Archive - Dec 2012
December 21st
Disconnect between audience and policy makers
The Mammoth Town Council Wednesday took on the issue of single-family home rentals, but ended up in a circular debate with audience members who did not seem quite clear about the issue at hand.
The issue before the council was whether or not to order the town staff to gather additional research to help move the debate forward.
Mono County’s paramedics have probably saved hundreds of lives since the program came into existence—but like all good things, there has been a cost.
“This program is costing the county about $500,000 a year more every year,” said Mono County Supervisor Vikki Bauer earlier this year. “We have to put the brakes on this growth in cost.”
To that end, the county has been working with the paramedic union, trying to find a way to keep the program without the constant growth in costs.
Schools superintendent, police chief, review school safety plans
Mammoth schools superintendent Rich Boccia said this week that he and Police Chief Dan Watson are reviewing safety procedures in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre that took the lives of 20 kids and six adults.
Boccia, addressing the Town Council Wednesday evening, said neither he nor Watson will over-react.
Congress passes bill, goes to Obama next
The peak in the Eastern Sierra that is to be named after the late Andrea Mead Lawrence is almost a designated peak.
The only thing it lacks is a sign-off by President Obama.
The Senate passed the Mt. Andrea Lawrence Designation Act of 2011 last year, and the House of Representatives signed off on it Thursday.
“Reorge?!?” Fido called, obviously in a state of high consternation.
“Here I am!” I said, padding in from the hallway. “What the heck is going on?”
“There is something here that you should see, and I don’t think it is a good thing at all.”
I looked about, here and there, up and down, side to side.
“Fido, I don’t really see much out of the ordinary here, really.”
“Then what is that THING?” Fido wanted to know.
By
George Shirk - Times Managing Editor
Mammoth is back in the pink.
A major national credit ratings service on Wednesday declared Mammoth âstable,â lifting the town from the dregs of a âhighly vulnerableâ credit rating in the wake of settling its legal battle against Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition (MLLA).
Assistant Town Manager Marianna Marysheva-Martinez delivered the news to the Town Council at its meeting Wednesday evening, just hours after Standard & Poorâs Rating Services raised Mammoth from a âCâ rating to âBB+.â
Using a motion sensor activated camera in Round Valley, members of the Eastern Sierra Land Trust have made a startling discovery.
With a camera purchased with grant funds from the Norcross Wildlife Foundation, ESLT documented 15 different species over a period of five months, ranging from tiny deer mice to the tawny mountain lion.
âWildlife migration corridors are defined as historic routes that many different wildlife species use to travel between different types of crucial habitats,â said the ESLTâs Karen Ferrell-Ingram.
By
Wendilyn Grasseschi â Mammoth Times Staff Writer
Mammoth Dog Teams owner Jim Ouimet and his several dozen husky dogs have been without a permanent place to call home since 2003âand heâs going to have to wait until at least 2013 for that to change.
âWe will be bringing this up to the supervisors probably around the middle of January, with a staff analysis and the bids we have already done in hand,â said Jim Arkens, Mono Countyâs administrator.
Arkens spoke this week, after the outgoing board of supervisors punted another decision about the dogsled business to the incoming board that will take its seat in January.
December 20th
Search efforts continue for the single engine plane that may have gone missing over Yosemite National Park on Monday, December 17.
The pilot, recently identified as 68 year-old Nicol Wilson of Solvang, CA, was flying alone from Santa Barbara to Mammoth Lakes when he was last detected via radar in the afternoon of Dec. 17 near the North Dome area of the park. The plane, a 1966 Single-Engine Mooney, was reported missing by Wilson’s family when he didn’t arrive in Mammoth Monday night.
December 19th
Police arrested an 18-year-old Mammoth man during the early morning hours of Wednesday, Dec. 19, after responding to a call of an intoxicated man who had just left a local hotel.
While searching for the person in sub-zero temperatures, the two officers were called away to handle a domestic violence in progress, police said in a news release. After handling that, they returned to the area of South Frontage Road to continue their search.
On Dec. 17, in another setback for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Kern County Superior Court ruled that LADWP must pay more than one million dollars in fees that itdeliberately withheld related to air pollution control measures for the dried Owens Lake bed.
December 16th
By
George Shirk, Managing Editor
It felt just like any other morning to Mammoth Police Chief Dan Watson.
A letter from Gary Boyd
December 21, 2012
My wife and I would like to thank the community for the outpouring of well wishes, hugs and prayers—they have certainly helped over the past weeks.
My doctors have determined that my event was caused by a low-grade brain tumor.
A plan of treatment from my doctors at University of California San Francisco is in place and I will be starting radiation and chemotherapy in Carson City soon.
I’m feeling good and I’m working to regain my strength.