Lot o’ safety

Mammoth Unified School District is spending $1.5 million trying to make the parking lot at Mammoth Elementary safer. Parents won’t slow down, kids don’t look where they’re going, and almost nobody rides the bus anymore, making this the best remedy proposed to a possibly dangerous situation.

The Town of Mammoth Lakes received federal funds from Safe Routes to Schools program that is footing $400,000 of the cost.

The modular housing of the Head Start Preschool, run by the Inyo-Mono Advocates for Community Action (IMACA), will be moved, along with all of its associated action, to a quiet corner on the Mammoth High School (MHS) campus. MHS and IMACA are working on a collaborative elective/ROP class for high schoolers interested in early childhood development that would get teenagers in the preschool classroom.

Mammoth School District Superintendent Lois Klein gave Mono County Supervisors a synopsis of the school year, including the parking lot improvement project. After asking how much the new lot was going to cost, Supervisor Larry Johnston asked Klein if the money could be better spent on buses. Klein said she didn’t want to comment on that issue at the meeting.

In an interview with Klein and Business Manager Brooke Bien, the two explained the Capitol Facilities Fund money is “earmarked for facility and land improvements because of overcrowding,” not new buses. More to the point, Klein said the cost of new buses and bus drivers, which are increasingly hard to find in the area, would quickly eat up more than $1.5 million and would still not make the lot much safer.

There are fewer kids taking the bus, so the lot is packed with adults dropping off or picking up kids. Skipping the bus ride is a national trend, Klein explained, not endemic to the Eastern Sierra. Bien said she knows some parents “treasures those mornings in the car” taking their kids to school. But she also said the District had added a spot on its bus route this year per parent input.

The District beefs up staffing for safety and traffic direction during the first few weeks of school to get parents in the swing, as some are new to the school or new to being parents of school-aged children.

But the lot and the school were too small to begin with, Klein and Bien said. The new lot, with designated drop off areas, separate parking for parents and staff and one-way streets is not a perfect fix, but the best idea. The District held numerous public forums and meetings, gathering input before settling on the revamped parking lot.

The District has also been collaborating with Mammoth Lakes’ Public Works in moving the walking/bike path that paralleled Meridian Boulevard and would eventually dump out into the elementary school parking lot, onto higher ground. White Rock Construction is doing the footwork.

Kat Duncan, operations coordinator at IMACA, said the preschool will be moved next to Mono First 5 office at MHS pending approval by the Division of the State Architect.

The lot should be completed about the same time as the high school gym’s floor, toward the end of August. There is bound to be a big party.