary to perform their work with a grievance committee to review those who cannot perform the work.
Sortition, the primary method for appointing officials in ancient Athenian democracy, establishes a government of people from all walks of life, classes, both sexes, and from every race. It represents the true makeup of the community. It is not ruled by wealth, corporations, or those obsessed with greed and power. It is doubtful the IQ of those in power today is any higher than an average American citizen. Barring a few exceptions, there has never been such a large amount of economically advantaged who control everything in these times. They know almost nothing about relating to people in a genuine way. Their lives in general are so skewed that all their values are translated into money. Crony capitalism runs rampant. Under a lottery system no one could possibly buy their way into office. Political careers per se would cease to exist.
The influence of money in politics would be limited. There would be no more campaigns to fund; no more contributions wealthy individuals make to candidates, no divisive Right vs. Left nonsense that politicians and their pundit stooges use to corral voters; loyalty would be to one’s conscience not political party, and the problem of politicians ducking big issues because they’re worried about their reelection prospects would vanish. Our best and brightest would be subject to the draft like everyone else. By abolishing expensive elections and replacing them with a lottery, we would no longer have to experience the indignities of the candidates’ lies, which they tell because of domination fantasies, craving power and wanting to keep power at all costs.
There is already a place in American life where we count on randomly selected groups of ordinary citizens to decide crucial questions, often highly technical and morally significant. It’s called the jury system, and so far it has worked pretty well. It’s true that there will be those who wouldn’t necessarily be experienced in the areas they’re asked to govern, but neither are many of the lawmakers we elect. The ball could start rolling immediately to transform a dream into a reality and toward a bona fide working democracy for a complex culture. Hardcore fundamentalists may object to this ancient and highly successful ritual of sortition, primarily because it’s never even been discussed before. So what? Today’s blind adherence to accepted norms should and must be challenged.
Dennis Kostecki
Mammoth Lakes
Mammoth Neighborhoods weighs in
Dear Editor:
Our group is dedicated to the issue of single family nightly rentals in Mammoth Lakes, and therefore is only analyzing the election from that perspective. We’ve met with all 8 candidates and have only positive things to say about all of them as people and about their commitments to Mammoth Lakes. However, as this fact finding group has taken the time to sit with each of these individuals as well as one of the two incumbents (with hopes to meet with the final incumbent in the coming weeks), we felt we wanted to share this information with the community. Their positions on single family rentals vary greatly.
In our meetings with the candidates, we tried to help educate them on the nature of the SFR issue, as this is not only controversial but extremely multi-faceted. Our main topics were:
- Inventory & Demand: Mammoth currently has over 150 stand-alone homes that are legal to be rented and dozens more currently being planned and built. The fact that the existing legal home rentals in Mammoth have low occupancy levels indicates that there is little “unmet demand” for this product, even while we have a robust and diverse inventory.
- Governing Documents: The vast majority of Mammoth’s traditional neighborhoods have restrictive CC&Rs that would prohibit nightly home rentals (e.g., The Knolls, Majestic Pines, The Trails, much of the Slopes, etc.) If the Town Council were to legalize home rentals everywhere, as was proposed last year, this would create a situation where town law would conflict with neighborhood CC&Rs. The result would be that neighbors would be forced to spy on and sue other neighbors in order to enforce their CC&Rs. This would be incredibly divisive to our community and should be avoided.
- TOT Enforcement: Recent efforts by the town to collect Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) have netted over a million dollars in unpaid taxes and these efforts should be supported by increased enforcement, rather than undermined by opening up more homes. Continued enforcement efforts should be high on the priority list for all candidates as this is true income for the town. Enforcement has contributed over the $500k budgeted for this current fiscal year – much needed income in a down TOT year.
- Quality of Life: Current legal and illegal home rentals already are creating serious quality of life issues, including garbage/bears, noise, parking, and public safety issues that we need to get under control.
We also provided all of the candidates with a series of written questions, which they have kindly provided answers to. You can see their responses on the Protect Mammoth’s Neighborhood’s website.
Many of the candidates’ positions on single family nightly rentals vary greatly, even amongst those that have decided to not take an “official position.” If you are voting for a candidate that is in favor of expanding single family nightly rentals, or one who has not taken an official position, we would encourage you to send that candidate an email letting them know your position on the issue. In our experience, all of the candidates are reasonable and open to hearing arguments and opinions in opposition to their own. It is better to let the candidates know how you feel now, rather than waiting until the issue arises at the town council level for a vote in the future.
Here are the email addresses for all eight of the candidates:
- Elena Blomgren – ecarelena@yahoo.com
- Colin Fernie – Colin@Blacktieskis.com
- Cleland Hoff – me@clelandhoff.com
- Ken Murray – kmurray@ldry.com
- Deb Pierrel – info@voteforpierrel.com
- Shields Richardson – sr4malls@yahoo.com
- Karen Sibert – kbsibert@hotmail.com
- John Wentworth – john@wentworthcouncil.com
Again, we would like to reiterate how impressed we are by this group of candidates. A big thank you to each and every one of them for taking the time to meet with us.
Submitted by Cheryl Witherill
Mammoth Lakes
Attribution, please
Dear Editor:
The latest issue of both papers last week holds a political ad whose statements give cause to wonder if it is a real asset to the candidate, Ingrid Braun.
There are 13 quotes from the supporters of Ms. Braun but not one name of any of the authors. Readers are asked to accept Mammoth or Mono City or Bridgeport as the entity submitting the remarks that laud her by suggesting, without documentation, that her opponent is deficient.
Mono City proclaims, “It is time to elect an honest person for Sheriff for Mono County and that person is Ingrid Braun.” That would lead a reader to believe that the other candidate must not be honest. That sort of ‘double think’ might cause one to feel that if you were ever arrested by Ms. Braun, she might convict you without a trial. Besides that, I don’t think Mono City as a city is even registered to vote.
“Good ol’ boy law enforcement,” and, “Witnessed too many malicious things,” are other challenges that are in the ad with no proof or a contributor’s name to call and ask, “Did you really say that?”
In the same issue, there is an ad for Sheriff Obenberger that features recommendations for his election. Each of the comments name its contributor. These supporters are very positive and maintain the importance and dignity of the office. On the merits of this particular episode it seems that Mono County is in good hands with Sheriff Obenberger and that he should be elected in June.
Chuck & Millicent Kennedy
Whittier/Mammoth
