for a positive new direction
Copyright 2010 Matthew Lehman for Town Council
Hot Topics of Discussion
Commerce: Tourism/Marketing:
Commerce and tourism are the economic engine that drives our town and allows our local government to provide the services we all need and desire. It is also what allows local businesses to succeed and provide employment for those that live here.
As a town councilmember, it will be one of my primary goals to work diligently with other councilmembers in getting behind the newly evolving Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) so as to encourage Mammoth Lakes in realizing its full potential as a resort community.
Recreation:
The main reason that visitors and locals enjoy Mammoth Lakes is the natural beauty and the outdoors. Recreation is a wonderful medium that allows all of us to experience our environment and I believe that we as a community better serve ourselves in the long term by supporting and creating recreation. In addition to providing avenues that allow us to enjoy the outdoors, recreational project are a re-investment in our financial future that give guests more reasons to visit Mammoth.
Budget:
You may have read or heard positive and negative arguments about our town budget, but whatever side you take, there is always room for improvement.
The budget can be improved through a number of obvious avenues:
Increasing Revenues
In our challenging economy, the generation of revenues through our local TOT tax, Sales Taxes and Property taxes has become increasingly difficult. It's common knowledge that our town is losing out on vital TOT revenue due to the non-reported renting of properties. While I certainly support any person that is legally renting their property, I also strongly support the enforcement of codes that require nightly rentals to pay their fair share of taxes.
Increasing the volume of visitors to Mammoth through superior marketing efforts will result in greater visitations should be one of the factors at the top of our to-do list.
Reducing Expenditures
Simultaneously with increasing revenues, we have to place greater focus on reducing costs to our town budget. I would like to work with our new council and staff in determining what projects, areas or departments could fair well on lower budgets. While we are experiencing challenging economic times, we need to ask ourselves if there are wants and needs that we can do without or at lease with less of.
Becoming more efficient
While increasing revenues and reducing expenditures are the two most obvious methods of keeping a budget strong, one of the more obvious management decisions that are overlooked are efficiencies. What can our town do to keep many of our services while at the same time maintaining or reducing costs?
Some areas that I would like to take a harder look at are the possibilities of using locally contracted labor vs. salaried positions. Our town may be able to benefit from competition and the ability to place salaries and benefits in the hands of privately contracted positions. The new DMO will be a good example of this.
Can we reduce costly overtime through more efficient planning in each department? I believe that we can and this is an area that we need to keep looking at.
Can our town work in better cooperation with the County and State agencies to gain assistance with specific jobs like law enforcement and snow removal? This should be an area that we as a town need to keep looking at as well.
Youth:
As a young man that grew up in Mammoth Lakes, I am aware of the challenges of being young in Mammoth. Certainly we are surrounded by natural beauty and various forms of recreation, but often as a community needs to offer more support to our kids, particularly with regard to sports.
Our children need to know that they too have a voice in Mammoth Lakes and that we are willing to listen to their wants. I would like to work with our business community and our town government on creating strong sponsorship programs that will not only help our local athletes achieve their goals but show off a pride of living in Mammoth Lakes. This benefits our kids as well as our community.
When Mammoth Lakes generates athletes, or people, of notoriety, we need to make them proud of where they are from.
Mammoth Track:
The first phase of the Mammoth Track project is scheduled to break ground in April 2010 and I believe that the sooner we can get projects like this off the ground, the faster Mammoth will be on its way to economic independence and year round sustainability. This is project will assist in athletic guest visitations during the summer and shoulder seasons and it will promote Mammoth as healthy and beautiful training location. Many studies confirm that optimal training is between the elevations of 7,000 to 9,000 feet elevation.
Mammoth Lakes Housing:
While Mammoth Lakes Housing attempts to serve the need of providing housing for the workforce community in Mammoth Lakes, I believe that the MLH in its current form is very flawed. We need to keep supporting programs that allow down payment assistance to those qualified citizens looking to purchase market rate housing.
We also need to support a more capitalistic approach of providing housing by allowing property owners in Multi-family zoned areas slight density bonus' vs. relying on government grants to build low quality housing in areas that inappropriate for housing. Our current model puts the government in competition for potential renters, taking advantage of rental property owners… the very constituents that the government represents. Incentivizing property owners instead of competing with them, will provide a Natural Supply and Demand model will keep rents affordable and allow property owners to succeed.
Our current MLH model allows our tax dollars to build deed restricted properties that can be converted to Market Rate as housing markets decline. Creation of affordable housing that reverts to market rate will be an endless cycle that corrupts property values and rents, and in time will destroy the character of our town. Today 26 of roughly 166 units have been converted back to market rate. You paid for these affordable housing units and you no longer receive the benefits of what you paid for.
Planning (Community Development):
Through personal experience and discussions with local builders, I have found both positive and negative issues with our Community Development department. Many of the negative issues have been resolved in recent years; however there is still room for improvement with regard to lowering fees (DIF, Landscaping, Water, etc.) and making processes within the department more efficient and streamlined. (Zoning changes, project approvals, etc.). Processes should be more clearly defined and codes should be adhered to as much as possible.
A friend of mine helped me understand the true term of sustainability, sighting that environmentalism has to work hand in hand with development projects as well as the needs of society as a whole.
Commerce and tourism are the economic engine that drives our town and allows our local government to provide the services we all need and desire. It is also what allows local businesses to succeed and provide employment for those that live here.
As a town councilmember, it will be one of my primary goals to work diligently with other councilmembers in getting behind the newly evolving Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) so as to encourage Mammoth Lakes in realizing its full potential as a resort community.
Recreation:
The main reason that visitors and locals enjoy Mammoth Lakes is the natural beauty and the outdoors. Recreation is a wonderful medium that allows all of us to experience our environment and I believe that we as a community better serve ourselves in the long term by supporting and creating recreation. In addition to providing avenues that allow us to enjoy the outdoors, recreational project are a re-investment in our financial future that give guests more reasons to visit Mammoth.
Budget:
You may have read or heard positive and negative arguments about our town budget, but whatever side you take, there is always room for improvement.
The budget can be improved through a number of obvious avenues:
Increasing Revenues
In our challenging economy, the generation of revenues through our local TOT tax, Sales Taxes and Property taxes has become increasingly difficult. It's common knowledge that our town is losing out on vital TOT revenue due to the non-reported renting of properties. While I certainly support any person that is legally renting their property, I also strongly support the enforcement of codes that require nightly rentals to pay their fair share of taxes.
Increasing the volume of visitors to Mammoth through superior marketing efforts will result in greater visitations should be one of the factors at the top of our to-do list.
Reducing Expenditures
Simultaneously with increasing revenues, we have to place greater focus on reducing costs to our town budget. I would like to work with our new council and staff in determining what projects, areas or departments could fair well on lower budgets. While we are experiencing challenging economic times, we need to ask ourselves if there are wants and needs that we can do without or at lease with less of.
Becoming more efficient
While increasing revenues and reducing expenditures are the two most obvious methods of keeping a budget strong, one of the more obvious management decisions that are overlooked are efficiencies. What can our town do to keep many of our services while at the same time maintaining or reducing costs?
Some areas that I would like to take a harder look at are the possibilities of using locally contracted labor vs. salaried positions. Our town may be able to benefit from competition and the ability to place salaries and benefits in the hands of privately contracted positions. The new DMO will be a good example of this.
Can we reduce costly overtime through more efficient planning in each department? I believe that we can and this is an area that we need to keep looking at.
Can our town work in better cooperation with the County and State agencies to gain assistance with specific jobs like law enforcement and snow removal? This should be an area that we as a town need to keep looking at as well.
Youth:
As a young man that grew up in Mammoth Lakes, I am aware of the challenges of being young in Mammoth. Certainly we are surrounded by natural beauty and various forms of recreation, but often as a community needs to offer more support to our kids, particularly with regard to sports.
Our children need to know that they too have a voice in Mammoth Lakes and that we are willing to listen to their wants. I would like to work with our business community and our town government on creating strong sponsorship programs that will not only help our local athletes achieve their goals but show off a pride of living in Mammoth Lakes. This benefits our kids as well as our community.
When Mammoth Lakes generates athletes, or people, of notoriety, we need to make them proud of where they are from.
Mammoth Track:
The first phase of the Mammoth Track project is scheduled to break ground in April 2010 and I believe that the sooner we can get projects like this off the ground, the faster Mammoth will be on its way to economic independence and year round sustainability. This is project will assist in athletic guest visitations during the summer and shoulder seasons and it will promote Mammoth as healthy and beautiful training location. Many studies confirm that optimal training is between the elevations of 7,000 to 9,000 feet elevation.
Mammoth Lakes Housing:
While Mammoth Lakes Housing attempts to serve the need of providing housing for the workforce community in Mammoth Lakes, I believe that the MLH in its current form is very flawed. We need to keep supporting programs that allow down payment assistance to those qualified citizens looking to purchase market rate housing.
We also need to support a more capitalistic approach of providing housing by allowing property owners in Multi-family zoned areas slight density bonus' vs. relying on government grants to build low quality housing in areas that inappropriate for housing. Our current model puts the government in competition for potential renters, taking advantage of rental property owners… the very constituents that the government represents. Incentivizing property owners instead of competing with them, will provide a Natural Supply and Demand model will keep rents affordable and allow property owners to succeed.
Our current MLH model allows our tax dollars to build deed restricted properties that can be converted to Market Rate as housing markets decline. Creation of affordable housing that reverts to market rate will be an endless cycle that corrupts property values and rents, and in time will destroy the character of our town. Today 26 of roughly 166 units have been converted back to market rate. You paid for these affordable housing units and you no longer receive the benefits of what you paid for.
Planning (Community Development):
Through personal experience and discussions with local builders, I have found both positive and negative issues with our Community Development department. Many of the negative issues have been resolved in recent years; however there is still room for improvement with regard to lowering fees (DIF, Landscaping, Water, etc.) and making processes within the department more efficient and streamlined. (Zoning changes, project approvals, etc.). Processes should be more clearly defined and codes should be adhered to as much as possible.
A friend of mine helped me understand the true term of sustainability, sighting that environmentalism has to work hand in hand with development projects as well as the needs of society as a whole.