Town council
want building to happen anymore. They’re raising the price on materials.
Cleland Hof: I don’t want to say that this is a trick question.
But it’s just that there isn’t $50 million (sitting around). It’s much more complex than that. I will say that the way that we’ve been going in Mammoth Lakes has been fantastic. When I first started serving on Town Council, it was the midst of... the lawsuit... every town in California knew about our lawsuit and it was almost kind of a joke. Fast forward... and people are coming up to conferences saying, ‘How did Mammoth Lakes manage to do it?’ And I think it’s because, frankly, the Town Council and staff have just done a fantastic job with our money. And if there really was $50 million... I would probably build a really big arts and theater complex thing.
Question 3: Tourism is the economic lifeblood of Mammoth Lakes. What role does the Town of Mammoth play in enhancing the visitor experience?
Cleland Hof: The main problem with our visitor base right now is we frankly don’t have enough people to look after their needs. And so, I think just really working to have people looking after our visitors is the main thing and the only way that we’re going to be able to do that as get more housing.
Seth Guthrie: Well, first and foremost, we need to create a welcoming, crime-free environment. Literally right now if I was to open up a bag of Skittles and dump it out on the table, and then take a non-labeled bag... and drop it on the table and if I were to tell you, “This a known as a bag of Skittles. But (it’s not). It’s called fentanyl. It’s candy-coated fentanyl.” It’s making its way around this country and it’s... a problem here, man. So, the Town considers itself a sanctuary town. You want to protect your illegals, you want to protect your immigrants. You can label them however you want. But if you’re going to protect them and call it a sanctuary town, then you need to take responsibility. That means for the crime that they bring here with them. I pay attention to the reports, I read the reports. I don’t hear anything about ride-alongs from Town Council members. All I hear is a back and forth between the (Police) Chief and the Town Council, the Chief and the (Town) manager... And I find that... there’s a drug problem (which) seems to be ignored. It’s called fentanyl. It’s called methamphetamine. And not enough is being done by people that come here. They want to enjoy their time, they want to enjoy the snow, they want to have their hotel, they want to have their kids safe. They don’t want their car broken into in the parking lot. When we wake up in the morning... people are selling... for drugs... because they know (this is) a sanctuary city. If we want to give tourists a safe place to dwell when they come into town and entertain their family, we need to take responsibility for what comes with it.
Amanda Rice: I think you need to manage the flow of people that come here... Another issue that needs to be addressed is parking. Like I said before about the Lakes Basin, it’s very hard to park there on busy weekends. We need to make sure that people come to Mammoth and they love it. (But) you might have to wait two and a half hours to sit down in a restaurant because they’re shortstaffed; your hotel room might not be very clean because they’re short staffed; it’s hard to ... get your ski rentals done because we’re short staffed. So, I think the Town needs to solve the housing crisis so that we can have enough employees to support the guests to come here and to help them enjoy themselves responsibly.
John Wentworth: What are the roles and responsibilities the Town should play in enhancing that visitor experience? This is a really, really important and developing effort that’s underway... (which also involves) a relationship with the U.S. Forest Service. As we all know, 75 percent of the land base in this town is managed by the federal government... so the town now... works in close partnership with the Forest Service. But the Forest Service nationally just went through a national hiring throttle...trying to hire people and they’re not meeting their numbers. But we as a community may have to step into that space. And make sure that the experiences that people have on the ground is going to be worthy (of coming back).
Betsy Truax: The first role of the Town... is to provide essential services (such as) snow removal, police services, other services related to health and safety. Those have to be the first priorities of the Town, not just for visitors, but also for locals. So once the Town has done those things, then we can move on to talking about some of these things.
Chris Bubser: I have a friend who had just said to me this weekend. ‘If I have to leave my rental apartment because they keep raising the rent and I have to go back to living in my car to get ahead... (it’s going to be a problem).” So I take that seriously. This is people’s reality. But I also think that, as John said, we’re moving in the right direction and we have to just stick together as a community to find ways to create solutions (at the same time) we’re building more affordable housing.
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