Article on Belleayre

http://www.watershedpost.com/2011/future-belleayre


 

That's an excellent article GunnyJ, thank you for posting it.

Totals:

In favor of ORDA management of Belleayre:

Coalition to Save Belleayre
Times Herald Record
Lussi of ORDA

Against ORDA management of Belleayre:

Catskill Heritage Alliance (CHA)
Belleayre Regional Advocacy Group (BRAG)
Catskills Watershed Corporation

BRAG is lobbying for an ORDA-type authority to run Bell. If the goal is to improved the cost structure of state run skiing, adding another government agency doesn't seem like the solution. Individual BRAG members are taking about a Catskills economic development authority.

CHA thinks Bell would be better off with the DEC.

Other points of interest:

• DEC basically admits that years when Bell is profitable are exceptions, but years of million dollar losses are also rare.

• BRAG recommends cutting pay and benefits for Belleayre workers to make Bell solvent.

• CHA is against cutting pay and benefits at Bell. They seem to say that additional cuts in the size of the workforce at Bell is the solution.  They also think that that revenue can be boosted by upping ticket prices and by slashing the number of free tickets Bell gives away. At the same time they express concern that improving Belleayre could hurt the other Catskill ski areas.

The disagreement among the Catskill based groups seems to fall along the lines of who is for and who is against the Belleayre resort.  For those against ORDA managemnt, there seem to be some Tupper Lake type concerns about the resort developers gaining the ability to unload infrastructure costs on to the public sector.

Interesting quote from the article:

"Last Thursday, DEC spokesman Michael Bopp told the Watershed Post that concerns about Crossroads benefiting from ORDA’s operation of Belleayre were premature."

Note that the word is not unfounded, but premature.

One BRAG member mentions that for the ORDA deal to be tenable, Catskill residents would have to have 4 of 10 seats on the ORDA board.  Maybe that's bargain posture but in my opinion, that's highly unlikely.  As pointed out in the other thread on this topic, Belleayre's leverage is minimal, and let's face it this is politics.

Again Gunny - great article. By far the most informative piece I've read on this issue to date. Thanks for posting.

Belleayre is the enemy.

That was a well sorted article. While the article mentions that ORDA still needs funding from NYS it does not mention that WF and Gore are cash flow positive. ORDA will run Belleayre cashflow positive also. The problem will be when Belleayre needs $$ for updating/expansion. That $$ will take decades to show up.

The other funny point is the request for another "public" authority for NYS. The are already something like 730 in NYS. I am actually shocked there isn't one in the Cats that can take over. Maybe each county in the region has one and they cannot agree how to divy up Belleayre.

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70s Gore Kid wrote

How do you cut wages, benefits, and most of all, the number of ski area workers?  I keep seeing this as a solution to make Belleayre more solvent.  However:

1.  Ski area lift ops are paid pretty close to minimum wage.  They enjoy fringe benefits such as free skiing and living in a ski town.  Its like being a lifeguard in Florida. You don't do it for the pay.

2.  You can't cut benefits of just one small group of state workers, without cutting everyones.  Collective bargaining.

3.  Reduce the number of workers?  When was the last time any state run ski area was overstaffed? Cut lift ops = lift shutdowns.  Cut snowmaking team = less snowmaking and grooming.  Cut ticket sellers = long lines of unhappy customers.

Kid ... this is the way I understand it, from this and other articles:

Belleayre has traditionally a larger number of full time employees than Whiteface or Gore. As state employees I do think they make more, have better benefits, and they work year round.  I'm assuming this means that ORDA employees aren't part of the collective bargaining for state workers.  This is why I think ORDA can do it.

In the layoff last year, they let go 12 of 20 full-time mechanics. (I'm guessing at those numbers but they are close.) And I'm pretty sure Gore and Whiteface don't have 12 mechanics combined.  There is room to make Bell work.

I think the BRAG folks are right.  Bell DOES need an authority.  Nobody has the political juice to create that in this environment. (IMO that's a good thing.) And ORDA looks like a good candidate for the job.

I get that this painful in Belleayre country.  People have built their lives around jobs at Belleayre. The only way ORDA's management is really good for those folks is if ORDA makes the difference in keeping Bell open.  IMO that could happen.

From the article

Let me get this straight - if they get $5M investment they can make money???  that only makes sense if they don't plan on having to repay the $5M.  How is that becoming profitable.

Then they go on to say
ORDA itself might not be the best fit, the report states, both because ORDA is not financially self-sufficient and because Belleayre is not an Olympic-level facility.

“Significant annual state and local town appropriations are required to keep the facilities in what could be referred to as "Olympic Ready" condition,” the report states. “Belleayre is a different scenario.”

Thats what I've been saying all along - this is not a world class ski area so why is it worth being part of ORDA?

Then these Catskill folks want not one seat on the ORDA board but 4???  What are they smoking down there???  Woodstock is pretty close to Bell isn't it?  To HPD's Lee and Grant comment that would be like Lee telling Grant that the south is surrendering but Jefferson Davis is going to take over the Whitehouse.  They are going to be really lucky to get one seat on the Orda board and Bell doesn't deserve that.

I've been hearing around town that there is little chance to get this done for this ski season - I'm hoping that that this will die before the season of 2012-13.

ausable skier wrote

From the article

Let me get this straight - if they get $5M investment they can make money???  that only makes sense if they don't plan on having to repay the $5M.  How is that becoming profitable.

Then they go on to say
ORDA itself might not be the best fit, the report states, both because ORDA is not financially self-sufficient and because Belleayre is not an Olympic-level facility.

“Significant annual state and local town appropriations are required to keep the facilities in what could be referred to as "Olympic Ready" condition,” the report states. “Belleayre is a different scenario.”

Thats what I've been saying all along - this is not a world class ski area so why is it worth being part of ORDA?

1.ORDA does not make a profit- it never has and never will - why is Belleayre being held to a higher standard?

2. NYS has plowed about $70 million into ORDA facilities yet there are worries about Belleayre getting and paying back $5 million? When is ORDA repaying the $70 million?

3. Can we please stop with the "World Class or Olympic ready" requirement? Whiteface used to be and Gore never was.

x10003q wrote

1.ORDA does not make a profit- it never has and never will - why is Belleayre being held to a higher standard?

2. NYS has plowed about $70 million into ORDA facilities yet there are worries about Belleayre getting and paying back $5 million? When is ORDA repaying the $70 million?

3. Can we please stop with the "World Class or Olympic ready" requirement? Whiteface used to be and Gore never was.

Please stop throwing water on Ausable Skier's ME ME ME rants -- they're great off-season entertainment.

70s Gore Kid wrote

  Its like being a lifeguard in Florida. You don't do it for the pay.

Oh boy, you should look up some lifeguard incomes. I don't know about Florida, but it's on record that many California lifeguards make a very very nice wage and retire with almost the same wage at 55. I knew a lifeguard "supervisor" in NYC who made 65 grand way back in the early ninties for basically four months work and a few meetings in the winter. He taught skiing at Hunter when people weren't drowning off of Orchard Beach. I'm guessing that he is comfortably retired right now, sitting on a beach and enjoying my tax funded pension.

70s Gore Kid wrote

2.  You can't cut benefits of just one small group of state workers, without cutting everyones.  Collective bargaining.

I see that you are not familiar with the byzantine workings of the NY state government. It would probably take an expensive outside audit just to determine how many state workers even exist, let alone get them all on the same page to bargain.

70s Gore Kid wrote

  When was the last time any state run ski area was overstaffed?

Listen, next season, go ski Gore on a weekday, and then stick your head into one of the Patrol huts scattered around the mountain, and do a quick head count. And those are the guys who aren't on the hill!

Benny Profane wrote

Listen, next season, go ski Gore on a weekday, and then stick your head into one of the Patrol huts scattered around the mountain, and do a quick head count. And those are the guys who aren't on the hill!

I don’t know about Gore, but at WF there are about 9 or 10 paid ski patrollers and none of them are getting rich doing it. The rest are volunteers. Next time you stick your head in a “hut” to count remember patrollers have to stand watch so when someone gets hurt they can get to them quickly.

They are very dedicated and hardworking people, IMO anyone who thinks they just sit around is misinformed.

Oh, hey, glad to see they are there. Hope I don't need them someday. And, I never said they were counting their money in there. But there sure are a lot of them.

Highpeaksdrifter wrote

none of them are getting rich doing it. The rest are volunteers. Next time you stick your head in a “hut” to count remember patrollers have to stand watch so when someone gets hurt they can get to them quickly.
They are very dedicated and hardworking people, IMO anyone who thinks they just sit around is misinformed.

If you've never done it, follow around a ski patroller for a couple hours. Based on what I saw, even on a "slow" day, they're constantly doing stuff all over the hill, and a lot of it is unsexy. If you've ever thought, "what a cool job; they get to ski all day for free, and once in a while tend to an injured person," as HPD said, you have no idea what you're talking about. It's real work. That's why the treatment of patrollers at Sunshine, a place with major snow safety issues, is so hard to fathom.

My daughter's high school ski coach is a patroller at Hunter.. He gave me a blow by blow description of his day. What a tough tough job..

Being a Hunter patrolman on the weekend must be like working as a cop in Saratoga Springs during race season.

hater