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Letters to the Editor |
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Friday, 09 May 2008 |
Are we being served or serviced by MLPD?
As a concerned citizen and taxpayer, the recent debate over the Animal Control Officer position and the Town Citizen Committee has had me reflecting on my most recent interactions with MLPD, both at work and in my private life, as well as anecdotes that were shared with me by other concerned citizens regarding their experiences with MLPD.
The experiences I have had have left me feeling more victimized than the incidents themselves, with the feeling that MLPD will railroad people on victimless crimes and ignore real victims and their rights in an effort to keep arrest numbers acceptable, yet lower statistics on real crime in our community.
I have witnessed an experienced MLPD officer tell the victim of a violent assault that was potentially fatal, “Look, he was emotional and I’m not going to take an assault report on this. Why don’t you go apologize to [the perpetrator] and this can all go away? I’ve got more important things to do. There’s a possible gas leak in town.” Aren’t possible gas leaks a Fire Department issue? And who made this guy a judge?
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Memo to Sacramento: hands off public education |
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Friday, 09 May 2008 |
The Mammoth Unified School District is playing out an all-too familiar scenario for public education in America today.
After the California legislature took away local funding for education, passing all the tax revenues through the state Capitol in the quest for equalized school funding, school district after school district found itself facing unsolvable financial issues.
The state — and if you look around you’ll realize it’s every state playing this shell game with public education — finds itself in a financial bind and slashes public education money.
They’ll cite the need for belt tightening across the board, but they take flat amounts of money from every department. This becomes a crisis in school districts with stable or declining enrollment — read "rural school districts."
The spinout of this downhill slide for public education is a meeting like the one last week where the school is forced to decide where $350,000 of cuts will occur.
The choices are torture for administration, staff and students.
Pink slips have been sent to teachers already. That’s required even if the positions are somehow retained at a later date.
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An open letter from the Town of Mammoth Lakes |
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
The Town of Mammoth Lakes is committed to the health of our wildlife, but there appears to be a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation on the issue as it currently stands. This is intended to facilitate public understanding and productive resolution by explaining the background, information and reasoning that led to the Town Council’s decision to pursue a community-based wildlife management group.
Background
At the Sept. 4, 2007, Town Council meeting, after a recent euthanization of a hazard bear in the Lakes Basin by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the dispatching of a fatally injured, car-struck bear by the Mammoth Lakes Police Department, the Council formed a Wildlife Management Committee to address wildlife management policies and, as a related item, the employment status of Steve Searles. The Committee consisted of Mayor Skip Harvey, Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Sugimura, Town Manager Rob Clark, Police Chief Randy Schienle and Director of Human Resources Michael Grossblatt, and met six times over six months. The meetings included discussions with Mr. Searles, Mike Schlafman (US Forest Service), Bruce Kinney (California Department of Fish and Game), Ann Bryant (Tahoe Bear League via conference call) and wildlife management experts from Yosemite National Park.
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