Politix

Prev Next
Featured Quizzes
Politix Daily Headlines
Featured Debates
Issues

See all 17 issues

People
White House

See all people

IN DEBT TIMES

What Fiscal Disaster Feels Like: One Town's $29.5 Million Debt

23 years of debt payments and cuts to local services afflict Mammoth Lake, CA

Next>

by PolitixMayday

Staff Writer t

Image: Getty

The process of going over a fiscal cliff, as residents of Mammoth Lake, CA have come to learn, echoes grieving: denial, anger, blame, acceptance.

The town filed for bankruptcy in July after a property deal went south, costing residents over $5,000 a person, the Guardian reports. And for the next 23 years, Mammoth Lakes will put $2 million a year towards its $29.5 million debt. Interest will put the final bill at $48.5 million.

While the town makes money from being a tourist hotspot, pulling in 1.5 million visitors a year, it nonetheless has to deal with spending cuts.

Both local government and businesses are slashing spending. The police force will be winnowed to 10 officers, snow removal sidelined, and the swimming pool emptied.

The town, which can't raise levies on its own, is also looking to increase off-season visitors by holding special events.

But as the news editor of Mammoth Times tells the Guardian, acceptance and resignation has rooted itself among residents.

Via the Guardian
Like this article? B Vote Up
?

How would you respond to a fiscal crisis in your town or city?

Comments (view in Forum)

  • jessejaymes
    !
    This what happens when cities ignore their taxpayers and get into bed with developer speculators in the guise of "creating jobs". I know Mammoth and I know their govt. Bunch of "Boss Hoggs' trying to line their pockets and when it goes bad as it usually does the taxpayers always pay the price.
  • FollowTheMoney
    !
    This is what happens when taxpayer/voters ignore the elected official. As I said in an earlier post, Our country is in the shape it is in be cause Americans live with their heads in the sand and pop up every 4 years or so, vote, and leave the rest to the professional politician to handle everything for them.
    They don't even realize that the people they are voting for to solve our problems, created the problems in the first place. We as a people deserve the dire straits we are in because we are letting happen, over and over.
    All we have to do is inform ourselves and tell our congressmen what we want. Don't give any weight to what you hear on TV. Go to your congressmen's web site and read the pending legislation your self, discuss it with others and make a decision. Then call, write or e-mail your Representative and Senator about what you want them to do. If they don't do it, then vote for someone else.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    As the town is prohibited from raising levies the solution, legal under ca law, would be to allow unlimited production of cannabis. Medical marijuana is quiet expensive, by making it available for less they could boost revue by collecting larger amounts of whatever the current levies are, by increasing sale volume rather then the levy itself...
  • jessejaymes
    !
    It is not really that expensive. A quarter ounce of Purple kush will last 10 times as long as Cartel crap. So yeah you pay more going in but the end result is you have less wear and tear on your lungs, a much superior high at about the same bottom line cost. Or so I am told. Not that I would know. Excuse me while I take a .............never mind.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    @jessejaymes
    Well, no question, it is more powerful, but at prices of $16 a gram, that is nearly $500 an once. Also, you can no longer grow it yourself as it is bred not to produce seeds, and seeds are about $7 ea in packs of 10, so yea, expensive. I'd like to see a product that was not quiet as strong, but includes seeds, and is affordable. Presently from what I can gather, it's either really low quality with seeds, or hi quality without, promoting it self as a town where one could buy hi quality weed with seed, well the town may be able to pay back the $29 million faster then it takes for next falls harvest to go up in smoke...
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @Elliotsreport Well yeah but 500.00 an ounce is like a year's supply to me. LOL. Actually there is many different prices and strengths in Medical pot out here. ```````
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    @jessejaymes
    Really, can you send me some samples? LOL Seriously, I talk a big game, but these days an oz last even more then a year. My i'm getting old...
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @Elliotsreport LOL the feds frown on using the mail to send things of this nature. Heh. I hear UPS and Fed Ex are now using dogs? Wonder why?
  • marine1
    !
    seems to me that someone just told me how good california was doing. i'll have to go back and check to see who that was,
  • harold
    !
    You deal with this by averting it in the first place.
    No matter how egregious the actions of elected officials in this case, unless they committed a crime, the end result stems from inattention on the part of voters.
    Let this serve as a warning to all others...
    How many of you out there really know what kind of financial shape your local government is in. Are retirement programs fully funded? Stuff like that.
  • mimi57
    !
    California is on the brink of bankruptcy and the government pays over 40 million dollars a day in unemployment benefits, one out of every eight people are unemployed...It's known as the Liberal's Paradise. "Don't worry be
    Happy"..
  • Ashstop
    !
    I would love it!! I am tired of passing all our dept to the next generation!! It's time to be accountable, I've had to tighten my purse strings and budget my income, my city, state, and country should do likewise
  • CanisCanemEdit
    !
    Yeah. I am. I have a grandson living in Junction City, Kansas just outside Fort Riley.

    The town has 20,000 residents and $250 Million in debt. A terrible city manager and 3 real estate developers and 2 bank managers on the city commission left the town with a couple thousand developed lots and roads to nowhere.

    But it's Kansas, so nobody really gives a damn.
  • scotta
    !
    This what happens when liberalism is in charge. I live in the country so I am not worried about this. The city government spends spends. They just spend and raise taxes. This is what the United States is going to look at in the next 4 years if they do not stop spending.