Council whittles PEDC candidates to four

Bacon “bullet vote” propels Robertson. 

Believe it or not, the last Mammoth Council election, which featured a robust eight candidates in the field, was no fluke.

The Town recently received 11 applications for two open PEDC (Planning and Economic Development Commission) seats due to the resignations of Elizabeth Tenney and Dave Harvey.

Three of the applicants (Tim Flynn, Martin Kleinbard and David Bloom) withdrew prior to interviews conducted by Council yesterday.

The eight remaining applicants were: Dawn Vereuck, Greg Eckert, Cynthia Fleming, Richard Nguyen, Elena Blomgren, Paul Chang, Patricia Robertson and David Levy.

Rather than select two at last night’s meeting, Mayor Michael Raimondo floated the idea of winnowing the list to four and then conducting a second round of interviews before making final selections.

His fellow Councilmembers unanimously agreed.

Then it all got a little wiggly and casual.

Councilman John Wentworth threw out his four picks: Chang, Levy, Eckert and Fleming.

Bacon followed by saying she’d like to see Robertson in the mix. But that’s it. She didn’t give her picks at that time. Later, she added Chang.

Fernie also had Robertson in his top four, and then added Dawn Verueck’s name. Later, he added Chang and Levy.

But the point being, the names sort of trickled in, rather than being formally recorded.

Richardson had Chang, Vereuck, Robertson and Eckert.

Raimondo had Chang, Vereuck, Fleming and Eckert.

So the votes stood: Chang 5, Verueck, Eckert and Robertson with 3 apiece and Levy and Fleming with 2.

Which only added up to 18 votes.

From the audience, Tom Cage pointed out that Bacon needed to submit two more names.

No I don’t, she replied curtly.

So the vote stood and the final four are Chang, Eckert, Vereuck and Robertson.

When reached for comment Thursday, Bacon acknowledged that she didn’t want to hand out additional votes and potentially muddy the voters once she saw that her top two candidates were in the final four.

She said she has done this once previously, where she voted for a smaller number than allotted, but that was because there was a dearth of good candidates in that instance.

Here, she had no issue with the quality of applicants. Rather, she just liked the position her top candidates occupied.

In other Council news …

Mono County Supervisor Stacy Corless provided some good news for Council, saying that the County had set aside $6,000 for youth sports funding for the Town of Mammoth.

Shields Richardson was happy to announce that the June TOT revenue number was about $770,000. He added that this was 38% over the previous June.

*Actually, it was up 14% year-over-year, but one can forgive Richardson for his enthusiasm. 

Councilman Wentworth cited a recent story in the Washington Post which ranked Mono County 16th nationally on the basis of scenery and climate.

Measure Z proponent Sandy Hogan and Councilman Richardson had a little back-and-forth during discussion regarding the transient rental fact sheet presented by staff.

Hogan said it was time for stepped-up enforcement of illegal home rentals by the Town, claiming enforcement has waned as a priority.

Richardson countered by saying enforcement is as well-staffed as it’s been in awhile and that staff has direction to go after folks who are breaking the law.

“I don’t like the picture she’s painting that we’re not doing anything,” he said.

Hogan said staff should be required to share numbers and results of enforcement actions over the past year.