For whatever reason, the Department of Fish and Wildlife has failed to pay Mono County what is known as Payments In Lieu of Taxes for the past eleven years. Mono Finance Director Leslie Chapman says the State owes Mono nearly $646,000.
The Mono Board of Supervisors planned to deal with this issue today. Payments In Lieu of Taxes are designed to compensate counties when private land goes into public ownership with tax consequences. Chapman had prepared an invoice for Fish and Wildlife that includes more than $309,000 in past in-lieu taxes and nearly $293,000 in interest. plus penalties and other costs.
Seems Mono is not the only county Fish and Wildlife has stiffed. Chapman informed the Board that the Regional Council of Rural Counties asked Mono to participate in a campaign related to past due monies owed to counties by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A chart of all California counties shows that Inyo County is due $10,298. The chart, provided by RCRC, shows that Fish and Wildlife owes all counties more than $17 million. A proposed letter to Governor Brown from the Mono Supervisors asks that the State pay up. The letter also points out that while Fish and Wildlife has failed to pay Mono County, the State has continued to hand down expensive mandates on air quality requirements, jails, landfills and other issues.
In other items before the Board, the Lee Vining Yosemite Gateway Motel appeal of transient occupancy tax late penalties was on the agenda again. Tim and Kim Traynor appealed the penalties due to what they called financial hardship resulting from the Rim Fire and closure of Yosemite. The Traynors are also asking for an installment payment agreement.
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“Everyone” includes themselves. I would agree with that sentiment, since the Board hasn’t produced one good decision yet this term. I suppose the Supervisors need CDFW to pay up so they can justify the taxpayers of Mono County buying them there lunches every Board day. I have to bring my own lunch to work, why should my taxes pay for theirs?
Another One
Where the real rip-off to we taxpayers is, the extremely generous salaries country supervisors get … for part-time “work”. (if you call their doing nothing, work)
It’s the Fesko/Johnston show each and every meeting.
Cut all mono supervisors’ salaries in half!
Reliable sources (those who have been following the elected officials of Mono County for a long, long time) outspokenly indicate that the current group is the worst in Mono County history.
Interesting that Fesko, doing his absolute best Rush Limbaugh impression, has totally brow-beaten and worn down his fellow supervisors in lumping all employees of Mono County into one category: They are government employees and government employees all make too much money. Nobody has yet to hear anything constructive from Fesko as to how to generate revenue, improve services, attract more visitors and dollars to the County etc.
Always the same “Everyone in the county makes too much money!” self-aggrandizing BS.
Way to build good morale, Timmy!