Letters to the editor
Smelly rest area!
Dear Editor:
I used to stop at the Crestview Rest Area to fill up my water bottle with great water, and take in the sweet smell of the Jeffries, but recently when I stopped there the smell of pine trees was not in the air.
It was instead the most awful odor of sewage I have ever smelled! Whatever “improvements” that were done there last summer sure aren’t good ones!
The employees do such an amazing job of keeping our rest area very clean, but I don’t know how they can stand to even be there now. Sorry, but I won’t be stopping there anymore.
Can the state or Caltrans fix this?
Laurie Gehrman
Mono City
(via thesheetnews.com)
So long, Wolf …
Dear Editor:
Wolf, thanks for the words in The Sheet, the only articles I read all the way through. Always comical and always relevant. You were right at June, if an employee is being an ass and you call ‘em on it, they should get punished. Good to see such a great response letter about the heroin article, and as I just learned, a good note to end on as well.
Keep wearing your Spirit Hood and good luck in SLC.
Ken Anderson
Mammoth Lakes
Deficit of leadership
Dear Editor:
As a long time Mammoth/Mono county resident, I find it hard to describe all my emotions regarding how this $30 million lawsuit will dramatically affect our local families and property owners for many years to come. Our community’s financial future has now been put in jeopardy by our Town Council members.
At the April 20 Mammoth Lakes Town Council meeting, Council member Rick Wood announced he “felt extremely saddened” that the Hot Creek Aviation $30 million litigation had come to this. “We aren’t right, we are wrong” and “there is probably a lot of blame.” He also mentioned that this will “never happen again.” Mayor Skip Harvey soberly mentioned that “there are no bad or evil people in this,” referring to the plaintiff. Then explained “It’s a business transaction,” and as to the process of what happened, “that it ran amuck.” I appreciate Wood’s and Harvey’s honesty about the court’s judgment. After watching Channel 51 reruns of this meeting, and researching the Hot Creek litigation on the Internet news (Los Angeles Times, NBC LA, Mammoth Times, and The Sheet) it is now apparent their (the then present 5 council members’) decisions were not in the best interest of the Town and therefore have caused this inconceivable damage.
In 1997 the Town of Mammoth signed a Development Agreement with Terry Ballas. The then 5-member town council voted to approve it. Council member John Eastman (who was elected 6/94, and re-elected 6/98, 3/02, 6/06, 6/10, and whose current term expires 6/14 ) voted “YES” along with 3 other members. Kathy Cage ( 1994-2002 ) was the only one who voted “NO.” Councilman Eastman is the only start-to-finish council member who has been undeniably a participant in the Hot Creek contract approval and subsequent Hot Creek litigation process.
Nine days before the vote, airport manager Bill Manning told council that the FAA had serious objections about the document. Nevertheless on Aug. 21, 1997 council approved the Development Agreement. Since that vote the town has gone through 7 Town Councils, lots of staff and 4 Town Managers (Tracy Fuller, Steve Julian, Charley Long, and Robert Clark).
The court’s unanimous decision against the Town was handed down on Dec. 30, 2010. Its 66-page decision cited the Town’s lack of communication with the FAA and the project developers, the Town changing its motives from private development to creating the airport for commercial airline service, and the Town’s unwillingness to seriously negotiate a settlement and believing it had the right to simply walk away from the signed agreement.
Do the actions of our current council member Eastman, or any other town representative, regarding his or her contribution of this unprecedented breach-of-contract judgment warrant a serious investigation? If there has been neglect or misconduct in the leadership or our elected officials, should our community hold them accountable — removal, resignation or civil action?
I do not know what was said in all the closed sessions or at every Town Council meeting in the past 14 years that council member Eastman participated in. I assume there is a process to find out if there have been any misleading statements, failure to disclose relevant facts, dereliction of duty, or failure to regard advice provided by the Chief Finance Officer, Airport Manager, Town Manager and Town Attorney.
By finding out who is ultimately responsible and how this quagmire transpired we can then learn from their mistakes and thus ensure this “never happens again.” We cannot afford another financial disaster by bad decisions made by our elected council members. It is our democratic right and responsibility to make sure that our town representatives are held to the highest standards of ethics and accountability. Our community unconditionally relies on those decisions and direction. The buck stops at the Town Council!
Ray Doblick
Mammoth Lakes
Owe Mo mistake
Dear Editor:
It is important to correct a very critical mistake in the May 28 Publisher’s column “Owe Mo.”
In the section titled “Things we learned at the Hispanic Advisory Group’s Town Hall meeting,” the publisher reported that I stated, “If the cars are not registered and the owners are illegally here, then the cars will be towed.”
This is completely inacurrate. It’s not what I said, and it’s not what happens. Cars are impounded if the driver is unlicensed or driving on a suspended or revoked license. That’s true whether the driver is here legally or not. The person’s immigration status is not relevant in these situations, only their license status.
Dan Watson
Mammoth Lakes Police Chief
And we owe another Mo, too …
Some clarifications …
In our story last week about the Eastern Sierra Wildlife Education Coalition funding request from the Mono County Board of Supervisors meeting on May 17, the sentence that reads “The group … has requests pending for $5,000 from both the Inyo National Forest and the Mono Fisheries Commission … “ should have read, “ESWEC has commitments of $5,000 each from two Inyo National Forest campground concessionaires.”
In addition, ESWEC is not and has no intention of pursuing 501(c)3 nonprofit status, for the reasons listed in the story. The coalition’s partners include federal government agencies, and as such the legalities involved make it impossible to organize the coalition in a nonprofit configuration.
Further, according to ESWEC rep Marianne O’Connor, regarding the logo and tagline,“Keep Wildlife Wild – Everyone is Responsible,” the ESWEC will pursue funding for printing of the banners and other high-visibility collateral materials, as the $2,000 funding requested from the Mono Fisheries Commission will probably just cover the design costs,” she told us.
–Geisel
