The recent Eastern Sierra Philanthropy Guide is an impressive, high quality publication.
It is good to see many nonprofit, volunteer organizations serving our area. I couldn’t help being surprised, however, by the omission of many other great groups that do wonderful work and also need support.
Just two of the ones I am personally familiar with are Laws Museum and The Salvation Army.
The 2013 Senior Class of Mammoth High School wishes to express our gratitude for the involvement of Shogun Restaurant, and company, in our Spring Senior Dinner.
With Roxanne and Robbie Tani and Alvin Tani’s support our class has been able to augment our savings, which will be used for our annual spring trip and also for our commencement ceremony.
Without the gracious assistance from staff members, and impeccable organization, our class would be far behind in attempting to fund our trip to the Los Angeles area.
At town meetings, we are beginning to hear more and more references to the term “customers” and less and less of the term “residents.”
Like other small, rural communities in California, Mammoth Lakes faces issues pertaining to a tourist-based economy that involves striking a yin-yang balance between competing economic forces and cultural opportunities that include quality of life for its residents.
I attended the council meeting in December 2012 and voiced my support of providing single-family homeowners with a pathway to TOT compliance. The council voted at that time to commission a study of the issue.
We are still waiting for a decision on the issue, but I understand there may be some new movement with the new support of Mammoth Mountain CEO Rusty Gregory and Snowcreek.
Now is the time for the town council to finally show some leadership and move forward on this issue.
I spoke at the council meeting last week against the TBID. I am certainly no public speaker, as was evident. And I am certainly no lawyer, as was also evident.
However, my dad practiced law for several counties and cities in the Bay Area and was the town attorney for multiple towns for many decades.
He was well known in municipal law circles statewide, and was thus retained many times by Mono and other rural counties for his unique expertise—in taxation, among other things.
A humongous thank you to Nancy Mahannah of Mono County Health Department for organizing our senior activities during STAR testing.
Nancy yearly organizes this symposium for the entire senior class at Mammoth High School. The idea behind the symposium is to help the kids at the end of the school year prepare for the next steps after high school.
It is such a valuable, rewarding experience for the kids to participate in during STAR testing and senior dinners.
Those who know me would tell you that I harbor no love for government, town or otherwise. When an entity such as the Town of Mammoth Lakes decides to circumvent the democratic process by passing measures of taxation that have otherwise failed to garner approval from voters in the past, I can only assume they missed a valuable lesson from history that revolved around the simple idea of no taxation without representation.
A BIG “thank you” goes out to all who donated blood at the bi-annual United Blood Services Blood Drive held on May 13, 14, and 15.
The Mammoth Lakes Hospital Auxiliary coordinated the drive, which was held at the Mammoth Fire Department.
Did you know that one unit of blood can help three people and that one out of seven people that go to the emergency room will have to have a blood transfusion? The United States needs approximately 42,000 units of blood A DAY. That’s a whole lot of blood!
Once again, the issue of single-family home rentals landed in the lap of the Mammoth Lakes Town Council last week.
Mammoth Mountain Ski Area CEO Rusty Gregory popped in out of the blue and, during an otherwise innocuous workshop discussion about the 2013-14 budget, gave a forceful presentation on why Mammoth ought to have such rentals.
Practically no one saw this coming, except for the proponents of the scheme, who were in the Council Chambers (what a surprise) while the opponents, blissfully unaware that the topic was even under discussion, stayed away.
April 24 was International Guide Dog Day, a very important day.
The Guide Dogs For The Blind” (GDB) is a nonprofit organization that helps those who are visually impaired with the gift of independence, freedom, and the gift of helping them continue their journey in life with very special dogs—mostly yellow and black Labradors, golden retrievers, or a mix between a golden retriever and a Labrador.
Today’s (May 6) snow deserves an entry into my diary.
Being May, it’s warm, for Christ’s sake! Friday, some young lovelies were in sport bras—stirring my sports briefs. The snow surface was warm, soft groom. Ideal spring conditions!
During the last few days, thunderstorms settled over Mammoth. Some rain, some warm snow, some hail.
The Mammoth Mountain Ski Patrol would like to take this opportunity to thank all the local establishments that donated awards to our 2012-13 Ski Patrol Awards Banquet.
The continued generosity and support of our Ski Patrol helps to make this event a huge success.
We can hardly remember what it was like around here before John Urdi arrived almost three years ago. Now, it’s hard for us to imagine what Mammoth would be if he were to somehow disappear.
Two major pieces of progress happened this week under the wand of the Mammoth Lakes Tourism Executive Director.
First, Mammoth took its first steps toward establishing a Tourism Business Incentive District, a TBID, joining about 75 other California cities in such a revenue-generating scheme.
The Litigious State
June 10, 2013
It saddened us to see the agenda item during Wednesday’s Mammoth Lakes Town Council meeting about banning skateboarding from all town streets.
The thought of banning anything recreational doesn’t make sense to us, really, regardless of where you live.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world that values common sense anymore, and on top of that, we live in California.
Instead of the Golden State, we should really be called the Litigious State.