For many, Rusty Gregory’s bombshell announcement at the Mammoth Town Council meeting that he would soon no longer run Mammoth Mountain Ski Area eclipsed the discussion that followed on the proposed Tourism Business Improvement District.
Gregory called it the only growth strategy for the future. He asked the Town Council to look at the BID very carefully. The people who commented were about evenly split. The TBID would assess lodging 1%, retail and restaurants 1.5%, and lift tickets and ski school, 2%. The assessment would raise $4.7 million with $2.5 million to marketing, $300,000 to PR, $150,000 to research and $50,000 to training. Around $2 million would go to air service subsidies.
Glenn Taylor objected to taxing guests.
Small business owners said the BID was a tax that would put them out of business. Derek Johnson of Crystal Crag and Glenn Taylor of Perry’s Italian Cafe said customers can’t afford the 1.5% assessment. Taylor said passing this tax onto guests would reach a bad tipping point.
Julie Fontaine, a non-business owner, said citizens will have to pay the tax. She asked that it go to a vote of the people.
Mall owner, Paul Rudder, said merchants need more money before they can afford improvements.
Brian Ellison of Brian’s Bicycles opposed it. Sports store owner Steve Hertzog supported it. Michael Ledsman, co-owner of Gomez’s said it would improve mid-week and shoulder season business. Rhonda Duggan said the TBID would protect the Town’s marketing dollars. She said, “It markets the whole community.” Kurt Schaubmyer of Petra’s said yes and so did Teri Stehlik who praised the Town marketing organization.
Long-time business owner, Paul Rudder apparently supports the BID. He said if it gives businesses one more day per week
during shoulder season, merchants will do better.
The Town Council will deal with this issue again at their July 3rd meeting where there will likely be deliberation and a vote.
I concur Bill, the price point, taxes, and tips for the guest experience is insane. Marketing for marketing sake without fixing the value part of the equation is a complete waste of time and money. The TBID is only driving this point home, charging more while providing less than the… Read more »
SierraPigs: “Like all the other marketing scams prior to this one, the results will be the same. In good snow year, business will boom, during droughts the money dries up, nobody can change that equation .Anyone who says they can cure the shoulder season drought is just another FlimFlam man.”… Read more »
Yep, I agree. Mammoth is constantly selling itself short especially if you start believing and listening to the same few dissatisfied, unhappy, complaining locals who frequent the comment board on Sierra Wave. Thousands of people (still) enjoy coming to Mammoth and we would all be better served if we had… Read more »
More expertise from the new breed of Mammoth charlatan’s! Trying to sell something that’s not theirs.(pathetic) Same old song and dance that will never amount to a hill of beans. They’ll extract millions in tax dollars, that will disappear into thin clean fresh air. Like all the other marketing scams… Read more »
The majority of skiers/vistors have no idea about this mess.
If it snows, they will come
thumbs down all you want. Just spent the weekend in SoCal with a bunch of skiers many who are pass holders an nobody knew about the bid and once they did nobody cared.
They are looking forward to skiing Mammoth Mountain and dining at Wiskey Creek.
simple as that.
It’s funny Mark,
All this talk about the BID and what does it really amount to? Maybe $20 to $30 bucks on a grand or more spent as far as I can tell and that’s nothing to those spending that kind of money.
They will for sure!!
Do the opposite of whatever Mr Gregory proposes should be the mantra. I ilke the odds of that plan being succesful.
it was so important i had to say it twice and spell it right
Ya get what ya pay for. The lower the lift tickets – the more you’ll see the riff-raff, the stoner snowboarders, and everything that goes along with bargain basement ski experiences. Maybe the conservatives are right. Everything should be based upon the rich and what they want and to hell… Read more »
There’s a little truth to that..
I kinda think the popularity of skiing is falling a bit too.
I remember Rusty’s free opening day a few years back.
I have never seen so much pot smoking in a lift line.
Now that’s funny FL.
make skiing affordable again,and they will come.and they will spend mony.its not brain surgery
make skiing affordable again and they will come,and they will spend money.its not brain surgery
Affordable skiing?
Any idea how expensive it is to operate a ski business?
Perhaps you would be better served at June.
Real expensive if you use that ski area as a launch pad and selling point for property development. Real expensive if you have to support an airport and a marketing division that tells everybody in SoCal about Mammoth Mountain — like they never heard of it. Real expensive if the… Read more »
That million skiers a year thing is dropping fast Ken. Be honest. If you had the money, would you want to hang out in a town that needs so much work? From the moment you enter the town, you notice a trailer park, boring strip-malls, dilapidated buildings, an old run-down,… Read more »
You know what? To Hell with rich people. All our troubles started when we tried to become something we are not. We are not a World Class Destination Resort. We were just a ski town with modest goals. A quiet peaceful existence for people who wanted to live here year… Read more »
Real skiers don’t care about trailer parks, boring stripmalls, or dilapidated building. They come to ski nothing more nothing less. It’s the richie-rich that like fancy settings and they’re not real skiiers.
I enjoy June Mountain much more than Mammoth. I also hope Rusty gets fired or laid off. He should know how to deal with it.
Bravo Ferdinand, a very Simple solution to a big greedy mess.
FL, Not attacking you here but listen to what you and other’s are asking! Affordable skiing? Do we send a memo to all the ski gear companies as well with “please reduce your costs for your over priced gear”? The lift tickets are just a part of this industry, the… Read more »
Why not face up to the reality of the situation? Skiing has become a rich man’s sport. And I’m not talking about the young snowboarders who have taken over Mammoth Mountain (they don’t have any money). Like during Great Depression I, when the going gets tough (economically) the rich become… Read more »
Money from increased taxation will be used for marketing, research and air which will result in “Tourism Business Improvement” as the Town claims. Currently the Town is already spending money on marketing and air travel (now in its 5th year and still needing subsidies). Can the reason the current expenditures… Read more »
That is just too funny, if that didn’t sound the big dong sound in everyone head then I don’t know what would.
You are hundred percent correct. Trying to tax your way to prosperity is like trying to lift a bucket that you are standing in.
Gregory is merely doing his CEO thing. The obvious hint into what is really going on is comment that he is stepping into the shadows in his corporate workings. Translation: Trouble in River City with a capital “T”. I know the real estate people, the developers, and construction people, etc.… Read more »
Any nation that wants to grow it’s economy has to raise taxes and spend money on education, infrastructure and health care. These are the pre-requisites for economic growth. No amount of “low taxes” will grow an economy if you do not provide investors with an educated workforce able to do… Read more »
oh good grief, I completely disagree.
Read what Robert J. Barro and Javier Sala-i-Martin co-wrote and later wrote independently on convergence and economic growth among nations.
Why is that Mark? Is it because the current political platform has drilled it in your head taxes are a bad thing and should never go up? Especially on those organizations and individuals that can afford it? Taxes is such a terrible subject to debate since the whole right wing… Read more »
It’s much simpler then all that J-Frog.
Because of all the waste and corruption I am unhappy with the value I am getting from my tax dollars.
Stop the waste and corruption and my view might change.
I hear that loud and clear. It does take taxes to give those services that most of us can agree upon (firefighters, helping less fortunate). Subsidies and loopholes are what we all should be mad about also, They use OUR tax dollars to protect THEIR money. So I have to… Read more »
In the popular book “The Art of Japanese Management” (a must read for every American leader) the tendency for most American companies is to focus only on business quarter-to-quarter). If the division leader reports a “good” quarter, all is fine and dandy with the board of directors. However, what often… Read more »
Where can I buy some of what you are smoking?
I am a cock-eyed realist. Sean – if I were you, I’d prepare for the worst. Such as an icy-cold business decision from the CEO’s that run the mountain (from afar), that if it is no longer profitable for them to run the mountain, they’ll divest and/or close the mountain… Read more »
Bad things can happen anywhere, to anyone, and to any industry. You can’t run your life or a business from a position and strategy of fear. Maybe the volcano might come active and blow up the area. Should we all move because of the 1 in 10,000 chance of it… Read more »
Yes Sean, everything is change. What was true for today may be different for tomorrow. Especially in today’s dog-eat-dog business climate where at one time the USA ruled. Not so today. Why not also accept that fact as a reality? Meantime, the trend in skiing at Mammoth has changed drastically.… Read more »
Wow! Another “I hate Japan!” comment. And I thought the nuking was 70 years ago. Such and angry hate-filled point of view. They must have just finished listening to Limbaugh or something. They haven’t noticed that there are more Japanese tourists that come here than the other way around. They… Read more »
The hate continues as long as people like you Dr. facts … keeps it going by telling us how much we all hate or the assumption that we all hate.
“Japanese management” has brought Japan very nearly two decades of zero to negative economic growth along with deflation. They have among the lowest levels of office automation in the industrial world, and a supremely inefficient agricultural industry. Everything is about saving face and as a consequence they are utterly incapable… Read more »
Chill Tortoise – This is not about sparing YOU anything. And this “lecture” that drives you batty is more of keeping an open mind in today’s rapidly-changing world. It’s a matter of the Seven S’s. Western companies have tended to favor these three S’s: Strategy, Structure and Systems. When an… Read more »
Methinks Desert Tortoise has been out in the desert sun a wee bit too long. That tiny country has been doing just fine, thank you, since WWII. They have long moved on post WWII – (some Americans have not). We see Japanese tourists all year round in Mammoth. And I… Read more »
I am a practicing economist and east Asian economies and their growth is one of my specialties. I think if you examine the economic and demographic statistics for Japan for the last two decades you will see a gradually failing economy. They suffered a major recession towards the middle of… Read more »
Desert Tortoise foolishly sees tiny Japan’s performance over the last decades as an unmitigated failure and has typically too narrow a conception of economic success. Along many dimensions — greater income equality, longer life expectancy, lower unemployment, greater investments in children’s education and health, and even greater productivity relative to… Read more »
I think we use to make TV’s in this Country too. Now we don’t make anything and it has a lot to do wth not being able to mine the resources needed to manfacture a competitive product.
We’re screwed.
You don’t cease to amaze me MARK, not being able to mine is not the reason why we don’t make products here. We don’t make products here because capitalism makes it legal to exploit other “poor” countries for a huge profit for very few, and those same very few love… Read more »
“Gregory called it the only growth strategy for the future. ”
I highly doubt that. It’s just the only one on the table.