Once again, a lot of repetition at the Mammoth Town Council meeting Wednesday night. Strangely, Assistant Town Manager Marianna Marysheva-Martinez once more stood up and talked about the same budget points. She repeated many of the same things she has said at previous meetings, pointed the public to a budget document on the Town website and talked about the same plans to cut nearly $3 million out of next fiscal year’s budget. The Mammoth public was largely absent.
Martinez did, for the first time, say that the consultants’ fiscal forecast shows that after the budget reduction plan is in place, in the first 5 years, $3.6 million in net funds will be generated. Then she said after 5 years, $550,000 annual surplus would be available to satisfy MLLA and other creditors. That was the only new information.
Martinez repeated the same discussion that employee pay concessions would theoretically save $1 million, departmental reductions – another million. The budget plan would cut 10% from Tourism, Housing and Transit, raise $500,000 more in TOT enforcement, cut road rehab by $750,000 and other cuts.
The Assistant Town Manager did say that once the Town confirms the Budget Reduction Plan it will “likely be in place a long time,” she 
said.
Nothing new about MLLA was revealed. Town officials remain in mediation with other creditors. The Budget Facts document on the Town website also says that “In the event that mediation is unsuccessful, the Town may then seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.”
Rick Phelps of High Sierra Energy Foundation objected to the plans for a $12,000 cut in his organization’s funds from the Town. Phelps reasoned that the tangible benefits of the Foundation warrant continued funding. Council members said nothing.
Police Officer Luke Schwartzkopf said the MLLA judgment has "ripped the fabric from our Town."
They also said nothing to Mammoth Police Officer Luke Schwartzkopf who stood up during public comment to say how sad he is about the mess the Town finds itself in. He said, “The fabric of our Town has been ripped out from this judgment and budget problems.” He also said, “Some of you folks have let us down.” He named “big time” mismanagement and the need to hold some accountable. Schwartzkopf said he feels he’s been put in an adversarial position, referring to the mediations over employee concessions. He asked the Council to go easy on the police.
The next Council meeting is scheduled for June 6. The next mediation session is set for May 29th.
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There is simply no money in selling fishing lures, snowboarders are kids who eat at McDonald’s, and with another bad snow year Mammoth Lakes will be history until marketing visionaries materialize and offer things of real value and culture to those who still have money.
Small towns like Carmel-by-the-Sea and other bon vivant towns in California are thriving without trout, snowboarders, and hikers. But the backwards, backwoods town concil people like to be stuck in the past.
Founder Dave McCoy is always talking up the importance of increased cultural tourism for this part of the Sierra.
Yes, it does pay to advertise.
But don’t waste ad monies on 20-something snowboarders, trout fishermen, or motocross kids.
In tough times, you must target those who have the money. Today’s affluent traveler is looking for beautiful scenery, good dining, and some quality cultural experiences.
Mammoth Lakes has all of the above.
Unfortunately, those in power positions have been calling the shots forever and they can’t seem to see beyond the hike and bike thing.
That ain’t where the money is.
Bullsh*t. Affluent travelers will go to Asia or Australia or New Zealand or any one of hundreds of much more beautiful and interesting places. Do you know that people are actually standing in line to climb Mt. Everest? They have cruse ships that go to Antartica.
You can be anywhere in the World in less than two days — why would anybody with real money come here? To see a bunch of rude teenagers with their pants hanging off their ass? To try and find a place to stand around one of our famous artificially stocked artificial lakes? To get run down by out of control snow boarders? To join the queue to climb up to one of the local lakes?
Do you see a lot of rich people here? Is it because they’ve never heard of Mammoth? Jeeze — you are a delusional as the rest of the town leaders.
The only real asset that Mammoth ever had was it’s remoteness and lack of crowds. All the Marketing and Tourism hucksters sold those assets to the highest bidder and this is what we got for it.
The entire state of Michigan was in such dire straits, nobody knew what to do. Today we see “Pure Michigan” tv ads all over the place. Michigan’s tourism is skyrocketing.
It pays to advertise.
Could you please post the historical statistics of Michigan’s economy since WWII and show us how tourism has generated an economy that is more stable and productive than the hard industries that left for China in the last 30 years?
That’s a challenge.
Your implied message is that tourism is a more vital industry than any other industry. That’s simply not true. And your only support of your assertion is a vague, “…tourism is skyrocketing…”
Again — show us the numbers to justify your assertion. But I know you won’t so here’s a graph of Michigan’s gross domestic product (GDP) back to 1990:
http://www.mackinac.org/media/images/2010/MichigansPerCapitaGross-LRG.jpg
That doesn’t look like a skyrocket to me. Pay’s to advertise? Only those who do the advertising make money.
I know, but it still sounded so inept and still no innovative suggestions for RESTRUCTURING or increasing revnues. Very disappointed.
Ruth, as long as we are 100% reliant on tourism as our primary industry, we really don’t have many options for increasing revenues. We don’t produce anything. All we do is tell people how pretty we are and that they should come up and take a look — and oh yeah, spend some money please.
Tourism is a self limiting industry. Too many people destroys the very thing that people come to see. Then they stop coming.
Restructuring? Restructuring what? There’s the town — then there’s the bankrupt town.
Or no town whatsoever if we dis-incorporate.
The available choices have been the same since the original ruling against the town. All the town leaders have been doing is denial, denial, denial — and making it even worse in the mean time.
Anybody still expecting some sort of magic bullet to fix things is delusional.
Did anyone hear MMM say that she was surprised to find that there were actually 97 employees for TOML instead of the 80 she thought? What is going on? CLEAN HOUSE and START FRESH. Make everyone re-apply and re-qualify for their jobs like they did in Park City prior to the Olympics. Is there anyone with any cajones on the town council?
I think she then added that the members of the Town Council and Commissions were in that higher number (97).
BK
The council and our town staff are ONE BIG joke! And they are all protecting their nice big pay checks while the rest of us rott.
Get rid of MLT and all our over paid clowns.
… and all Rusty Gregory has to do is lay off people, enjoy his new mansion, and continue laughing all the way to the bank.
Remember Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“Strangely, Assistant Town Manager Marianna Marysheva-Martinez once more stood up and talked about the same budget points.”
Worth every penny of the $4K per week being paid to 3M and I’m sure Wilbrecht will concur with everything she said!?!?!
What an embarrassing example of leadership on the part of the Town and management as a whole….
sigh…what a mess.
“the consultants’ fiscal forecast shows that after the budget reduction plan is in place, in the first 5 years, $3.6 million in net funds will be generated.”
Oh really? Well, it looks like we’ve found a solution to our financial problems. Just hire a consultant to make a rosy forecast of money showering down from the heavens and everything is gonna be alright.
Sounds like a CW song don’t it?
Sounds a lot like Romney’s economic “plan” doesn’t it Ken? Cut taxes on the rich/big business, and the offsetting revenue and more will just magically appear…
Actually it sounds more like the Jerry Brown plan for revenue collection
GGFW
16 BILLION AND COUNTING