At Wednesday’s town council meeting, the members considered a proposal that they create a new committee, this one called “The Town Council and Planning Commission Liaison Committee.”
Planning Commission Chair Tony Barrett and Vice Chair Jay Deinken put it before the council.
They argued that the creation of such a committee “can ensure the effective and efficient completion of the Fiscal Year 2010-11 Budget Work Program.”
We know a guy who keeps a list of the worst jobs in the world, or, if not the worst jobs, jobs he would never do, for whatever reason.
They’re the ones you might expect: summer highway construction in South Dakota; working the blood pit in your neighborhood slaughterhouse; working timber on the Sierra’s (hot) west side.
We’ve got another one: Town Manager.
There’s a reason why town managers last only four or five years on average.
In the little town where I come from, we took Groundhog Day seriously.
It was entirely frivolous and silly, and mostly it was a Shirk thing, but it eventually grew into a town thing.
The town is Oelwein, Iowa. It is a burg of about 7,000 souls, situated in the northern part of the state.
There is nothing to stop the brutal arctic wind that howls down from Canada. By Feb. 2, we all needed a break and at least a good laugh, if not a trip to the Caribbean.
There’s an old coaching expression that goes something along the lines of “Hide your weaknesses; exploit your strengths.”
In the wake of the loss of the $30 million Hot Creek lawsuit appeal, Mammoth would be wise to follow that advice.
We’re really good at recreation.
We’ve known that all along, but during the late 90s and early 2000s, we let other things (development, primarily) crowd into the discussion, and we weren’t very good at it.
Monday Jan. 17 marks the 25th observation of the Martin Luther King holiday, as signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, and first celebrated in 1986. King is honored due to his leadership in the Civil Rights movement, during which he promoted nonviolent resistance to racist laws and policies in the United States.
So said former Mammoth Lakes Town council member Kathy Cage, after learning the Town lost its appeal of the airport/Hot Creek decision last week.
“We didn’t have the expertise we needed to negotiate such high level agreements,” she said.
Cage’s assessment could all too easily be applied to far more than just the most recent airport embroilment.
The appeals court’s Dec. 30 decision that found the Town on the wrong side of a $30 million lawsuit is only the latest in a series of high-profile legal snafus.
Looking back at 2010, we can see that our problems are as big as ever.
We have diverse seasons, major issues, inundations of visitors, yet one mantra has been ringing out for much of the year: preparation for renewal.
Our attitude toward solving those problems may have undergone a kind of tectonic shift.
The Planning Commission, the Town Council, the Recreation Commission, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area and individual businesses have all endorsed the notion of being ready when reinvestment comes to town.
We have high hopes for the Mammoth Ambassadors Program.
Our service personnel are critical to our image and to our collective well being, but sometimes enough is enough.
Case in point. At a recent meal in a local restaurant, the waiters were overly friendly and solicitous to the point of intrusiveness on the customers’ conversation. One diner made a specific request, but when the meal came, that request was unfulfilled, ignored.
Science of apparently astronomical proportions happened last week, with the announcement that Mono Lake harbors arsenic-munching critters in its waters hit the news.
Maybe. Maybe not.
“NASA’s Mono Lake Arsenic Microbes Not Quite as Advertised,” headlined the Tucson Citizen on Dec. 9.
“Serious concerns have been raised about the conclusions,” said Discover Magazine, linking to Guardian.co.uk, an ocean away.
Town Council is considering how to manage the spending of Measure R and Measure U funds, appointing committee members to help with the issue and considering some very high-end, and worthwhile, projects. All in the name of addressing the needs of ALL recreation opportunities in Mammoth for residents and visitors, and to create a sustainable economy year round. The projects under consideration all require enormous capital outlay, and one recreational opportunity missing from the discussions is to open up the existing Motocross track for public recreational riding.
Gee, let’s have another committee
February 5, 2011
This is how government and bureaucracies work:
At Wednesday’s town council meeting, the members considered a proposal that they create a new committee, this one called “The Town Council and Planning Commission Liaison Committee.”
Planning Commission Chair Tony Barrett and Vice Chair Jay Deinken put it before the council.
They argued that the creation of such a committee “can ensure the effective and efficient completion of the Fiscal Year 2010-11 Budget Work Program.”