Have you looked around Mariposa lately?
It’s a strange phenomenon happening.
There are tourists all over the place as evidenced by the long lines of traffic at certain hours of the day. Tour buses seem to be coming back pretty well as they head toward Yosemite Valley.
But the other side of this coin is the shocking number of businesses that have closed over the past year. The lumber yard. The funeral home. A downtown restaurant. Home health and hospice.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what is taking place.
It is also true that Yosemite National Park has literally been overrun by visitors, with extremely long wait lines to get in and no parking once inside. The park seems to be attracting a lot of people.
It also appears hotels have cars in the parking lots, something that seems to have increased since the Covid crisis drove many people to vacation rentals.
But who are these people?
That’s a question nobody may be able to answer right at the moment.
One possible answer is many of these people are coming from nearby areas. Nearby meaning the Central Valley, San Francisco and even Los Angeles.
High gas prices may, in reality, be driving this. No longer are people spending big money on airline tickets to travel to exotic places or even to Alabama. They are using what funds they have to pay for high gas and food prices and taking a trip to Yosemite and other like destinations around the West.
So if that is the case, why is Mariposa County bleeding its business base and why are restaurants and other tourism-related places struggling?
Maybe these cash-strapped visitors are stopping in Merced and Fresno and filling up their coolers at Costco and Wal-Wart in order to be able have cheaper meals. With the cost of gas, food and lodging going up, they have to find a way to penny pinch while still getting that much-needed outdoor time.
This could be one of the reasons so many local business owners are struggling or even closing their doors. People are passing through and just not stopping to shop and eat.
It’s understandable, given the price of everything these days. Find something that has gone down in price over the last year. You can’t.
Fuel costs impact everything because nearly every business relies on delivery of goods. Getting those goods now costs a lot more. Have you seen the price of diesel?
This is just simple economics and mathematics.
But in my opinion, there is a much deeper issue and that is the lack of attention this county has paid to economic development for so many years. It seems Covid not only impacted businesses, it impacted the desire by our board of supervisors to start seriously looking at how to improve the economy.
We used to have a director of economic development. But when she left, that position has remained unfilled. Now we have various assistant county administrative officers, a media person and more who don’t seem to be doing anything when it comes to economic development.
There is also the competition factor. We are under pressure from places like Merced, Fresno, Oakhurst, Groveland and more to attract those tourists and try to convince them to throw some hard cash our way.
I don’t believe those in charge of the county government have any sense of how all of this impacts our own wellbeing. We have to have those dollars for local businesses — the heart of any economy — to survive.
This is one of the drawbacks of not having incorporated towns or cities within a county. It leaves every crucial decision up to five people sitting on a board.
To date, they have failed miserably.
One of the reasons, I believe, is because they refuse to listen to people who may actually know what they are talking about. I know for a fact many viable ideas and concepts have been given to the county when it comes to ways to improve economic development and, so far, deaf ears have prevailed.
Mariposa County can no longer continue to take tourism for granted. That’s what has happened over so many decades. We just assume they are going to come here and we’ll collect the cash and continue to move forward.
Former county supervisor Kevin Cann, who was a model for how a government official should perform, used to say Mariposa County was nearly recession proof. He knew the numbers and the trends. And he was right.
But now, things have changed and though I have not talked to Kevin about this, I would think he might agree that new reality of tourism and how people spend their money has changed drastically over the past five to 10 years.
What that means is those in charge need to change, as well. But so far, that has simply not been the case. It is much easier to hire people and tell them to do the work rather than roll up their sleeves, get serious about how to make the economy grow and then take action.
The possibilities are nearly limitless. From tax incentives to TOT incentives to financial assistance in helping new and viable businesses get off the ground and spark some interest in Mariposa County, that’s just the start.
To do that, the board of supervisors needs to get serious about allocating funds that, in the long run, will grow the economy. The old adage “you have to spend money to make money” rings true in the world of economic development based on tourism.
Even giving existing businesses some incentives could improve the local economy.
Instead, we spend years and committees and meetings trying to determine what types of signs we need downtown. I could have solved that problem in a week: decent signs that mean something to tourists. Go look at Groveland.
The drawn-out axioms of the “government bureaucracy” are old arguments. Have you noticed when something is really pressing, the government can act with lightning speed?
Well, this economic situation with businesses closing and others hanging by a thread is a pressing issue, if not a crisis.
I’m not saying government is the solution, but when you are in a tourist area and government jobs make up the vast majority of employment, it sure needs to play a role. It will take people in power getting serious and actually taking advice from experts.
So far, that hasn’t happened. And all of us are suffering because of this attitude.
Greg Little is editor of the Mariposa Gazette and can be reached at greg@mariposagazette.com.
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