Debate Over Mammoth Redevelopment

Many of us in Mammoth were surprised, and puzzled, by your June 24 editorial, “Mammoth Leap of Faith.” Its tone and direction seemed overly partisan against resort development and growth in Mammoth, and there were enough factual misrepresentations to make us wonder at your sources.

It is no secret that Intrawest’s presence in Mammoth has given hope. Certainly there are challenges, not the least of which is to manage a $300-million-to-$500-million investment to the advantage of the entire community.

A couple of your errors: Intrawest has not asked for $132 million in local bond money, and the airport is being developed by other interests, with no redevelopment financing at all. Projects such as the gondola and resort parking structure are proposed for traffic control, but will go through a lengthy public process long before getting built. If the agency uses future bonding at all, the plan caps it at $75 million in today’s dollars.

Our environmental impact report is designed to accommodate a multitude of projects that have been submitted by citizens, by special districts and by the private sector. It is neither “vague,” nor fast-tracked. Public involvement has been intense and, I might add, voluminous.

We don’t believe that redevelopment is the pot at the end of the rainbow. But it gives us hope that we can substitute sound policy for years of “mediocre” planning in our downtown. We hope redevelopment will unite factions into one group seeking to create a Mammoth which better complements its “splendid eastern Sierra setting.”

DAVID S. WATSON, Member

Mammoth Lakes Town Council and Redevelopment Agency

* Our family has been camping, backpacking and rock climbing throughout the Mammoth wilderness region for the past 40 years. Our two sons served as wilderness rangers and trail builders for several years for the Mammoth Ranger District. As a result, we have become amateur seis- mologists.

Since earthquakes, magma flow rumblings, enlarging steam vents and toxic gases have been active for the past two decades in the Mammoth area and are becoming increasingly alarming to federal scientists, I am surprised why these geologic disturbances were noticeably absent from your editorial. From my on-the-ground observations, Mammoth has Mt. St. Helen’s written all over it. It is well known that the city’s development advocates gloss over this looming problem in their search for money infusion; but I can’t understand why Intrawest is betting hundreds of millions of dollars on mitigation of potential seismic catastrophe.

JUDSON LaFLASH

Vista