ARTICLE 78 LAWSUIT FORCES BIG TUPPER TO CLOSE

I didn't say it was obsolete. I said it that it wasn't efficient. They want to have a system in place that won't break down and be more cost efficient. Yes, they purchased Big T in 2003, but how much money would it have cost to maintain it till they received their permit from the APA. If they hadn't received the permit, all that money would have been for nothing. It cost over $8 million and 8yrs. to get the permit. And, now how much longer will it take for this to come to an end.

I don't think that we could have paid the electric bill if we had snowmaking. Season ticket sales can get us open but, it's the day tickets in the end that pay the bills. If it cost $600 to groom one night and we only have 10-15 day ticket sales, we lost money. I never looked at it in that way till I got involved with Big T. Always thought,"if there's snow, we can ski". But, it all comes down to $$. Which stinks!

I heard from a little bird through the grape vine from another little bird that in 2009 before the snowmaking equipment was stripped off the mountain the volunteers turned it on for fun and it worked 100% perfectly.

There's a lot of posts with a lot of words on this thread.  Most of them take a long time even to ignore.

Noah John wrote

There's a lot of posts with a lot of words on this thread.  Most of them take a long time even to ignore.

Noah is on a roll today - very funny.

Still not buying the argument that maintenence costs would have been high just to keep the snowmaking system operational. Fire it up once or twice a year just to check. Sure seems like that would have been the way to go. As far as the new base area being and moving the snowmaking building, according to the developers plans that  wouldn't have had to be done for several years after getting APA approval. There own proposal indicated they would not  even begin to upgrade the snowmaking system for at least 3-4 yrs. So if they had left maintained the existing system they could be making snow this season and providing the locals and all other skiers what they have been promising for years.

I have to say from experience that Cliff is a good guy. He cares about the mountain and the skiing and wants to see the place up and running more than anything. This guy did a TON of work getting the lifts running and the trails back in shape. I don't know if I agree with everything he says about ACR, but I completely respect the fact that he's presenting concrete arguments politely as opposed to just yelling at people, which we've seen a lot of from both sides. Above all else, I would love to see the mountain be open and I think Cliff agrees.

If BT still owned those guns, I sincerely doubt they'd get fired up this season.  It cost money to make snow.

Yeah Harv it does cost money to fire up the Guns. Even if they had the guns they couldn't fire them up without compressors and water pumps which were sold off 3 yrs ago along with everything else related to the snowmaking system.

I was just told about the blog discussion regarding the snowmaking equipment.  Here is the truth  - when it was decided that ARISE would operate Big Tupper, we had numerous discussions about whether we could operate the snowmaking equipment.  We took inventory of what was there, and besides several guns being recovered by parties that had interest in them, under the prior ownership, things appeared to be generally intact.  Some work was going to be necessary, and we had discussions on whether we should use some of the funds raised to do the repairs, and if we could, would we be able to afford to run the equipment to make snow.  The ARISE Board decided that we could not afford to do either.  We were trying to introduce affordable skiing to bring the kids and locals back to Big Tupper, and the cost of operating the snowmaking was too huge to consider.  As a result, I had further discussions with the ACR investors that there were regional ski areas who would be interested in purchasing some of the snowmaking equipment, some of our groomer parts, some of our lift parts, etc.  Anything that we might not be needing.  We created a list of non-essentials and the ACR investors agreed to sell the other stuff off.  They were very gracious about it, as they sold these items at a very good price, in order to help others out.  Yes, they truly discounted to help other ski areas out.  The decision to sell, was also based on plans to install newer/greener snowmaking equipment - which would be approximately 24 to 36 months after they took over from ARISE.  Why so long?  Because of other work scheduled for the ski area.  What did they do with the money?  They used the funds to help pay some of  the enormous legal bill they were incurring as a result of the APA application process.  As far as ARISE was concerned, it was their equipment, we could not afford to operate it, and they should be able to use their money any way they see fit.  They could not give ARISE any of the money any way, as that would have constituted collusion, and would have created a pile of legal/permit issues.  Hope that helps clear some of the issue up.  

Mr Lavalley, Maybe you and Foxman should get together and get your stories straight. I just got a fax copy of an article that came out in todays Tupper Lake Free Press (ACR newsletter). In it is an article written by F-man bashing Peter Bauer over the article 78 but he also brings up the snowmaking equipment.  Foxman says, in reference to the mountain and snowmaking, "Peter Day and his partners (former Big Tupper owners) took great risks and worked heroically to keep the mountain opern for the community but much of the equipment had been sold before Preserve Associates bought it."

So which is it Mr Lavalley, your account that "things appeared to be generally intact" or Foxmans' account that much of the snowmaking system was sold off before ACR purchased the mountain?  That brings up another point, on this very blog on 9/28/10 you posted and I'll quote from it regarding snowmaking at Big Tupper, your words: "new state of the art snowmaking has been put on order."  That was over 2 yrs ago, has the new equipment arrived yet? Did it ever get ordered as you claim?  I'll also include another quote from an article Foxman put in the Tupper Lake Free Press 10/3/12 claiming Peter Bauer and John Caffry had conflicting points on the article 78: "I am not surprised that they could not keep their stories straight. It usually is easier to remember the truth."  So I guess the same could be applied to Foxman and Lavalleys stories about the snowmaking system at Big Tupper. A little of the pot calling the kettle black.

Thanks for the rapid response.  I don't normally have time to visit Harv's site, but someone just forwarded your comments.  From my perspective, Michael Foxman and I are saying the same thing.  Your position on the ACR project has been made clear, based on previous posts – you don't like it.  It remains unclear whether you care about Big Tupper or the community of Tupper Lake.  You seem to work diligently against, and must keep a large file in an on-going attempt to find the “skunk” in the woodpile, when there is none.  By saying “generally intact”, that is a  true statement for the party that was well funded, ready to operate within a relatively short amount of time, and able to operate on a level beyond what ARISE was capable.  We simply could not afford to replace what needed to be replaced, nor could we afford to pay the electric bill to operate the snowmaking.  
 
As to your other point – I personally attended the meetings that involved the new snowmaking equipment.  We met with representatives from companies that provide equipment all over the world.   Items were reviewed and selected.  All orders were placed on hold as a result of the on-going delays, and now the Article 78.  Would you, or any other savvy investor, spend money on something that you don't know when you would be able to utilize it?  I stand by the fact that the ability to move forward on any level, is impeded by the pending litigation.  

I called the village electric today and ask them for some info on the electric at Big T. The power was turned off on April 30, 1999. It wasn't turned back on till ARISE had done on Sept. 17, 2009. So, there was no way that the volunteers could have turned it on to test.

Denise (my better half) and I started inspecting Chair 2 on Sept. 2, '09. Weeks prior to that, I had been going through things trying to find special tools I would need to do maintenance on the lift. When I went into the old snowmaking building and the only things left in there were the pumps. All the compressors and the wiring where gone. Mike Foxman said in todays Free Press, that the snowmaking equipment was sold before ARISE opened Big T.

Mr Lavalley, From a skiers perspective and from someone looking in from the outside who does not have anything to gain financially from the ACR, I'd say your characterization of the state of the snowmaking system and Foxmans are not very close. My positon on the ACR has and always will be the skiers perspective. I also look at it from an financial point of view. I would have no problems with the ACR guys giving this a shot with all their own money. But the "proposed" PILOT has way to much risk for the existing local taxpayers. I've been a skier all my life and would love to see Big Tupper get up and going again, but based on all I've seen of the ACR project the mountain itself has never been a priority for them, even though they have been dangling the carrot of Big Tupper forever to garner support for the project.

I know they use the article 78 as an excuse for not opening the area, but that conflicts with their bombastic proclamations that the suit is just malicious and frivolous and will be dismissed. If thats the case then why not at least start with the mountain, they own it, they have a permit in place, as big developers they surely must have enough capital to get it up and running. Seems like the logical thing to do from a skiers perspective and that would signal any future customers that these guys were serious about the mountain. I then look at the Front Street development at Gore, so far they have built 2 duplex units and they have been purchased by the developers investors, they have had a permit for 4 yrs, they have a mountain many times the size of Big Tupper which they don't have to put a penny into, and are much closer to population centers to attract buyers. If they can't sell anything why does anyone think the ACR will be successful?   I guess the ACR is somehow going to give Tupper Lake the cache it needs to attract the super wealthy? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Jim LaValley wrote

"...the ACR investors agreed to sell the other (snowmaking equipment) stuff off.  They were very gracious about it, as they sold these items at a very good price, in order to help others out.  Yes, they truly discounted to help other ski areas out.  

I don't think anybody ever expected that ARISE would actually use the snowmaking equipment.  Obviously that would have been cost prohibitive.   But selling off the snowmaking equipment sure makes it sound as though the ACR developers had little interest in operating the ski area themselves.  Apparently the ACR developers got very little money from the sale, which begs the question why sell it at all?  Were the ACR developers that desperate to raise even that tiny bit of cash?

In another discussion regarding ARISE's decision to not operate BT this year, Jim LaValley stated "Big Tupper was in a position to receive substantial financial assistance.  With the filing of the Article 78 lawsuit, that opportunity dissolved, and we are forced to close."  JLV went on to state "Over the next few weeks, some of the investors that were looking to contribute somewhere between $100K and $200K will be coming forward to discuss their intentions. These discussions will be reported. " I'd like to hear more about that, specifically who those investors are, how much they were going to invest, and what those funds would have been used for.  JLV's comments were written about a month ago, on September 30.  Unless I missed something, no one's come forward yet.

Jeff, As the old saying goes, Talk is cheap.

Big Bump

Adk Jeff wrote

Jim LaValley wrote

"...the ACR investors agreed to sell the other (snowmaking equipment) stuff off.  They were very gracious about it, as they sold these items at a very good price, in order to help others out.  Yes, they truly discounted to help other ski areas out.  

I don't think anybody ever expected that ARISE would actually use the snowmaking equipment.  Obviously that would have been cost prohibitive.   But selling off the snowmaking equipment sure makes it sound as though the ACR developers had little interest in operating the ski area themselves.  Apparently the ACR developers got very little money from the sale, which begs the question why sell it at all?  Were the ACR developers that desperate to raise even that tiny bit of cash?

In another discussion regarding ARISE's decision to not operate BT this year, Jim LaValley stated "Big Tupper was in a position to receive substantial financial assistance.  With the filing of the Article 78 lawsuit, that opportunity dissolved, and we are forced to close."  JLV went on to state "Over the next few weeks, some of the investors that were looking to contribute somewhere between $100K and $200K will be coming forward to discuss their intentions. These discussions will be reported. " I'd like to hear more about that, specifically who those investors are, how much they were going to invest, and what those funds would have been used for.  JLV's comments were written about a month ago, on September 30.  Unless I missed something, no one's come forward yet.

In light of the current news, maybe now Adk Jeff's questions can be answered

x, I would be extremely surprised if an answer to Jeff is forthcoming.  

Cuomo will be up at Gore this weekend doing the Adirondack challenge thing again, would not surprise me if this is talked about heavily.  

A Massive Tuper Lake Development Gets the Green Light

A favorable article for the development loaded with interesting quotes. Mayor Paul Maroun blames the delays in getting approval for Tupper Lake's current economic downtrend. He is also hoping for a Target or Ames store to open and is also trying to get a conference center built in Tupper Lake.

From the article:
"Central to that is the resurrection of Big Tupper Ski Area, which will see a vast expansion if Lawson's and Foxman's dream comes to pass. Once a vibrant family ski slope, Big Tupper has lingered in purgatory as its new owners have awaited regulatory approval."

I wonder what "vast expansion" means.