Town Manager Marianna Marysheva-Martinez
When Mammoth citizens learned that the Town would hire a Community and Economic Development Director at a cost of $226,000, which includes benefits, some objected. With all of the financial problems, they wanted to know if the Town really needs to spend that much money on another manager?
Asked that question, Town Manager Marianna Marysheva-Martinez said, “Absolutely.” She said the Town has not done economic development work which focuses on business attraction and retention. Martinez said this is different from marketing. She said the goal of economic development is to make a strong economy and also to diversify the tax base. Now, town government relies heavily on Transient Occupancy Tax.
The Town Manager said, “Through diversification there is more stability. We need to increase the relative share of sales tax and property tax.” For many years, officials have talked about the need for diverse business in Mammoth Lakes with little or no success. How will this effort differ now?
Martinez said she believes that the town staff and community volunteers have the good plans, ideas, visions and specific initiatives to create economic development. She said these ideas need to be consolidated and implemented. Martinez said that is the job of the new Community and Economic Development Director.
Another part of the job, said Martinez, is to retain current businesses and help them to succeed. She pointed to the Digital 395 project and the expanded broadband service as a way to attract new businesses.
The Town Manager pointed to Oakland, where she had previously worked. She said their Economic Development Department looked for auto dealerships to relocate or establish a business. This generated a lot of sales tax revenue. Oakland also turned an old army base into a clean energy business location.
Martinez said the new Economic Development Director will have to come to the position with successful experience. She said the idea is to work with existing businesses to keep them going and to seek out new business to fill services that are lacking up to and including new hotel developments.
The Town Manager said she is beginning to look at fees and possible incentives for new business to make Mammoth Lakes “more business friendly.”
Martinez also pointed out that the money to pay the new Community and Economic Development Director is not new funding. Her plan, she said, is to take the funds budgeted for Assistant Town Manager and spend part of them on the new position and the rest on a new Transient Occupancy Tax enforcement position and a budget analyst position.
Nice try MMM, but I doubt Mammoth Lakes needs auto dealerships and has any remote opportunity to clean up any nearby army bases (as was done in the metropolis of Oakland) to foster economic development. You’ve created a slick illusion that included getting Wilbrecht booted out, (with you as his replacement) and hoodwinking the town council into thinking you are the Town Administrator Extraordinaire using nothing more than corporate-looking BS Power Point presentations to increase dollars for the community. And now the game is “I have the know-how to hire somebody who is smarter (or more clever) than me whom I can micromanage and force them to produce results. You might as well continue doing what Rusty Gregory tells you and the council to do. Gregory could care less about auto dealerships and army bases.
or maybe wooley with the town councils foot on his neck stealing his wallet
the official mascot of mammoth lakes should be a wooley mammoth wearing a blindfold and a dunce cap
ferdinand…..A blindfold,a dunce cap….with a joint in one hand and a mixed drink in the other…..
….and on a snowboard…
This Is Mammoth, not Oakland!!
According to PayScale.com and other public official salary finding websites, the position of Economic Development Director for towns the size of Mammoth Lakes, are $55K to $99K.
Asking over TWICE that amount, MMM appears to once again be bamboozling the inept Mammoth Lakes Town Council.
It would not be any surprise that she has an old Oakland buddy in mind for the overpaid position.
Not only is the pay too high, but how many more hours of police patrolling could that money buy and is adeqauate policing more important than an economic development weenie? If the cop shop was fully staffed and other basic municipal needs met, maybe you hire this position. But weighing police vs an economic development advisor, especially at that pay rate, this decision is very poor.
Not only is it too much money, but it is money that would be better spent restoring patrol hours for the police force. Which is more important?
Respectfully, this sounds like a lot of hooey. Expensive hooey, at that.
California isn’t business friendly.
And the tree huggers in Inyo & Mono Counties have done an excellent job in protecting the invironment while chasing off just about every new business oppertunity.
What business “oppertunity” did you miss because concerned citizens were protecting the local “invironment”?
That comment is not informed by fact. Of all the venture capital invested in the US, fully half, that is 50%, is invested in California. Fortunately foreign entrepeneurs do not have the sour attitude about California laws that some conservative old whites do because all over the world, entrepeneurs come here with their money to make their dreams come true. Where people over here cry about taxes and diversity, foreign investors come here and see taxes that are still lower than what they left, honest public servants who aren’t demanding bribes from them all the time (another feature of doing business in China), excellent public schools in places like San Jose which is booming right now, and good public services. You do not get that for free and fortunately for us a lot of international venture capitalists have a more informed and rational view of the role of government and the necessity of investment in the public good that too many older white Californians do.
Mark, the way you use “tree huggers” defines you as a bigot, (the rest of your comment defines you as one who can’t spell).
so now if we make fun of eco wackos we are bigots? wow
Sorry Mark. but it you do the research, California has become one of the leading job producing states.
“Eco wackos?”
“Tree Huggers?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Rush Limbaugh has infiltrated this blog.
So Wilbrecht needed an Asst. Town Manager, but MMM does not?
Wait a minute!
I thought MMM was supposed to supposed to save the town from economic doom.