When they first announced their restructuring plan to help pay off the MLLA judgment debt, Mammoth Town officials said the plan included the elimination of 13 employees or positions with seven of those in the police department to take place by January 1. Apparently recognizing their signed MOU with police, officials now say they will recommend the delay of position elimination of police until July 1, 2013.
Assistant Town Manager Marianna Marysheva-Martinez said, “The delay will leave the Town’s finances stretched, with barely enough cash to make the first payment to MLLA. However, this additional time is necessary to allow for additional discussions with the Police Officers Association (POA), whose contract calls for no vacancies from the staffing approved in the beginning of each fiscal year.” The police MOU guarantees 17 officers for this fiscal year.
Martinez said that the additional time will “also be necessary to fully evaluate the implementation of police reserve and volunteer programs, and/or alternate methods of delivering public safety services.” Martinez said there will be a recommendation to the Town Council at the Oct 18 meeting.
Meanwhile, the issue of reserves or volunteers circles in controversy with Police Lieutenant John Mair and others strongly stating that reserves and volunteers are not an option to replace regular officers. This, because of the small population pool here, the extensive training required and the supervision demanded by police themselves.
Mono Sheriff Rick Scholl made it clear that the Town can not count on his officers to fill in for Mammoth’s shortfall of police protection. He is down three patrol officers and his deputies go off duty in the late night hours. The Sheriff clarified his belief. He said, “Our deputies currently go off duty at midnight and are available to be called out from their home. The CHP,” he said, “does field a two officer unit after 10 pm, however that unit is responsible from Tom’s Place to Topaz Lake so can be over an hour response time to back-up Mammoth Police.”
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alotta rude people blogging here,you deserve to pay for the mistakes of idiots
Mistakes of the idiots you elect. That’s the way the system works. Painful isn’t it? .
Hey heres half a million. good point. why doesnt mammoth just use the salary from the town manager who is working from home in l.a. to pay its debts. just a thought…
Mammoth has the BEST skiing, but unfortunately has the worst leaders.
Let’s start thinking outside the box. Going broke can do that for you.
There’s police work, catching criminals, and we need MLPD for that. Then there’s security work, keeping a lid on high times and partiers, and most everywhere that is taken care of by the venues hosting the events, using private security – not reserves. So it’s not like the only two choices are either an unaffordable MLPD or a feckless force of reserves.
Here in Mammoth we’ve imposed a relatively large burden, event security, pretty much exclusively on MLPD, at least insofar as the Village goes. In effect, the Town is subsidizing the Mountain by paying for security for its patrons when they stray off the Mountain’s premises. Why shouldn’t the Mountain and the bars cooperate to hire private security and private shuttles for their patrons in town when they get too “entertained”? Why let a drunk get behind the wheel and hope MLPD catches him instead of using a cooperative shuttle to get him down the block to his room before he has a chance to hurt someone? Roll the costs into what the bars charge so the revelers giving rise to the need for security pay for it. There may be a few enterprising law enforcement folks in town who could start up just such a security business and hire some of their friends.
Or we can just stop up our ears before we even think about it, and scream it won’t work.
Quite possibly the first post I have agreed w/ Tourbillon on, ever. (above)
Furthermore, I believe the Town Council have shown us (again) how incompetent they are by this whole MLPD mou debacle.
But remember Michael R. was the ONLY person to run in the last election?? Kudos to him by entering the fray. Hope more leaders step up in future elections in order to overhaul the current Council. We need fresh blood.
Many have suggested that this “firing across the bow” tactic has eroded MLPD to the point of no return as officers file retirement/transfer papers etc. There is no way MLPD will be able to hire officers now. Who would want to work here?
I know it’s been an unpopular option, but we need to look seriously at the plan to have Mono Co Sheriff Dept hire the remaining MLPD Officers and absorb their duties. This would have a big cost savings because the upper level management duties would be absorbed by the Sheriff. This exact situation has occurred all over the State due to budget issues. I think our cops in Mammoth got a raw deal over this, and I support them, but the good ones will move on and get re-hired and probably end up in a better situation. This is messy stuff, but it is the reality of our situation.
Get rid of these two inept imposters posing as town managers. Neither of them has put in a full day’s work since they were hired and, when they do make a guest appearance, they haven’t got the slightest idea of what to do.
At $200,000 a year plus benefits each, there’s at least a half million dollar start on paying off for their bungling and the incompetence of the long list of “town managers” who preceded them.
But wait, who is it that hires these hustlers and pays them such outrageous compensation?
Of course, it’s the town’s “volunteer” F Troop, led by a layman who knows even less about public safety than he does about real estate.
I think that the MLPD should have had some reserve officers BEFORE all this crap came to light, if for no other reason, to transport arrestee’s to the Bridgeport county jail,(more than a two hour deal in good weather) freeing up the real cops to do the real police work. Any police officer that has been retired in the last 2 years would qualify to go right to work without any additional training, and I’m willing to bet that there are more than a few in the Mammoth area.
Reserve officers are NOT the answer to this cluster#^*! , but having a few extra hands on deck is always a good thing, even if they get to keep all 17.(if all goes right,they will)
P.S. Sheriff Lutze, down the hill in Inyo County, hires retired police officers as reserve deputies & pays them 25.00$ an hour,flat out,no benefits. Just sayin’.
Hey Reality Check – your post is about identical to every other post dealing with this subject. Whenever a town or city tries to implement police reductions, we get a post just like yours! Threats of retirements, talking down reserves, bad-mouthing council and city management. Sounds kind of like it is out of a playbook!
And it is! Thanks to a bunch of idiot POA lawyers in So Cal, we all know the tactics POAs use when their gravy train is threatened. Look up the Lackie Dammeir playbook if you get stuck.
Take it someowhere else.
Yo, Rob (AKA TOML Troll) Please name any part of my post that is not accurate.
Yea, that is what I thought.
Go back to MMM and tell her that you have been outsmarted with the actual facts.
Nice try.
Rob Clark, is that you???? Hows Ojai?
PLEASE REMIND ME WHY 3M is still employed at the town..Just how many managers does a town of 6000 sheeple need?
GGW
Just enough to Suck tha town Dry… 🙂
WOW! Keeping it real. Is it true that the Council and staff forgot that they signed a 2 year no cut agreement with the police 60 days ago? i dont know what to say. Its reading post like this that really make me stand back and think I was smart to move out of Mammoth when I did. The people who are running the town are lacking in many areas and have not proven the competency necessary for such positions.
For all the years I worked at my patrol station with LA Co Sheriff, we had about 30 reserve Deputies. Only 3 of those were level 1 reserves which allowed them to work by themselves and they all had over 15 years experience. It takes a long time to train a reserve as they only attended the academy once a week. all the reserves I worked with had their own jobs or were business owners and most only did the 2 rides a month that was required…They were only paid a dollar a year..
Its going to take Mammoth Lakes a long time to get a good reserve program going and its going to cost money to train them..You cannot depend on reserves for your day to day police operations and in my many years of experience working with them, they require more supervision as they don’t have the experience to handle and deal with daily police work…
Roy is 100 % correct. I was a Reserve Deputy for 3 1/2 years in Ventura Co before I went full time in the LA area. Reserve are great for extra manpower here and there but they DO NOT replace full time Officers. The Reserve programs are as much a way to screen future full timers as extra manpower. The department gets to see how you do and you get to figure out if it is the career for you.
The city is REALLY dreaming or trying to BS everyone by suggesting this volunteer or Reserve approach to replace laid off Officers.
The city has already pretty much destroyed the Mammoth PD with the way this was handled.
Even if there is a new tax that covers the budget shortfall who would want to work at Mammoth PD after all this?
I can see the recruitment billboard on 395 now – “Join MPD. We offer a yearly pay cut of 24%, no job security as we may lay you off at any time, lots of snow and cold weather, an anti-police town counsel, and high real estate prices so you can’t afford to live in town. Apply now!”
Maybe we can get concealed weapons permits now.
Best Idea I have heard all Year…
GGW
Don’t worry MMM, with 3 retirements and and six other officers applying for work anywhere but Mammoth, by the first of the year you will be trying to figure out how to hire officers not lay them off.
Of course no professional Law Enforcement Officer would consider applying for Mammoth knowing what goes on with the town managers and council.
“also be necessary to fully evaluate the implementation of police reserve and volunteer programs, and/or alternate methods of delivering public safety services”.
MMM, please tell us how, where and when you plan to get reserve officers given the tremendous amount of training that is state mandated, Also, everone wants to know what is an alternate method of delivering public safety services?
The Reality is you have no plan.
Could not agree more…perhaps the MMM is considering being the volunteer/reserve force!
Town Staff and Council apparently recognized reality…
Council and Staff said “THEY FORGOT” and just remembered they signed a 2 year no cut agreement with the police less than 60 days ago.
“We need more surveys… Buy more SurveyMonkey.com stock so we can pay Airport debt.”
Cut to newscast of the near FUTURE, Council says, “We forgot we didn’t have any money and made an agreement to pay millions of dollars a year for an agreement that we forgot we made.”
We are going to have to amend our promise of “NO TAXES” and we are going to have to tax you all, “but it’s not a LIE, we just forgot.”
MMMartinez then said in a voice-mail that she accidentally sent not only to Dave Wilbrecht but to all Media, We must show solidarity if we are going to pull wool over Moose’s and Squirrels eyes again.
This is laughable.
Anyone else see a Council recall and a couple of Town Managers openings in Mammoth’s future?
im moving to someplace safe,like compton or detroit!
Be gone!! Lopez and good luck!
Ferdinand Lopez,
DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS !!!
SEE YA.
safe travels ferdinand….can’t blame you…
Now the town realizes there is an MOU in place? After they’ve jumped the gun and shot their mouths off to the community?? It was the lack of attention to detail that got the town in this mess to begin with. One would hope they have learned something from their past mistakes and would proceed more cautiously from here on out.
Perhaps the town has implemented a reserve program in the city managers office – that might explain the oversight.
Just another incompetent plan by the town council and town management that will never pan out. I believe the correct analogy would be to”shoot oneself in the foot “.
All this drama thanks to Dave and Marianna, I’ll bet a month of the chief of police pay, that one of them isn’t here July 1, 2013.
Does the town council have any idea what they are doing or are they making all this up as we go along ?
I sure would like to know what was worth fifty million to keep MLLA from discovering and disclosing with the MMSA discovery subpoenas?
What are the chances that the Mono grand jury will do their job and look into this matter?
Stayed tuned folks for the next episode of As the Village Burns!