Rob, we were thinking those were sitting there, but the chair has a little massager in the back.
Oh, it was a key. What was that?
I don't need to. I just need to.
We're doing a whole series on mental income housing.
Because then we'd be like, what is that?
What is that?
There are numbers.
Three more?
Yeah, I think there's how many more markers, how many more middle income presentations do you have?
Three or two more information.
And then we have the policy item, the last one.
The fourth one. Okay. Yeah.
Do we have an extra page copy of this?
It's down here with all this.
There was no chair. I figure it was left that way.
I couldn't get a thousand cent for all the town people.
You should sit down here, my queen, and me.
Well, I could have gone down there.
You should walk around the table and make people move.
We should walk out half the table.
I kind of feel like this is like school.
Like, I'm just down here.
Who's down here?
Man up is down here.
Yeah, it's so clean.
It is.
The chiefs will sit down.
That's it, you guys.
Thank you.
Yeah, chiefs over there.
I didn't bother you. I thought you were in.
Oh, yeah, I just wrapped up.
So, sorry, that's not Alice covered in that.
We've been waiting for you to arrive.
Okay.
You got to sit right here.
If you'd rather share.
I hope you guys, I sent the paper off the door because you know, it was called we, and it felt like we're sequestered.
Yeah.
Do you know what the lines to clear to my juices break from it and want to tell the staff they're in here.
You guys at the memo that we're attached today.
I wish I would have.
He was going.
Great.
Who's the chair of this?
He has a hundred degrees.
He's holding it.
At least the rest of the room.
All right.
I'm like, why does somebody get a call with the whole breakfast?
Well, so we were that.
And we're like trying to figure out who you're not here.
Who's going to do it?
That is a fishing would not be where there's an outcome
This is the regular meeting, May 7th of the Motor County and Town and Man with Lakes Liaison Committee, and our first opportunity, our first item is an opportunity for the public to
to address the board.
There's something on the agenda or not on the agenda.
Do we have anybody online?
There are no hands raised on the Zoom.
I'm here.
So we'll move to our second agenda item,
which is meeting minutes.
Bending minutes from our February 5th meeting.
I vote to approve the minutes as stated.
Second.
Okay, great.
All those in favor?
Aye.
We'll move to to be and this is a discussion of topics of interest for the two bodies the town in the county. Our first item is rent control for mobile home parks.
And this may be a surprise for some of you, and others of you, it may not be a surprise,
this topic.
But don't think it's a surprise for any of us, could we also receive some of those e-mails
and I think our crew has been working on some white paper board and other elements that
we have from our attorney and I think we're ready to share some stuff or use the dialogue
around it.
Yeah, so I can jump in and Marcus can fill in the blank. So real quick before we get to that, I mean, so this came to this board, I think through a series of emails from community members concerned about rent increases that they were having locally in town and I think they copied all of the
they elected, you know, I think they're part of the board of supervisors, as well as county
council.
I'm going to go out and get a couple of words because Kathy Copeland became aware of it and
put this first in the touch with me, which I went there, but anyway, she just started
that dialogue again, that the owner here is a very nice, he trails around, raises
rents, doesn't do anything around here, doesn't listen to friends, doesn't
say anything with these numbers are rent. So I think I've reached out to Jennifer who, you know,
helped me understand more about what the legalities of who has the actual power, if any, to control rent
in home parks. And then she, my suggestion to her was that she copy other people, that she
maybe come to a town council meeting and talk about it. So that'd be someone who works at
the hospital who got more interested in being able perhaps to do something about this.
Sure and so yeah it came to us you know within the town there's there's two mobile
parks within the town. I'm not sure how many there are outside of the town in the
county or if the county's even looking at doing anything countywide.
And so we had after we got interested began talking with Andy and he was
are incidentally trucky as a similar issue. They had tasked BVK with kind of
producing a white paper on it because BVK has a lot of experience elsewhere about
kind of how it can be done, different formats that cities have
successfully done with it. The kind of underlying or like bottom line is you
have cities and jurisdictions absolutely can do rent control in mobile
home parks. However, you still have to provide an opportunity for the mobile home park owner to
make kind of a modest return on their asset that they own. So you can't just go in and say, you
know, absolutely you cannot raise rents. You have to set up in such a way. So Andy did share
that white paper out with all the town council members in an email earlier today with just
It's kind of some background, some bullet points and rather we have touch race and if
that can be shared out with county or not.
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that but I think there's some.
Yeah, you also provided a link in there that we can definitely share the link out of there's
a kind of a database that has links to every city or county that has a mobile home park
right control so links to all of their ordinances and where he definitely comes
from looking at those is that everyone is different and how they're doing it and
so Mark if you want to add anything on that yeah I mean generally it's kind of
linked to like inflation so like the consumer price index you can't really
go back either so it'd be like whatever the rents are now and kind of cap it
going forward, but it's not really going to solve the current problem of, I think, a
schedule, especially as like the higher currently has quite high rents are ready.
So I think for us anyway, after we get through some legal things, I think it'll be setting
expectations about what can and cannot be done because I think certainly you can do
kind of some control going forward, but it may not solve the current times immediate
issues.
And then those issues of like poor management or disputes with the management, things
like that that wouldn't really address any of that it would we're really just
talking about the rent and it's pretty limited so yeah I think a lot of that if
we did a presentation I think that would be kind of focus the presentation be
what we can and cannot do and kind of setting the expectations so may I
questions I had because I read all of that modest return but it doesn't say
based on what so a modest return for the gentleman that owns the park we're
talking about you bought it in the 60s paid nothing for it so is it based on
the that cost advertised out over or is it based on what the value of that
property is if he uses it to build condos or something else because as an
mobile home park it's value is here as well that's the great thing about the
town it's zoned mobile home so it can't become condos unless you as the town
council change the zoning of it. Is it on mobile home? Yes both of them are zoned mobile home and
that's beautiful the county doesn't have that and something we're talking about you mentioned you
didn't know what the county was doing we're talking about you know do we want to do that
because it is a good model to maintain the value if you will that it because it can't be
improved the pond to a higher rate.
It's its own mobile home parks and our presumed in so that
designation only applies to the two parks and then we have some
footage if we were to add any new areas like with the
what the development standards would have to be for those.
But the bill they return basically though it says the fair return in
quotation marks is based it can be based on a return on investment
or a return on the value or more maintenance of that income.
So it's not, it's determined by the decisions that are made in the ordinance.
So I think that's part of, yeah, when you look at everyone, every, every ordinance is structured in a different way.
There's a precedent, like there's like a legal framework that you're sort of limited by because this has gone through the courts, I think multiple times.
Yes.
So then you have choices of how you could do that analysis and that would be the decision
like where do you want to set that benchmark, where every year you're doing that analysis
and setting that rate.
Right, I'm assuming we would have to start with the current benchmark or what is currently
charging.
Absolutely.
Which is a massive profit.
Right, but at least you're stabilizing it and that's why it's actually called
a rent stabilization, not rent control, it's rent stabilization, that's what they're
technically called, and why that's really all it does is preclude it from going up just
arbitrarily and ties it to something.
So there's a little bit more of a baseline and a no for the owners, like, okay, we can
expect this or no more than this every year.
So they can budget for it and plan for it.
And when they sell it, they can tell the new buyers, you know, you can plan for
it too.
it's not just going to be all over the place, because the states never included mobile home
parks in their rent stabilization laws, like they have apartments.
But I spoke with a gentleman who's been doing this for 35 years writing these policies.
I did put him in touch with Marcus, and he emphasized that it's really important
and to make your policy as court-proof as possible
by making it equitable.
Because if you just go one-sided,
you're gonna end up in court and you don't wanna do that.
So he's very good at writing those policies
that encourage you if you go down that route,
at least to have a conversation with him.
I know you work with BBK,
but anyway, that's my recommendation.
And so I think our position was step one, Andy, sending out that white paper to council
members and then kind of, you know, we're looking for some feedback, you know, via raw
from council.
Do you want this to come to council as kind of a discussion item, kind of presenting
on the various, here's different, here's what it is, here's different ways this can
be implemented and then kind of getting council feedback if there's an interest to come
back with an ordinance or to go further on this because you know it's paying the
feedback you know via council via the community is this something adventurous
versus us just bringing something forward. Yeah because I get concerned a
little bit from the standpoint of you got somebody who's got challenge with the
ski trails it may be fairly different now someone comes in R2 and they've got
challenged with their condo complex and wants us to control rents in the
So I just want to make sure we're equitable and how we approach.
You can't do that.
Are you sure?
Yeah, you can't control an HOA.
They all have rights and they're voting members.
They own it.
So they couldn't control it.
What if it's not an HOA?
What if it's a rental property within the zone that's renting out and now they feel
that they're being overburdened.
A multi-family?
A multi-family home.
They already have right control.
The state has right control.
Yeah, but I just want to make sure we're fair and that's part of the conversation is making
sure that's part of the discussion if we're looking at imposing a mandate on one area
that would just be fair across board.
I think the mobile home is kind of a specialized thing.
This rent stabilization and kind of the way it's gone through the courts and through
the laws is pretty unique.
It's a unique kind of segment of housing.
You know, reading that whole document, this is me personally, and I think I can't
believe the rents are charging down there.
just obscene. And I've heard from people in both mobile home parks and my capacity at
Mammoth Lakes Housing for over a decade people have been coming in the office and very scared of
retaliation and not willing to come to the town council and coming through Mammoth Lakes
Housing at that time and it just never went anywhere when I would have conversations with
folks at the town. So I'm happy to at least hear that it's being discussed right now
But it's not new and it's not just specific to that park. It's both of them
The other one went through a ownership transition, you know within the past probably I don't know five or ten
somewhere you know somewhat recently and
You probably are familiar with that one a little bit to Linda and and they had the same challenges that
Rents went way up and services went down and they were very upset as well. So I don't think it's just one park
No, it's all two is that you know
The threat that I've heard over the years from at least one of the owners of the mobile
park is fine. I'll just sell it, and I think the bill passes on it. But usually the zoning
would prevent that. So we're better out of town than we would be in the county.
Yeah.
I think regardless of the zoning, I'm correct, I'm wrong. It's very hard to remove a mobile
park.
Yeah, right.
Regardless of its own mobile park or not, in the state of California, there's state
law, there's a process.
Well, and the owners have, I think, an opportunity to buy, and I'm not that familiar with it,
but there's a significant process, not just you can't just sell it.
And I think the market's at it.
But they do.
Well, I mean, it happens.
It does happen.
It happens like in Palo Alto.
It's happening all over.
It does happen.
And I don't think there's a requirement that they have an opportunity to buy it.
But it's not reduced.
It's at market value.
Right.
I mean, it's very tough for the tenants to buy it without some kind of subsidy.
But it is an important piece of our sort of housing stock, if you will, because it's a certain need for that.
And when we do, you know, adding up what you get every year, does that – what's the weight of mobile home space, as opposed to just like a rental unit?
Are you thinking like Raina?
Yeah, yeah.
No, it doesn't count at all.
No, it's really just intrinsic to your infrastructure of your community.
Your community mountains.
It doesn't kind of mean at all.
No, because it's not restricted.
Yeah.
And it provides, I mean, it provides in the inventory of housing, they were to go away
to be...
I don't know where we'd be.
After the data we got last night from you, Margaret.
I think it's an important consideration, right?
We're talking about potentially imposing this rent stabilization and that's going
to potentially cause a sale.
and then we're not going to have that housing at all, you know, some of the way, certainly,
and we can look at that a little bit, but hard to predict, right? I mean, I don't think it would go
away because it's got to stay a mobile home. Sure, but they could change the kind of the type of,
right, or there's different ways that they can do mobile home, right? Well, I mean,
I guess they could make it like a senior only, and they could bring in nicer homes and like
I'm thinking because that right now is kind of, you know, it's a lot older mobile homes
there and the way it's laid out and they potentially change that.
Yeah.
So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
So it's been said to council as far as the information that we have.
You're seeking whether that can be shared with the county, the documents?
Yeah, I know Annie had some concern just that the way the documents are written,
you don't want to be just put out to the public broadly.
Right.
The link can stop. I think what's in the body of the email can be shared as well.
I think there's 80 jurisdictions in the state, is that right?
Yeah, this database is pretty robust. I don't know who put it together, but it kind of...
I was like, links to every department is really useful.
I'd like to see the county get serious about this.
Okay.
I think it would be great if we ultimately go forward with something the county does,
if there can be alignment on policy too because the other side of it is if we did
go forward with any kind of rent stabilization you only have two parks but
if we have something on both creating it we absolutely have to do oversight on it
and actually like enforce whatever we put we can't just say like okay you're
You have to 3% CPI a year and then do nothing like it.
And I wrote a term.
My approach was I have questions on it because someone bought four units maybe down there.
They bought four mobile homes.
They bought four units, a clean company.
And they got staff stand there.
Oh, okay.
So they're using it for housing.
I mean, that seems, it's not illegal, what's wrong with that?
No, now they're selling the units.
They're trying to sell them to the people that just rented them at a very high price.
And so it's like this whole thing of, okay, but we're going to get rid of you if you don't buy the unit, so you need to buy the unit.
So there's some, just, there's a lot of little...
Well, that sounds like maybe a legal aid issue.
But just saying it may not be anything illegal but just in fact people are trying to monopolize
on that space and charge exorbitant amount of money.
So I'm going to kind of reach out and poll the council to see if they want to do that.
I guess my question to the county is is there anything that we feel we can work together
on this combined or is it two separate things and maybe we support the execution of each
of those and they wouldn't, I don't help each other on this. So the county is looking at a mobile home
park in Bridgeport, the owner of which we sell and we're trying to facilitate preservation of that
with the affordable rent so that it doesn't go to somebody who's going to jack up their rents
because they're really affordable but as I said we don't have any mobile home specific, I think
it might be sound commercial and it's not conforming. But when I spoke with Sandra about
this, she was surprised to learn that we didn't have the same zoning as the town. So I think
it's something we need to talk about. Maybe the housing ad hoc could put it on our agenda
and talk about it and see if we want to bring something. Because I think it's,
If we do this pilot where we help somebody buy this mobile home park, maybe a non-profit
ideally and preserve it as affordable housing, maybe that's a model that we do with throughout
the county.
That's kind of where we've been approaching it from, not so much the land use side
or the rent stabilization, but if a non-profit owned it, that would inherently create some
rent stabilization.
So it's kind of different ways to go about it, I guess, and I'm not sure where the county wants to go.
Is there any incentive to rezone?
That's, I think, a lot more complicated.
We talked, Sandra and I talked a little bit about that.
I mean, the board has the right to do that, right?
We have the policing power.
I believe, right, no one has land use.
What are you supposed to be on?
Isn't that a tank?
Yeah, if you were to.
I don't think you could just apply, you'd have to probably compensate them in some way
for-
Yeah, that's kind of what we were wondering what we would have to do.
So maybe the route we're looking at where we financially incentivize like a deed restriction
on them is a better route for us as the county versus the rent stabilization.
So I think we need to talk some more about it because we're in a different, a little
bit of a different both than you are.
So the state has, I'm going back in my mind, dealing with customers, the mobile home parks
here when the first huge almost double increase came in and I was told by one of the owners
that the reason to do that was one, they would love to buy it up so they'd get rid
of the mobile homes, but two, the state was coming forward with legislation which
I thought happened, it would, once you are a mobile home park, would restrict you from
just selling.
Even if it's not zoned that way, and again, this is my memory here, I haven't looked
this up recently, you would have to pay for the relocation of all of those things.
In fact, the case in the zoning almost makes no difference.
The other was, I was under the impression that quite a while ago, the state made it
so that they can only raise the rate by a certain percentage each year, which was another
reason that the two owners, the two families that owned those parks, doubled the rent before
any of that went into place.
So it's been threatened.
This legislation keeps coming forward and it gets lobbying right out.
So it hasn't been successful at this day.
Okay. With regards to the relocation, I don't know the ins and outs of the relocation, but maybe Andy could find out for you guys.
We really didn't go to the next. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a big one. air curtain burners. This is another hot topic in my book anyway.
I don't know Paul is on Paul. Oh, you're here so that's great.
Sorry.
I don't know if you guys all know Chad Sr. and he's going to be our new Public Works
Director.
Congratulations.
Yeah, it's very exciting.
And we bought one with some grant money and we have it.
And we've been talking about it since, I don't know, when, December.
And lo and behold, it's not ready because we need a permit, I guess.
Which is frustrating.
Is it the permanent, located one of the homeless or?
Yeah, homeless valley, but the hold up right now I think is the Great Basin.
Yeah.
They don't really, they've never done it permanently just before, so they're trying to kind of
work through that side of things.
The time frame I have, when I go from, I haven't been involved too much in some time
to catch up.
Okay.
But it was purchased, delivered on March 2nd, permanent was submitted to the Great
based on on the third. They won't look at it until you receive a check. So they sent a check
out and 12 of this one March. Okay. So they're looking at it and they have a 30 day comment
period that was stated in April 20. So the estimated timeline from Karen is approximately
the end of June for them to get kind of everything in order on the set limits on
the burrowing is hopefully.
The initial previous conversations are worse than limits passed about, I thought, for that.
From which side?
Well, I think Paul had some stuff.
Well, we per the permit would require the burrowing $5,000 tons a year.
Okay.
Great basin was looking at setting something slightly above that as a limit, which is
worth $6,000.
$6,000.
Yeah.
But that's to be determined.
And that's, yeah, by location, right?
Yes.
And that one's permanent and then, I guess, ESCOG didn't get the funding yet to buy it.
It's still waiting.
Yeah.
And that would be a more mobile one.
Yeah.
What is the cost of the mobile one?
I don't know.
She's in 250, I think.
Because we, that's what we have a great interest in.
I was wondering, did you guys buy one?
No.
We should find a new way to test drive yours.
Or the ASCOV-1, maybe, because you were having a smaller one.
His paradise already has it, so I took the test.
I know.
Yeah, this is frustrating for me personally,
because I've been really thinking that we were going to get a lot done this summer.
And I think at the POMA's landfill, we will still.
Yeah, it's going to happen this summer.
because it could pile up right. We can still bring stuff from like Town Cleanup Day up there and it
could sit. Yeah we have some big piles there and we need to burn them. Yeah we we got a little
black eye last time from yeah from I don't know who it was it was upset about it but
us our town cleanup efforts right produced a lot of materials for that landfill and
So I'm interested in that. But I think, you know, our, our desire is to understand how that functions and whether or not it is something that we may use some recommendation one time funding to acquire for the town.
And, you know, working with Alice's graph or new gravel truck, really kind of getting an opportunity to get stuff off the landscape sooner rather than later.
How big is Grapple? Like how big is...
So it's basically like almost like you see, it's not quite an 18-wheeler, but it's just
a standard truck to see remove snow. It's a big Grapple that can fill it. This one's a little
unique because it's a slide-off. So it almost feels like a standard container if you've seen
But, you know, the grapple is the actual clothe.
The grapple of the clothe, I think that was rated for 1,000 pounds, just in the field actually.
And so it's made to pick up, like, piles of limbs and stuff, it's really not made for
a long time.
And then you would take that to families.
If that's where it's going.
And yes, we had some discussions on, you know, do we have these mobile air curtains?
And I guess the question is, if we're permitting it for going mobile, one, should we start
to get on that now if it's a, is that a possibility for the second one? And then are we doing that
per site or are we doing that per unit?
No questions.
But it has to be burning in order for a grade base to do the testing, right?
No, no, there's precedent, so I've actually seen coordination with Nalata County, View
County, and in Kerm County. They've all had permits through their air boards.
They
any kind of information from them, copies of their permits and what they've done and
the Great Basin.
But Great Basin, no, sounds rude, but I mean, they do realize that the county is one of the
signatures and on the board of directors of Great Basin.
So are we getting the best service possible from Great Basin?
Was that technical?
Did I, did I do that?
We're getting blocked out service, consummate, web, signature.
It's a legitimate question.
Thank you.
We are in constant coordination with them, let's just say that.
Do we need to send a letter?
I'll have to give you the term.
So the question that Alice raised is a really good one.
I was today because we're on board.
I wasn't there other than that.
You're on board.
Because I know they talked about it being a permit by location,
but it has to probably also tie to a particular unit in that location.
I'm just assuming, but I don't know.
Yeah, we'd have to have all the specs for whatever you're going to buy if you wanted to do it before you need to do it.
But like if we were to do the, like let's say the mobile one that SCOG is specced out, we said okay that's the model.
Let's say we get the test drive at once and it's pretty cool and we want to buy, you know, get something like that.
Do we just say this is the specs, this unit will be in these locations, we get permits for all that.
And then decide how we want to roll it. And I think looking for how to implement.
Yeah, because regardless of this, it was going to be a tool for this area. So can we start
the permit process now? If we can, do we need to do it for different locations or do we
need to do it for the unit, essentially?
I don't have the exact answer for that. I think you could start doing it early if
you have the locations and they can start developing the bare minutes for you. And then
And once you actually purchased, they could probably,
you thought you prepared to move forward.
I was sure you have his thoughts around a site
in town that you would want to do it if we had a mobile one.
Yeah, I think we can talk, that's gonna depend on this.
It doesn't take up a ton of space,
so we could, I mean the two logical ones
are town yard where we had the wood last time.
That would probably suffice,
if we wanted to not go there,
we could do it, we lost his trailer,
So we can talk to Chris and who, since ESCOG is technically running this, can we assist
them or is there somebody who can run with the program?
I think we should, in my mind, talking out loud.
the piece of equipment at Thomas is stationary and there's more material than
you guys can deal with in a season. Correct. And so working out a collaborative
program for a mobile unit will probably take the count of going through an
exercise to figure out which communities get it, timing of that, how
the town would participate in that, and then building a program. We need that
to give to Great Basin to say here's our plan, here's the unit, here's the projected amount of
material so that we can give them what they need to start doing, you know, whatever it is they're
going to do. For the county it would probably want to center around the community cleanup days
that we have, those communities have them. That would make sense to block out that
whatever how many days those are put it on in the presentation nice yeah I think
that makes sense to me I mean I mean for the equipment for all year yeah yeah
the equipment can whether or not great basins right up to that limit real
restrictions at us but I think it's who's is to start dabbling in this to see
It was 5,000 tons a year, a smaller burner would obviously be different.
That mobile burner has some other unique characteristics.
It has to be moved every so often.
The ash builds up and it has to be relocated.
So we probably want to spend some time looking at the different sites
and kind of making sure that it works for that equipment.
Does the material have to be fully dried before it burns?
No, one of the advantages is when the forest pile burns,
you're looking at three years, we could move material much quicker.
Yeah, I'm just thinking about all that stuff.
Yeah, we'll say that there is some issues depending on what you're going to burn.
There's the Title V, I don't know if you remember that,
where it kind of governs air regulations for anything.
you want to kind of avoid the tidal five process if you have to. What I mean by that is if we're
going to do a pumice valley is designate the white as traditional fuels. No, it's not like
we're burning trash at all. It's not like we're burning anything that is considered trash. It's
all clean white. And if you go try to para for something else, you're going to open up
of the canworms in three title five per minute.
And it burns cleaner than just letting it burn naturally.
Yeah, much cleaner.
It essentially reburns the suit that comes out of there
and it's much cleaner than open air burning.
Yeah, there's some value to the carbon that comes out of it.
There is the ability, if you had clean soil,
good clean soil that you can add that to the ash
and produce biochar and that is a benefit
for agricultural and stuff like that.
You'll be able to find a partner and some agriculture down south that's interested that would take our material
I don't think it's an option for promise folly because it's kind of like something sand up there. I'm not sure it would work
You know you think about this program we're mitigating trips, right?
This is not just about bringing this great opportunity
to the communities.
It's about mitigating the transport of this material.
So just think about how many vehicle miles traveled we
are saving by moving this equipment around.
But if we can find a partner to pick up the char or the ash,
because that's something we would have to haul.
The ash can be used as alternative data
to cover at the landfill.
So we could take it to Bethany?
Theoretically.
So, something we are also working on, and I don't want to get anybody's hopes up, but
it's going to be a little bit of a lift, is we are working with the Forest Service to
build a sustainable program at the airport head.
And the concept would be that we take the fees collected from the reclamation site and
and then pour that into a fuels management program
and use the bottom of the pit to store logs,
slash and so forth, get it off the forest
and then use the funds to burn it or chip it
or whatever the case may be
and just basically get it off the forest.
Because the amount of fuels that are coming out of the forest
and out of our neighborhoods is just unsustainable
at this time.
It's just, I don't know if anybody's been
up to the lake space and yet,
but there are piles the size of a single family home
up there that they're intending to burn.
And that's my question. If we're limited to 5,000 times for this, I don't know.
But the four servers might be burning. I don't know.
There's a crackled loop.
You go apples to apples. It's not even a comparison.
Right. I know. That's why I brought that up.
That meeting that you guys had about the, what was it on the, I don't know, anyway.
Why is nobody talking about reducing GHGs, but nobody is talking about all the burning we're doing, which is crazy to me.
It's like a blinder about all of that.
I'm not that it's not necessary, but how it escapes.
We're also looking for a new home for the one on Rite Aid and I was like, we'll put it
inside the storage unit and we can fix this.
That's just put it by a, that's not an official one.
Oh, very much so.
So that's there.
That monitor the town funds that we fund it in.
Oh, okay.
That's fine.
The local ones that they monitor.
Yeah, we should put that.
Yeah.
But you said risk and that is a concern and not being alarmist, but these giant piles
are they're an attractive nuisance in my opinion for a firebuck.
We just walked right over here in the parcel between the hospital schools.
The goal is we work through a sequel exemption so we can work it quicker.
and basically where we're hitting our head is, okay, what are we going to do with all this wood?
And so I was like, oh, we're going to haircut in the meeting next time. But it's like, yeah,
we need to figure out that piece of how to get it there because it's my use of a lot of biomass
facilities. And I mentioned this airport pick because it's a model. There's a need for
export of soils throughout the region. And there's a need for a centralized decking,
chipping, burning locations for fuels reduction throughout the community. So we'll keep you posted.
Our fingers are crossed that we can work with our partner to put together some permitting.
But that's one of the things we're looking at using that burner for would be
hauling over there and just roll to town and all the slash we've collected through a season.
Or if we do a chipping out of that space through some of the removal discussions.
We're working with Paul on the 27 million cubic yards of material.
We need some chip plants.
Do you want to bring it?
We've got the logs. We just need the chipper.
We have a chipper.
We just bought that.
We need the million dollar chipper.
The old tree chipper.
The big one that does 30 inch rounds.
Those are million dollars.
There's a million dollars. The one we had come out as CEO brought out to Sherwin
that was a million dollars piece of equipment and it's still struggled with
some of the larger logs. They need like a skiddy with an auger that breaks
an art and then they put it in smaller pieces but yeah it is not cheap.
pellets can GC make? Not many. And then there's the idea of the whole thing
through S-Cog, you know, now doing another kind of survey, you know, to see what's
going on. Project to see what all the bio, you know, models could possibly be
in this region. Now all the different ways to try to take care of this
biomass. Let's, you know, get that coordinated and everybody's trying to
think of little solutions, but looking for the big ones. So if we get this grant, we'll
be able to hopefully do a little better job of that. But you have a lot of thinking like
we'll, GC is trying to do something or, you know, I mean, you're looking at H2Ga or H2Ga.
H2Ga.
All right. And where do we know? I mean, they're going to Carson.
They're all going to Carson. We need one of those.
What are they doing? What are they doing in Carson?
The contractor working out at Shady doing the fuel reduction is all into Carson.
Because they have a mill? Yeah. No, because they have a mill.
Yeah, so it worked out. It's only slightly more expensive than their operations down here.
But if we had something set up, I would bring down the cost.
But that mill, I'm sure everyone knows what it smelled like, was put on tribal land, was
built quick.
They could do that in other places because that would be wonderful if they could take
logs down the hill, bring empty trucks back up the hill, so somebody could make that suggestion
down in the hill.
We've been trying to.
Yeah.
That's how it gets to.
Well, just in people in general are saying this is what we really need.
The hauling is trying to make some connections right now with the tribe on some things.
I can certainly add that to your list of discussion points.
You know, they put in that big gravel pit down there and all the other stuff they done there.
Oh, yeah.
They can do that.
So back to the air curtain really quick, do we know of anyone who has the mobile one
in action in the area?
I thought that I had heard maybe Alpine has one and they're not using it.
I've heard that too.
As the permitting is different than like when you guys do your pile burning with
the grade basin, it should be the same, so like why?
It should be a significant one less.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and the alternative of I do nothing force burns. Okay. Now, do you know that's the director?
I actually it's fine.
Different things like
One
Yeah
I want to see one working and understand, I want Allish to see it working, I want whoever
wants to see it functioning, I'd like to understand if it really could be an opportunity field
for us.
Yeah, we were going to do, we have an adjourned meeting next weekend, we were going to go
to Pummas Valley between our two meetings and see it in action and then we got,
I
Yeah, we're gonna do it. I want to do
That's March or maybe just four months. So it sounds like we're losing this whole summer
The one that promise can run your round on that. I mean that I don't think there's any restrictions
Yeah, we is gonna be well, we don't have the might of I
There's one
Purchase through a grand. That's the one that's
There's no money.
I thought there was a mobile one as well.
There's a mobile one.
That's the S card one that they haven't got their grant funds for yet.
Like it was awarded, but it hasn't been funded.
Do you know?
Yeah.
So we, you guys want to hug a lot.
We can start working through a program and start talking about permitting.
I think we should do that because we, if the reason I'm trying to get to is this
a viable thing is I need to know whether to ask council to do it.
I think we might have something like that.
For in perpetuity a need for that that function if it works, right?
I just I need to see if the works are not has experts say yep, that looks good for us or not
So it was your question
How small do you have to chip down to go ahead?
You can do with a loader. Yeah, you're just rolling full-size stuff in
It's burning not shredding. Should we move on to housing say parking?
Okay. So I know that this has been an ongoing topic, but we did get an offer.
Yeah.
Well, we received an offer from you guys to say, like, hey, you want to, you know, lease
this property for the next, I think at the time I was around a year and a couple months
or maybe a year and six months, and that would be the old substation, right?
And that was, we have eyes on doing that.
And I think the crew, we're very excited about an opportunity
to have that property for an extended period of time
to be able to really employ the full plan we have
for that particular type of facility.
Because what we've been doing right now is really
I'll see you next time.
Laws of the council's desire to say have something for the winner, because we had the big slums coming in the end of December, really wreaked havoc on that group.
So we responded to provide for that in a short term, and that's coming to an end in another week or two, 21st, yeah, because of a 90 day requirement for that emergency determination.
We've been working on a couple of other sites in town that are still being in discussion, but they're not gaining a lot of traction.
However, what we did is provided a letter back to Board of Supervisors to request that
timeframe getting extended, and then maybe a possibility to acquire the property after
that.
But the reason for the extension was really essentially so that we could make infrastructure
improvements that would be necessary, and there would be enough, you know, a little
bit of life in, you know, recouping the cost of doing that, meaning having it run
for five years, if you will.
So that was the basis for that request, and I think it's in your hands now at this point.
We have it on our closed session for Tuesday to discuss, and your proposal is going to be
discussed.
I think it didn't talk about operations if they would be, if you're intending to operate
year-round.
That was one of my questions.
It may come up with the board on Tuesday, I don't know, it just said, because you're
running them right now just in response to winter.
Whatever we can get off of dispersed around the region, I mean, we struggle with scenic
loop.
Yes.
You know, we're working in that space to try to reduce even the availability within
the circle of scenic loop based on some poor service stuff because of the risk to
town, right? No one shared with me today that we have a particular person we work
correctly with on a lot of our mobile workforce housing who basically said
she came into town and noticed there was just fires all over the place and
they're not really paying attention to the fire signs so we would we would
seek to run it year-round I think that was the goal so that we even in the
summertime don't have reduce the risk if possible. Okay. Make the goal of the year
round. There's some of the feedback we've heard from those who participated in
our kind of pilot project there. You know, I think we'll definitely get, at least
my hope, is significant. Many of those who will say, you know, it's more
convenient to stay in that site versus having to find a site every night or
risk-giving hassle of this or that, or some of them, you know, are just inherently kind
of like introverted people and they like kind of dispersing out into the woods being less
visible. So I think they'll always be that component of it who just, you know, you can
provide all the amenities in the world there where they're still going to like their deep
in the woods somewhere.
Yeah, I'll just add to that standpoint because I'm very passionate about this because
I think we have a need and we haven't killed it as a community, but I look at it as very
similar to like when we had dogs around town and when we created a dog park, we say this
is your area to have dogs on a leash, when we can finally find a solution that has a
location and we can take the people that are even in town camping right now and we
can kind of say you've got to move and try to be semi-gental, we can say this
is the designated space.
So to have a space like that in the future would be tremendously beneficial if we can
do that.
And I think our plan with regard to the humidity there itself is far and above valuable to that
particular subset than the dispersed activities at all, right?
I mean, there's going to be, especially if we have that longer term, we're able to do
some improvements on the building itself and supporting restrooms and maybe even shower
for some water systems and all that systems.
Those are the high-cost items that Hayes just mentioned that we were really needing to have
a longer run to do that.
But within that five years, you're not talking about touching that building.
That was my understanding that you were.
No, I think that there's some desire to move on that stuff as well.
He mentioned water systems and sewer systems.
Those are the ones that are inadequate for any activity outside of like his own person
living in that building.
Yeah, I think some metal will just, you know, until we get in there and really test it, I mean, we visited it with Paul and, you know, you guys being the engineers are like, oh, it's easy to remove arsenic from water, you just put a filter, but until we really start playing with it, and like, we don't know the flows of it, we don't know what's actually in it.
No, there's a well. The well house is literally habitat for everything right now.
So that needs to be scraped and then some kind of reverse hospital system needs to be put in to make the water potable.
It can be done.
Is there a septic down there?
There is a septic.
We don't know the capacities. We'll have to do some investigation on that.
It did support the substation previously, so we think that would be some decent capacity.
There's a leech filter on the west side of the road, kind of by the probing tank area.
And the building we know as a fact is literally built out of asbestos.
So we go in there.
Asbestos and mouse poop.
A combination.
Pretty solid.
It's in the plant set.
Asbestos pipe, asbestos pile, asbestos flooring.
So we know it's going to take some significant work to make that, you know, a useful warming
center or a community kitchen, whatever it may be.
It's a significant investment.
I wonder, I mean, there's probably grant funding for that kind of thing, but cross average when
you get there.
One of the things that Sandra and I talked about is I think Amanda's program, that bridge
program that the behavioral health has, they have a grant with some money and a tight
deadline is willing to or are able to fund some mobile showers and toilets
perhaps. We have like a 12 months to spend. I think there's like a million there
but or something. Yeah. I just need to get some approvals in place yeah.
Yeah well we're
No, it's just, there's not a lot of detail, so I think like these questions will come
up with our colleagues.
Should we, it's a closed session, but is there an opportunity or need for, is there going
to be anything in open session where maybe the town should tend and discuss, we'd
love to be responsive to whatever you guys need to, so it's on closed session.
which would mean that we could take comment on closed session before closed
session. Right, just what's on the agenda. Sure. So you could, that would be no
testimony. Right, would that be helpful in some way?
Wouldn't it? Or do you think you have enough in this space time?
I think we should get a temperature. I can't remember the last time we talked
about it. I feel like we'll let us meet on Tuesday and Sandra I'll get back to you
if there's outstanding questions and I would imagine if we're going to move we
could do something by the end of June.
Second. I want to hear your comment about why we provided a much more detailed plan before and then
we had a ridiculous response from ComDev so our direction this time was to provide a very
very simple request, ridiculous but okay yeah I'm just saying it really does have
light detail yeah but you're gonna do you'll be responsible for all sequel right
likely I mean if we go through with which direction we go yeah whether we
determine it's exempt or falls into a different thing that is part of being
why it was that we're taking on the responsibility, you guys are simply providing a lease.
Yeah.
Right.
I'm just saying that that is that welcome office that we wouldn't want to be liable for
SQL.
Yeah.
I would all get hammered on in the agreement said it's being basically shifted to the
top.
So these details do need to, they will come about even.
I know we've talked about just the outright purchase of that at a low price because
is beneficial for both.
Is there pushback from the supervisors
about selling that to the town?
We just have to work with surplus lands act,
which make sure we're within the Royal Work
surplus lands act for sure.
And then I don't know what the interest is.
So I'm not sure that that's been discussed.
I mean, for me, it's sort of confusing
because doing this transition is good for the county,
not just for mammoth,
but somehow the perception that it's a mammoth thing
seems to be tripping up our colleagues in terms of getting this done. I have a
huge frustration on those sorts of things. I don't think that's it at all. I think it's just,
you know, we're going to do one thing and then that sort of can work out and
that's what's the next thing we could do. Yeah, we have a little different
rulebook between the two of us I think based on being a county in the town,
right? I mean the town is a little more autonomy. I think certainly the county
is very much in line with the wish to use that for that purpose, you know, I don't think
there's any mention of that.
Yeah, we're moving, I'd say we're moving along that track pretty well, I think we
just need to get to that point.
So you guys have your meeting Tuesday, you let us know what you need from us.
We will be responsive because we're interested in doing that.
Great.
As Brent mentioned, there's a tremendous interest on Council on doing something
in this space.
And so that's good.
I think we'll get back to you with any further questions that come out that we don't have the answers for and we'll get there.
Should we move into the wildfire or is there anything else on housing and safe parking?
Ready for wildfire and emergency management.
All right, let's go.
Yeah, what's going on.
This is, well, so a lot's going on in the wildfire efforts.
I mean, the town obviously is, you know, we started our wildfire line wildfire task force last year.
Awesome.
He's not here with us right now, but led that up and Alish and team have been on that team on that.
And I think they've been really doing a tremendous job within the town as evidence and just all the stuff that we got accomplished last year.
and we're looking at this as a multi-year approach, so modifications to what we learned
last year of being employed this year, some connectivity with our town cleanup days, and
then we've got a whole series of dumpsters in your neighborhood, bring waste dumpsters
in your day-to-day process.
So I think that is working well for us.
There's obviously the wildfire alliance that's regional that I think we're all
sort of aware of and involved in.
You guys though, however, embarked on an emergency management services system, which I would like to kind of understand a little bit more than that. We did go through an interview process. I think most of us did that.
But maybe before we dive into that the town after the pack fire, we did a series of debriefs and really sort of kind of came up with our own internal plan.
and I did have a desire to potentially add emergency management services within the town
as a department as we're working through the budget stuff. Probably not a reality this year
because there's some impacts to our operating budget and so I need to be a little bit more
constrained in our growth. So that was something that was there and Alex and I were working
closing on that. I think, you know, you mentioned a light version of that can be employed in town,
perhaps. We're still working through work plans, again, that are really more town-specific to
emergency response and evacuation efforts. But we really are very, very interested in,
as you all know, the county's program and how the town can connect better with that
that in the future than we were able to in the last couple of years, because I think
that we as a town have a lot of needs. Unfortunately, we have more needs than the county when you
think about how everything is so dispersed, and it's sort of like pockets of need. We're
very concentrated need with a whole lot of, I think, expectations, I think is for
lack of a better term. So that's where we started to talk about what we could, you know,
we established the Hazardive Ridge job of laying out all the things that we needed to
know that are there. I think we've been engaged with both. There's two facets of this program,
right? There's a design and then there's the plan. So we're engaged with both of
them. But those are just a little bit of my introduction. I think you guys have
any updates on how that is progressing?
I do. I actually had a meeting with our consultant today right for this meeting that is doing
the assessment. And so they've reached out to all of you on the assessment. Also, most
of you should have got an email today to review our emergency operations plan draft.
That went out this afternoon about 45 minutes ago. And then it will be coming before
for the board, but we would really encourage you guys
to provide very constructive feedback.
It's different than most emergency plans
that I've seen in my career, but it's more user-friendly.
It's a lot more kind of chart-like.
So in this instance, this is what happens.
This is who's involved.
But we want extensive comments on it.
We would like to have it completed by June.
The draft assessment should be done by the end of May
and becoming before the board and draft form,
I think the first meeting in June.
So it's, both things are going on at the same time,
but one of the conversations that we had today
was working together with the town
as far as emergency management
and what that looks like and how we can partner better
to make sure that there's
Yeah. I think that's great. I mean, we, we, obviously our sister city is truckie up north and, you know, we share the same attorney and we had a chance to sit down with their office of emergency services, which is a town office that connects to the county's office of emergency service.
And they're kind of interesting. In any case, they're located in close proximity to separate counties. So they had a multiple, multiple, but it just, it seems so functional and seamless.
It was impressive.
So that's why we thought, gosh, if I could afford to do that in the town, I would stand
up that person.
And they're really more liaison-ing directly with the true county because all of the authority
lives in the county.
This is just a concentration of effort and really making sure that all the trainings,
all the evacuation practices, all that stuff is happening for our community as quickly
as possible.
So I think we're all in for whatever you need, because it's just a matter of time, and I think this summer, Alastair, I think there's going to be a rough one, potentially, but we'll see.
Well, Dawn Ashton is the retired CAO from El Dorado.
So they are kind of modeling after Truckee, El Dorado Valley, and Nevada County.
But so they're really leaning towards that.
And we should have a draft soon.
He's meeting with Sandra I think next week, so we should be ready to go.
I think it's time. I mean we've got along without it at the town for a long time, having our own
Pacific because I was coming into the Sheriff's office for so many years and that was sort
of the liaison, formally back and forth. Then we're fine. And then a lot of major players
left and I don't know what happened. So here we are. So, you know, I think it's time.
I think it might be a good investment and then you've got two. I like to do it.
You were talking to me about something potentially.
Yeah, I think I'm kind of lost in a way to see where the county goes on this.
And, you know, we say office of emergency management.
But the question is, is that a person? Is that an actual team?
And what is kind of, what does that framework look like?
And then how do we tie into that?
So I think a lot of there's various paths that we can go down,
but it really depends on kind of what that foundational piece looks like and it's these
things that unfortunately take some resource and the flipside is if you don't have them
then it's pretty rough. So I think that there are different ways to structure this. I spoke
with fire chief from Saltao that was tied to that loop and he certainly understood
our parameters here so I think we'll hopefully come back with some reasonable
but it's working against the clock. So one positive thing that I will
daylight town is working on at the airport is we so Cal Fire has an
initiative and now she can help me with details on this but an initiative I
I think to build capacity in our region along 395
and up at the top of the grade.
So that was their golden one of the facilities
out of the grade.
Well, we thankfully have a really strong leadership
in the sublime spring.
We said, we will literally move out of our building
and facilitate their conversion of that building
to a fire station.
And so that's in the process right now.
They moved out this week into their terminal.
And we are, you know, for a couple of months anyway,
and then we're seeking a temporary location
for our team to live for the next two years
while we hopefully get this multi-use facility
built at the airport.
But in that period of time, while Cal Fire is here,
so there'll be an engine company 24-7 at the airport.
And they're really not for the airport,
they can assist the airport,
but they're landside for the region.
so they'll be taking care of that. But the critical thing is a footprint of Cal Fire in our area,
which is now attractive. We'll have aircraft for five months out of the year on the ground
contracted as Siege 47 should not believe. Yeah just to kind of throw in that conversation a little bit.
So there used to be an exchange of a courage between the federal partners and state partners
and there's quite a bit of land in Mono County that the state has responsibility for
and they basically had an agreement that the feds would cover that portion that fell apart about two years ago, officially last year.
So now the feds don't have responsibility for us. They're just going back to the state.
It's hard to see what actually happens with budgets and changes in government and that sort of thing.
But currently the intent of Cal Fires to have safe apparatus across kind of this area going up to Topaz,
counting the three that they have currently in New County.
So theoretically the one that the airport is happening relatively soon, the next one that they
would attempt for would be in the reviving monocity area, which they've got some possibilities for
a station there as well as they've got responsibilities with VLF land getting flipped over.
So it will add a benefit of a resource. The one area that it does scare me is
They dispatch out of San Bernardino, we already have significant communication issues,
and this is just going to compound that issue, which again goes back to good planning, emergency
management, and a team that can help kind of stand up all the partners to make sure
they're all on the same communication systems.
And the state uses Chris?
Yes and no.
The key though about, I'm going back to the aircraft.
That's been a dream of ours really for a very, very long time because that is what makes a big difference in a very short amount of time.
So having that resource stationed at the airport, it augments the airport as a safety mechanism for the entire region.
So I'm pretty happy about that. It's a big no-animal.
I'll be daylighting that a little bit further.
Anything else on that?
I don't think so.
Okay.
Childcare?
Don't have a lot on childcare.
So obviously the town, we are, I talked to my crew today about getting with the consultant
and we need to understand, really, what we need to get to is whether the utilization
going to be or the demand going to be for whatever price points we think we can get
and we've got a consultant that can help us do that.
It's a little pricey and so I've been trying to get them to sharpen their pencil and maybe reduce scope
So that we can get it into some funding that we've allocated this town to get accomplished
Because we really need to understand the need based upon the price point and whether or not we
Put more money in this facility to build and will it have enough, you know people utilizing it
I'm sorry I haven't been able to come to the last couple of meetings, but we don't know
what the utilization is going to be.
There's a lot of questions right now, especially in the town and county for that matter, too.
Who would actually utilize a center like this?
So what are we building to?
And if the move toward childcare is going to become more home-based services as opposed
to facilities, KinderCare has closed multiple dozens and dozens of facilities because
because they lost the price point.
We can't charge what they needed to charge
to pay the people in the facility and the insurance
and the whole everything that you need to do in childcare
with only really three years of utilization,
especially in those states that went to a TK model
because that last year is the only year
that you make money on.
So yeah, I mean, it's just the whole price,
pricing scheme has fallen apart.
And I don't know, like you said,
I'm glad we had a chance to wait
we need to talk about before we just invest a lot more money in that.
The town is looking at it probably under $1.75 to $2 million of tenant improvements in the
inside of those buildings that we are currently paused on, we set aside funding for that, but
we're pausing because we'll be into that building for $4 million once this is all
said and done, and yeah, it's a big investment.
Well, Molly, Dave, I just came to our board on Tuesday, and we talked a little bit about
attacks, like are some kind of revenue generation that they're looking at, and we talked about
subsidies for providers because it's just there's a pay gap, you know, it just doesn't
pay enough.
I mean, I just imagine if you took that 4 million and just incentivized people to do
in-home daycares that might go just as far to meet the needs, perhaps.
I mean, just thinking outside the box and trying to think creatively, maybe that's
a better use of, you know, I don't know, just a wild thought came to me, but, you
know, if everybody's, if it's tending to go towards in-home daycare, well, I
it would be for all child care, all child things, the home business programs, the whole menu
right here being part of it. And yeah, I mean, I were not the only people struggling with
this kind of cost. I don't know how you would set up something like that and if it's worth
it. You know, we know our birth rates aren't going up. So it's not like the in-home
is a growing exponentially. That is probably static and is that where some of my better
investment is in helping people with the ability to care for kids safely not just as baby sitters
if you will but they're actually you know good child care services and include you know preschool
staff and school readiness and all the things we know. Yeah so I think you're smart. Yeah and
it sounds you know our desire has been where can we make a difference because really we'll get
you a facility, we'll give all that statement. That'll be a contribution. That was that.
So we'll be interested in the conversations, but we were really ever going to kind of be
in the middle of whatever the solution was as far as programmatic, if you will. So more
to go on that, I think.
I just want to bring this up, just because it came up when I spoke with the woman from
the governor's office yesterday about Cal kids. And I don't know if anybody in this
room is familiar with Cal kids. I learned about a couple years ago. And she was really
surprised that I knew what it was because most people she talks to don't know what
it is. But the governor before Trump started, the savings accounts for kids, Newsom has
like $2 billion or something. And it's through the treasurer's office. It's called Cal
kids and I know that the schools did a big push on it, but our utilization rate in Mono County
of all eligible kids is 8%. There's so much money sitting there and newborn kids, all newborn kids
get $175 regardless of income. And then there's money for kids that are eligible, basically
like if you get free or reduced lunch, you get, and you meet certain, you can get up to $1,500.
And but we're just not getting good utilization, but you have to go through the schools to get
a special number and your student, it's like, it's called a statewide student ID number,
and then they can sign up and get it. And she just asked me to keep pushing it because
it's sad and not counting only 8% of our eligible gifts. The families have signed up for it.
So, just along the world, there are children, yeah, they have, but I think they obviously
need to do another one.
And I don't know, I feel like the barrier is the statewide student ID.
I don't know if people know how to get it.
And I don't know that the school is very, if you called the admin with a telly, I just
don't know.
I kind of want to test it and be like, I'm a parent, how can I get my students SSID
and see how it goes, you know, does the person who answered the phone know where
to sort of direct me.
We have monthly meetings with the school district to talk about, you know, different
things that are of importance, and so there's some things that you want us to talk about.
Okay.
Yeah, I do.
I'll send it to you.
She just emailed me a follow-up list.
I'll invite you to join me.
I do.
We're going tomorrow.
Can I cancel it?
Do we have something else tomorrow?
Call me then.
Don't have one tomorrow.
Okay.
It helps kids. But anyway, we'll go to recreation management. It's Marcella. Okay. Okay.
Do you want to check off the county Marcella? Yeah, sure. Hi everybody.
So I had a few quick items.
Topic of the minute, the golden mussels.
Mono Cananeo, you got this update from me earlier this week, but for the group,
Fishmas weekend was successful. We survived.
We were able to successfully operate two watercraft inspection and decontamination stations, one in Bridgeport and one in Bishop.
up. We had mostly positive feedback, which was good because not all of it has been positive,
but most of it has. And then on our opening weekend, we actually had two boats come in
with mussels. And I think that helped a lot with like the positive reception is just proving
that this program is worth the investment that Town and County are putting into it.
Some numbers is that between the Bishop and the Bridgeport Station, we inspected 335 votes.
That was Thursday, the 23rd through Sunday, the 26th.
And a thank you to CDFW, LADWP Bridgeport.
Fish Enhancement Foundation, Caltrout, and just anybody in the collective who helped out
to make that happen. Also, U.S. Forest Service, International Forest, got funding approved
for $285,000 to go towards golden mussels effort for staffing and decontamination stations.
So that's going to be really big for the ongoing sustainability of this program.
Let's see. How'd other staff? Oh, very small update for this. Some of the people in the
room were here on Monday. California Department of Fish and Wildlife held their first interagency
bear meeting of the season and I believe it was decided that that group which involves
the county of the town and CDFW and the Forest Service is going to continue meeting I think
once monthly just to continue talking about bear management human wildlife conflict and trying to
address some of the issues that you know could reasonably be solved through some
enter agency discussion. So I was glad to see that happen. And then let's see. We are just
about finishing our hiring for our seasonal recreation stewards. One bit of news is that
the Forest Service is staffed up this year with trail crews, rec techs, etc. So that's super
fabulous. So it seems like the region is going to be really well supported this year.
And so from the county perspective, we'll obviously continue to help open up trails and OHP routes, do some facility maintenance and et cetera to help ready the region for visitors.
But we also have our off highway vehicle trespass and our dispersed camping management grants that were in the last year of.
So we'll be making a really big push to be out in the field doing a lot of restoration and closing these areas of trespass and inappropriate dispersed campsites.
So I think that's what I got for county recreation.
Thanks for selling. Yeah.
We have Wilson online.
I invited him.
Yes, we don't really have an update. I guess my question for you guys and this often comes
up and I think the reason on here is a desire to, I think, bring our two separate programs
a little bit closer together and so they seem as though they function in lockstep.
I guess Marcello will ask if if you feel like there's there's more work to be done or we're
functioning appropriately as two separate agencies in the same kind of space in complementary to
each other.
Yeah, thanks Rob. I do feel like we're operating well separately but I do certainly
think there is more room for collaboration. The town does host the weekly interagency check-in
meetings, which we attend as often as we're able, and that just helps, you know, helps us keep
tabs on what the other agencies are doing. And then as you know, there's some overlap
between like the Adopt-A-Trail and Tangle Free Water programs.
from a project perspective, especially with like trail maintenance, that has been pretty siloed.
Town stays in town, county stays in county and in the past when some help has been requested,
one of the hurdles seems to be that town funding is like really specific that it
has to be spent within town boundaries, which could prevent the town's recreation
staff from coming to help in the county and bigger projects. I think I've also
seen that we just have kind of different workloads like the town does have a lot
more heavy workload on trail maintenance and also construction of
new trails whereas like our workload tends to be heavier on like OHV
trust pass and dispersed camping and some of that other stuff. However, I do think, you know, again,
one area for collaboration would be the areas surrounding the town of Mammoth, like the scenic
loop. I think there could be a lot of really good work days there between us, but happy to reach out
to Lawson and his team and see where we can expand that collaboration. If that's what you're
You referenced the funding, so that would be measure R, so town owned or managed.
We are kind of looking at possibly putting some general fund dollars into a space in which we can
you know touch those interactive elements that are near proximity to town, but not quite there.
And I think that's where we have the greatest opportunity to work closely together because
it you know that continuity between our systems if we're encapsulated in the town
And then how it goes into the county. I think that engagement would be really, really beneficial. And so I want to see that happen.
And it seems to me there could be a larger partnership on the OSV program that the town took over.
The creation of an OHV program, which was started by the Forest Service, and then they stopped doing.
Some tax dollars from town can go into things that directly benefit the economy of the town of Man with Lakes.
So I'd love to at least see those conversations taking place and I think they are to a degree
and I think you're mentioning of OHV and OSV.
The county has a lot of graders I think that you guys do a lot of work on the dirt road
systems which in the winter time become the OSV systems and this is something
that I think Andrew our trails manager has had a desire to how do we work
closely together so that the work the county does in the summer on improving
those roads actually has a strong impact on the winter operations that we're
managing when we're grooming those trail systems because what I'm seeing
and Marcella you probably seen that too is the side-to-side systems they
really they really tear up the roads right I mean they really are very
very challenging on the road systems.
That maintenance program, the OHV maintenance program
connects well with our over snow.
And while the county has the equipment,
the state has the dollars,
we can apply for those through the Green Sticker
grant program to pay the county for doing the work
so that new equipment doesn't have to be bought
or anything else.
I just see there's room for a lot of collaboration there
and moving the whole thing forward.
And before everybody built what a proper relation, we had a public meeting.
Before anybody gets upset about me talking about motorized recreation, if you look, and if you look at some of the surveys that have been done, the amount of non-motorized use that takes place because we maintain those roads and those motorized systems, it's huge.
huge. So it truly is a benefit for the entire population and our visitor base. And let's
face it, both the town and county survive on our visitor base.
I'll add to this if I may, Rob. It's Jennifer's meetings.
When you're talking about the off-highway vehicles, I don't know if this group is
with the back country discovery routes that were put together, that is absolutely blowing up.
And the proliferation of adventure motorcycles and side by side is taking advantage of the
route is frankly in my opinion an economic development opportunity. There are people
who are coming here just to adventure ride and there are videos all over YouTube, hours long,
multiple days of hours long of their entire rides and it just showcases
MotoCountry. It's amazing and so people are watching this it's kind of new so
what they did is these this independent group just started stringing
together like dirt roads, trails and building experiences and putting out
these maps. And there's a route that goes from Mexico to Canada and it goes
right through Mono County. What's that? MLT have anything done? No, no, no. This is way too
cool. It showed up in my YouTube feed and said backcountry discovery
route Mono County and I'm like what's that all about? And then I went down
it's rabbit hole of like who did this? Where does it come from? It's not just us
though it's all over the United States. It's all over but it literally starts at
Menorat Vista. There's one that ends at Menorat Vista and another one that
starts at Menorat Vista and it just goes all through Mono County and so I
good for search and rescue missions we had one out there and I inquired a
motorcycle from it because the guy just walked away from it so I'll sell
to you for pennies on the dollar because he was tied down in it from a literally experience.
He walked away from it and said I'm done with this thing. But anyway, I think Hayes is exactly
right. I mean, Mono County is poised to literally take over the off-road world that is currently
exploding with cyber sides and this stuff. I mean it could be world-class.
Yeah just look up BDR Northern California or Southern California and there are just
it's insane. In this area didn't happen by accident there were people mostly out
of Bishop but from other areas Don Amador is one who worked on all of this
going back decades to create this so it's the preliminary work has been done
Yeah, it's just the finish and the promotion what we've seen is the opportunities in these communities has always existed
It's still somebody makes it a thing. You know, you can look at, you know
Mountain biking trails and so forth until somebody makes it a thing
It's just people know about it. And so you're talking about management and
Taking care of grading the roads and so forth
I think we're going to have to take a stronger stance and
maintaining this and keeping an eye on it because I think you're going to see a
lot more usage on our road system and our trail system. And the chance to
interpret those trails. So right now it's only being done through private
parties on YouTube and stuff but to put up the appropriate signs, pay for a
better state, you know, to do this work it just can be a huge thing. You just
being attracted to the rural county, I think, on some of the roads.
Because it's largely on forest service land.
It's largely on BLM and forest service.
There are some sections that are on county roads or highway.
I mean, I watched the whole thing, the entire route,
just to see how they did it.
And I was pretty blown away.
I mean, they were literally saying, oh, here's the campground
here that you can stay at.
And calling out things by name, restaurants by name.
And I'm sitting there going, I
I wonder if people even know that.
And so these businesses may see an uptick in, you know, yeah.
And of course a portion of that's county lands, not all towns.
Oh, no, it's not, it barely even counts.
Because no one knows when you're...
Well, but county maintained roads.
Yeah, barely even touches town.
So Marcella, were you aware of some of that?
Yes, I was.
Hayes brought that to my attention a little while ago.
And county board, as you know,
when I gave my rec update a couple weeks ago and I was looking at like upcoming areas of focus,
especially knowing that we need to start looking at what new grants to areas of focus that were
identified were OHV and winter recreation. So I actually have a little update on that.
One of the big projects we've been wanting to work on for OHV is
county maintained roads provide a lot of the access points to the federal
Um, dirt road system and right now there are like laws in place that require that your vehicle be street legal to access, um, these areas. And so that's, um, not very conducive to allowing the access of this area. So we've been needing to figure that out.
And then the topic is pretty controversial.
So we have a meeting with a consultant tomorrow to help us start the process of figuring out what the steps are going to be to start looking at policy to improve the accessibility and then also start hosting public meetings.
we've been asking the Forest Service and BLM for I think about two years now to kind of hold some
public meetings and get a good direction of how we can promote OHV while also being respectful.
And as Rob noted, like all the damage was side by side. So how do you balance the promotion but
you know the impact of that too. So we're going to have that meeting tomorrow and then
Rob, to your point about the winter trail system, we traditionally used to support the
Indian National Forest in getting that winter trail system ready.
We've engaged with the town ahead of the season, but they're so well-staffed and on
top of their stuff that they haven't needed the support with that winter trail system.
But the county did just start engaging with the state to get an expansion of that,
Mostly for North County, but would include some areas just north of where the system currently and so we're also looking at getting some new groomed winter trails in snow parks.
And then the other thing is that the county attended the California State Park Green sticker fund that that's the off highway vehicle division. We attended a conference back in January that teaches you how to apply and there's 5 different areas.
Is that you can apply in? And so we're really interested in applying for planning, development and maintenance, which can provide staff funding, equipment funding, funding for signage, you know, any of that, and I would encourage the town, I can talk about this with loss and I would encourage them to apply for those grants as well.
they go out yearly. So I do hope that we apply for one of those. That would happen January of next year.
So on that, and you guys may be able to answer this question for me, you mentioned that the
Green Stickered Vehicles can't travel on some dirt roads because they're called Level 3 roads,
not Level 2 roads, which has to do with the amount of maintenance received annually.
So a lot of the places where we're saying side by side you're destroying the roads,
Those roads regularly get destroyed before side by side for a thing, by jeeps and motorcycles
and everything else, but the Forest Service always maintained them.
So if I use one specific example, the Sawmill Road that goes from 203 here and comes out
by the tunnel on 395, which is considered a level three road, so technically you can't
use a green sticker vehicle on it, it has not been maintained to that level in years.
So, if the Forest Service fails to maintain it, what happens to that level of protection
received from Green Stickers?
Would it just then automatically revert, or could we ask that it be revert to a level
two?
One.
Two, I was told by a Mona County Sheriff decades ago, so he's old now, not me, but him,
that the county on their roads and using maybe what Black Canyon Road, which is a county road
that I use sometimes in the wintertime, because it's a county road, it could be simply designated
as a multi-use road. It takes very little to do that. Then it's legal to use as to
create a gap fill for the OHV recreation.
Yeah, I can partially speak to your questions.
So for the level three, level two designations, I'm not sure how that process looks on the federal side.
The county has been compiling a list of like motor vehicle use map proposed corrections, which would certainly involve some of what you're saying like reclassifying roads.
I don't know if that solves the green sticker issue. I'd have to look at it. I do know that the Forest Service has a hard time maintaining the roads and that's part of why the county maintained road system exists for this.
So can certainly look into that. One thing I didn't mention before is as we move forward with the OHV thing, I think it'll be really important for Mono County Board and town council to potentially help advocate for the level of participation.
participation that we're going to need from BLM and Forest Service historically that has been a barrier and then designating county maintained roads as multi-use roads.
I do believe that I've heard that that is one of the potential solutions that we could pass an ordinance or resolution or something saying that like we're allowing a buffer in which we're allowing this type of use.
I think some of the other, like, tricky parts to this are getting connectivity from towns
to these road systems, like how you can only cross at, like, a 90-degree angle, or, like,
there's not sufficient enough staging areas, that's one of the things that we're going
to be looking at, is if there's not sufficient enough staging areas and, like, parking for
for these things to be trailered in then it's not going to solve the whole problem.
But yeah, I do believe we could solve part of that with the designation,
and that's something I'm going to be looking into.
Well, in your county started a program that I believe is still in fact where they could get it done.
Yeah, it ended, but yeah.
Yeah, I was going to say, so that was the Adventure Trails program,
and it basically did exactly what you were saying to allow
people use County roads access towns the goal is from economic development
perspective to if you're on going from Lone Pine to Bishop on dirt roads you
could exit and go to gas stations or go to restaurants.
Every as model I think
after Utah had a similar program that every kind of entity that's done is
met with like insane resistance on the environmental side from Center for
Biological Diversity is usually like front and center bring the lawsuit
and others against whatever entity does it.
So you almost have to just start with an EIR before you even get to it because you're
going to get sued for all sorts of reasons on it.
And so I don't want to advocate for a grassroots program, but I mean, what Hayes shows kind
of almost similar to events and trails, but without.
I just went out and did it.
Yeah, and that's a lot of the contention that we see. And I know we saw that at the beginning of the OSV.
Awesome process that was suspended a couple of years ago, but that's that's some of the balance that we want to try to find with the, the agencies and the public is like, again, how, how can we support our communities and livelihood of our region.
through OHV while also recognizing the impact to it. I mean, the county has a restoration grant right now for that exact purpose is to undo damage that has been done.
So yeah, I do think the environmental part of it is going to be a big component possible barrier.
So we're, we're at time a little over already and we have three remaining items.
Wildlife engagement, county life movement, town, civic center, hospital construction update.
I don't know if anybody has a few anything they want to say in a few minutes about that or if we want to table that for our next meeting.
So I was, Marcel mentioned the meeting I was going to have Chief talk a little bit about, but on Monday and then Chief today at our department had we reached out to CDFW probably trying to get them to a council meeting on this 3rd of June.
Yeah, so that actually was a really beneficial meeting.
And we're going to do it, like Marcel said, once a month, first Monday of every month.
So to speak with CDFW, find out how everything's going.
One of the requests that I had was, and it may be good for the county as well, is to
bring in CDFW three times during the summer, one at the beginning of the summer to talk
about the activity, what they project, the activity is going to be throughout the
summer, the middle of the summer in case they do do any relocations or anything
like that with any of our bearers, to explain to the public that if they are
indeed still alive, they've been callered, this is where they're at.
And then a closing statement by CDFW at the end of the summer.
I didn't want to get them in there too much, but maybe that's something
that can be coordinated with the county as well to get CDFW in there.
We work very closely with CDFW, we being the town of Mammoth Lakes.
any of our incidents from the police department get reported to CDFW every
incident. Even if a bear is just walking down Main Street and we get the
call, we'll send that CAD call to CDFW just to give them a heads up. Hey, this
bear is then they can do the research. Okay, it's been there five or six
times. Let's go out and see if we can, you know, do something or get it out
of here. So dumpsters, housebreak ins, vehicles, so anything that we do
to do with bears recent to CDFW, so which is good.
A lot of the corrective behavior obviously comes from CDFW,
which you guys all heard about last year.
They were trapping and stuff like that, coloring
and then releasing in a different location.
That's where I want CDFW to come in for the town
and explain to our community that, hey,
this is where they're at.
Here are some live GPSs or here are some GPSs
of where they've been over the last few days.
So that is our plan.
Seemed to work really well last year.
We weren't, we didn't have them come in three times last year,
but they did come in once.
And that's what we kind of baked on.
When they came in that one time, it changed, in my opinion,
changed the attitude of what they're actually doing, right?
And what we're actually doing and trying to work with CDFW.
So I think it was beneficial for all.
And I think it would be beneficial for the county.
So three times, Town Council.
Yep.
First one's June 3rd.
First one's June 3rd in the morning.
out we don't know which would be great right and it could be made because they start to come
in active in the April beginning of May depending on the season and the snow right so get them in
June 3rd get a man in August September timeframe and get him back in around November all right
and maybe Marcella you could help Courtney yeah and I wanted to tell you I've already reached
out to Danny Gehmins and Michael Brown we were going to give a presentation last October that
just got away from us I've already nudged them about us getting in front of the board
within the next couple weeks for that introductory presentation.
All right, that'd be great if you could just pick you back
on what they're already doing with the town.
Cool.
I know that there's interest
at the collaborative planning team meeting last week.
That was the topic was bear management as well.
And all that definitely expressed interest
in bringing them to the board as well, so.
Yeah.
I'd say with the county line movement,
I think we have a very rare opportunity
to move that forward.
potential to least explore that and we should put together a small working
group subset that really starts to dive on onto this. I think Hays has been our
lead in that space and really just as a facilitator. As well as I mean
there's reasons behind that obviously we're with town's interests involved
on roads that should be ours soon. You may have a board that's more inclined to
listen to that now and sustain representatives of our supporters of
Yeah, if there's interest in putting together a working group, we really need to get the
Sheriff's Department emergency services in the room.
What we left it is we were going to put together a list of rationale reasons, justifications
for the move, which are really all based on emergency services and response and access,
and then that was going to go to Chris Beck, because it has to go through county.
like it's not a town function it's a county function and Chris was going to
put together the staff report and so forth and the motion and then once that
happens then it goes to Madeira and then we negotiate and sounds like they
don't want a whole lot.
That's where we left it so I'm happy to put that
together but I don't have the horsepower to encourage certain people to
show up.
Thank you. I will be out of the country for a number of weeks so probably early June
I'll reach out and we can maybe get this thing back on track. I think here's your ghost code
hearing on the other side some mixed reception on their side there's and it's all rumors
So I don't know
Sandra met with some of the representatives and they were
Acknowledging that it was not in the best interest to be responsible for that land
Talk with one party over there and they tell me would be cold in hell before
There's a couple of those
bodies
Retiring and they'll have a new a new supervisor in that district Frank Bigelow as you may remember him
And there's a couple different processes. There's friendly, which is what we're trying to do is, like, we just all agree that this isn't the best interest of all of our parties, and that's it.
And then there's the nasty, which we go through a different process and say they're not participating and it's foolish for them to have it and we use a different process.
Like condemnation.
Yeah, it's exactly like that. It's in the domain of another county.
Yeah, I hope that they understand this.
Okay, so we'll work on that, and our last time is the Townsend Center Hospital construction update.
Yeah, so we meet every two weeks, town, hospital, courts, all the parties, and talk about what's going on.
I would like to see more county participation in those meetings I absolutely
can I will say I don't want to say anything disparaging but sometimes it's
a little hit and miss all of the impactful things are discussed in these
meetings and I will say there's over the next 60 days there's gonna be some
significant impacts coming on the hospital side town is we're about done
we're we've got a couple days we're exciting we gotta do some siding we
got the electricity coming. We're just going to shut off all your power overnight. No big
deal. We're working through IT though. We're working through IT and we need to keep some
systems running. Yeah.
We were all there.
But the hospital is they're moving very quickly.
They've got electric lines to run they've got two crane pigs coming where they're gonna have to put the crane out the parking lot and
All these things are being communicated and worked through and in those meetings. So is there is there like a
Summary after these meetings that sit out because we got an hour's notice that there this was going to be blocked this morning
Yeah, we got that notice too. Yeah, sometimes those are utility things where they're like, hi
We're here to do some stuff and everybody goes
okay great and that's unfortunate and we just have to manage that but some of the
bigger issues it's on each department to go back and communicate with their
with their teams about what is impactful to them so the town takes up in the
hospital and I'll disseminate that to my groups Lester communicates with the
courts and disseminates to his group and then Karen was on the last
She should hopefully disseminate to your team, because everybody has a different methodology
for communication and the impacts are different groups. So, we've been doing this for over
a year, every two weeks. So, I can send it to you, and...
I used to be on a piece of a waiting list. Yeah, I just keep pushing it every two weeks.
So, the next meeting is on the 20th at three o'clock, and I'll forward that. I don't,
Jen, I don't think you're on it, but I'll forward it to you as well.
And we hope to have Hayeson team moving in sometime late July and the rest of the team
in August into early September and then out.
So they're going to get crowded.
If you need to furniture, I saw in the hallway there's a whole bunch of stuff.
Oh, there's a lot of sticky notes on there.
It's actually moving.
Yeah, it'll be gone by tomorrow.
Let's have it.
We're going to take it and stuff it with me.
They can have it.
He said it was a fire problem.
I know.
Fire is my buddy.
We're good.
It's not a fireball.
It snows in that hallway anyway, so I don't want to even hear it.
Do you not resuscitate on building in?
Let's just close up.
Unless you have any direct questions for me, I'm happy to answer them.
Both parties are at this.
Just to clarify for a survey, at what point in time will all the time offices be moved into the Civic Center?
By the end of September.
So, I can't wait.
All right.
Awesome.
Yeah.
And just real quick, I mean, that facility is designed for the community as a primary focus
when you look at the way it's designed, all of the really nice aspects are functional
for the community.
And it's in the front center.
And I'm really excited about seeing that come to fruition.
It's obviously going to be a nice facility for us, but it's for the community and it
should show that the moment you walk in.
So, cool.
Great.
No pressure.
Thanks, everyone.
Thanks.
We're adjourned.
Thank you.