Archive - Jan 6, 2012
By
George Shirk/Times News Editor
Two Mammoth men, one of them a member of the Mammoth Unified School District school board, were arrested Wednesday in connection with their sexual involvement with a 14-year-old Santa Barbara girl.
Dr. Andrew C. Bourne, 46, a recent chief of staff at Mammoth Hospital and head of vascular surgery, and Joseph T. Walker, 48, are being held on $1 million bail each.
It might just be the first time in history that it’s been possible to patch asphalt cracks in the middle of January.
Normally a job for the short summer months, roadwork in Mono County comes to a screeching halt every winter.
Except this one
.
Not only is there no snow, it’s been in the 50s and 60s during the day—warm enough to set finicky tar asphalt patches.
The funky and cracked road to the Mammoth Yosemite Airport will be getting a facelift in the next week or so, despite a bit of tug-o-war between the county supervisors Tuesday.
The Mammoth Lakes Lakers, our local pond hockey team, are headed to Minneapolis to compete for the Golden Shovel in the sixth annual U.S. Pond Hockey Championship.
You might not have heard about the Mammoth Lakes Lakers, but they’ve been around as long as … well … as long as Mammoth locals have been skating and playing hockey.
This year, the Mammoth Lakes Lakers are Jeff Posey, Peter Chapman, Mike Rousseau, Ryan Widen, Jim Lynch and Joe Hannigan.
By
Wendilyn Grasseschi/Times Staff Writer
The crabs are gone. All of Mammoth mourns.
Merchants, hoteliers, restaurants and the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area all scrambled this week in the face of a steep dive in visitor occupancy.
In its weekly occupancy projection, Mammoth Tourism said the town is expected to fill to just 38 percent this weekend and 21 percent for the midweek.
Last year at this time, with an overabundance of snow and Mammoth the talk of the ski world, the town filled to 65 percent on the weekend and 35 percent in the midweek.
Many hotels and condo complexes are offering deep discounts, particularly at midweek.
By
george Shirk - Times News Editor
As it turns out, the political wrangling and the financing debates have worked themselves out, adding to a record season at the newly reopened ice rink.
December attendance at the rink doubled over December 2009—the last season the rink was open.
Going into the New Year, the rink already is 85 percent of the total attendance than it had in 2009-10.
“What a time to reopen the Ice Rink,” said Stuart Brown, the Town’s recreation director.
“Attendance has been through the roof and the quality of the experience on the ice for our guests has surpassed our expectations,” he said.
By
George Shirk/Times News Editor
Fido is having the time of his life.
Every day is the finest time of his life, if you ask me, but even I would admit that this day ranks right up there.
He is reading his fortunes.
“Dog who pee on dog gets a leg up on the competition,” he intoned. Waiting a comedic moment, he then howled in glee.
Fido had received a box of dog fortune cookies in the mail. Who from? He doesn’t know. An admirer. But right there on the Chinese takeout box, was the label, “Kung Fu Fido,” made somewhere in Minnesota.
Neither dust nor sun nor heat of night shall keep the Village Championships from their appointed rounds.
“The VCs” begin on Tuesday with the Race Department putting up gates for the first round of racing.
The second round will take place Jan. 24, followed by races on Jan. 31, Feb. 7, Feb. 14, Feb. 28, March 20; and April 3.
The VC team and individual finals will be April 10.
It’s a wide-open competition, as it has been for 36 previous seasons. The racers are local and regional business owners, master’s racers, junior team coaches, ski instructors, current and past competing racers.
Good news from Skip Harvey, owner of the Base Camp Café and town councilman, who says two cancerous tumors in his throat have “shrunk 50 percent.” He says he is taking one FDA-approved drug and another “highly experimental” drug to control the cancer. …
By
George Shirk/Times News Editor
Mammoth Mountain sailed through the holidays just fine, according to ski area CEO Rusty Gregory.
In a carefully-worded memorandum to employees, dated Jan. 1, Gregory said this holiday period the ski area “completed its most successful and New Year holiday period in my 34 years on the mountain.”
Um, well, sort of.
Gregory said in an interview this week that the ski area’s “success” is in context with other dry holiday periods in the ski area’s history—not an all-inclusive, year-by-year breakdown.
Inaccuracies in previous letter
January 6, 2012
The letter titled “For the Nordic Record,” submitted by Brian Knox and published in the Dec. 23, 2011, edition, contains factual inaccuracies that we would like to address here.
The Town of Mammoth Lakes—not MLTPA—has submitted a Measure R application for a multi-year funding commitment supporting a cooperative effort between the Town and the Inyo National Forest to establish and maintain the Mammoth Lakes Trail System (MLTS).