Archive - 2011
August 27th
Happy 96th to Dave McCoy! âŠ
From tourism chief John Urdi on Wednesday morning: âNice wake-up call this morning at 5 a.m. with a 4.2 magnitude earthquake.â âŠ
Mike Abbott on Facebook Wednesday morning: âUmmmmm ... was that an East Coast aftershock here?â âŠ
Yep, that was Dan Hansen of MMSA rodding about, here and there. âJust drove a Bentley Continental GT Supersport Convertible. It was a little painful to get back into my truck afterwards.â âŠ
August 24th
Yosemite National Park suffered its 17th death this year, when a climber fell to his death off the face of Half Dome Monday afternoon.
The park normally has about 12 to 15 fatalities a year, making the first eight months of 2011 already a record-breaking year. High, swift, cold rivers and creeks and a record number of visitors to the park this summer have contributed to the deadly year, but park officials recently told the Mammoth Times they are not sure exactly what other factors might be involved, if any.
August 12th
By
Wendilyn Grasseschi - Times Staff Writer
Following last weekâs heated meeting regarding the Bodie Hills and other national Wilderness Study Areas (WSA), the MT asked all five of the Mono County Supervisors to weigh in on the future of the process. Here is what they had to say, in their own words.
(Supervisor Larry Johnston left for vacation right after that meeting and was not available for comment by press deadline.)
Byng Hunt, District 1 (Mammoth):
By
George Shirk - Times Senior Writer
A green light couldnât get more green.
The âMammoth Viewâ project, an innovative, 54-room hotel with 24 townhouses and 28 freestanding cabins, complete with a spa building, hot tubs and picnic areas, won a complete victory from the town this past week.
It will have a restaurant and bar, public art, walking areas for just anybody-old-who, and a trolley stop.
Itâll have a walkway in front, along Main Street, a reconfiguration of the stoplight at Main Street and Minaret Road, and bring in about a trillion billion gazillion dollars in transient occupancy tax.
So they say.
An estimated 520 cars entered the Crowley Lake Fish Camp to watch the Fourth of July Fireworks. The Town received $2,600 (20 percent of the $25 entrance fee), which ainât bad. But that wonât erase The JudgmentâŠ
Heads up! On Sept. 10, the Whitmore Pool closes for the season and this has been a darned short summer seasonâŠ
Mammoth Mountain recorded 1,293,341 skier visits for the 2010/11 season, just soâs you know. Darned long winter seasonâŠ
August 6th
By
George Shirk - Times Senior Writer
âIâd like to have a Happy Hour.â
Fidoâs funny like that. He comes up with things that are so out of the blue that I hardly know what to think.
âIt sure sounds like fun,â he said. âI just donât know what it is. Letâs have one.â
âWe can have as many as we want,â says I. âWhatâs your idea?â
âIdea? Iâm a dog. I donât have ideas. I have instincts.â
âTell you what. After work, weâll have a Happy Hour.â
âHey hey hey hey!â
By
George Shirk - Times Senior Writer
The contractors won the pennant! The contractors won the pennant!
All right, so it wasnât exactly that dramatic at Wednesdayâs Town Council meeting, but to Mammoth builders it must have seemed like Bobby Thomson had just stepped to the plate and swatted a drive into the lower deck of the left field stands.
When they walked out of the Council Chambers, they had a victory, although not a total, hands-down victory.
First of all, there was no actual action.
By
Wendilyn Grasseschi - Times Staff Writer
âNo.â
That was the Mono County Supervisorsâ almost united response to Tuesdayâs request by a Bridgeport community group to take the Bodie Hills Wilderness Study Area out of its semi-protected status.
In fact, the board was so irritated by the resolution and the way it ended up on the agenda, they refused to vote on it, leaving it to die an undignified death.
âFireball,â the iconoclastic checker at Vons, showed up the other day with a hairnet over his shaved pate. Didnât slow him down a whitâŠ
Our own Shaylyn Riley and boyfriend Scott Smith came in second in the first heat of the co-ed canoe race last Saturday at the Firemenâs BBQ Yeah!âŠ
August 2nd
Two controversial issues, redistricting and the Bodie Hills, go before the Mono County Supervisors today and both can be viewed and participated in in Mammoth via videoconference as well as in Bridgeport, at the county courthouse, second floor, Supervisor's Chambers.
The Mammoth meeting room is in the Shogun mall, on the third floor, at the far south end of the building, on the left. It will be obvious when you get there, if you just follow the hallway almost all the way south to the end, and turn left.
July 30th
July 29th
By
George Shirk - Times Senior Writer
If there is a more perfect motorcycle route in California than the Sonora Pass Road, Arlie Ray Blacksheer and Sarah Kazmark canât think of many, if any at all.
âWe come up here for the views all the time,â said Blacksheer, a sales consultant at California BMW in Mountain View (Bay Area).
As he spoke, he held a pair of high-powered binoculars to his eyes, inspecting a rock face near the summit on the western side of the pass.
âThe water is seeping right through the rocks!â
By
Wendilyn Grasseschi - Times Staff Writer
Say it isnât so.
After more than a decade of divisive debate over the fate of Mono Countyâs federal Wilderness Study Areaswith no clean solution, the argument comes back again next week.
A Bridgeport community group has put a resolution on the county supervisorâs agenda Tuesday that will ask the supervisors to support releasing some of the county â and the nationâs â wilderness study areas from the federal protection they now have.
By
George Shirk - Times Senior Writer
The Mammoth Lakes government tribes gathered Wednesday evening in a Woodstock moment.
If they had held hands and sung âKumbaya,â no one would have been much surprised.
The sit-down was to approve a âResort Investment Elementâ â basically an amendment to the townâs 2007 General Plan.
Its importance could not be overstated:
âLetâs build a Big Top,â said community development director Mark Wardlaw to the assembled commissioners.
By
George Shirk - Times Senior Writer
Fido says he wants to join a dating service.
Me, I was listening to a baseball game, concentrating on a two-on, two-out, one-run game, and this took me by surprise.
âWhat the heck-fire?â said I.
âItâs not that Iâm lonely, but Iâd like to have someone of my ilk to share experiences, romp around, get into sniffing contests, have conversations, discuss brands of kibble, that kind of thing.
âGood God, man,â I said. âMammoth has more dogs than humans. Are you sure youâre not already sitting on a canine gold mine?â
Save the Bodie Hills
July 30, 2011
Next Tuesday, the Mono County Board of Supervisors will be asked to support a pending House bill that strips some 60 million acres of federal lands from possible wilderness designation, including more than four million acres in California.
The Supervisors should not.