Is ORDA short-changing North Creek?
This morning, Chris Morris reports on the fact that the Olympic Regional Development Authority had a great year, with venues in Lake Placid, North Creek and Wilmington all attracting great audience over the winter.
The number of skiers at Whiteface and Gore Mountains rose by a combined 17,000.
But that very good news comes amid a fresh round of discussion and debate about ORDA’s role in helping to build the North Creek economy — all of which was kicked off by this passage in one of Jon Alexander’s stories in the Glens Falls Post Star.
Some residents [of North Creek] have grown increasingly annoyed with Gore Mountain, which unlike Whiteface, its sister state-owned mountain near Lake Placid, is largely void of summer events.
“Gore has a large tourist mecca just down the road in Lake George and they can’t lure people to ride the gondola?” said Dick Carlson, a Johnsburg resident and marketing manager at the Georgian Resort in Lake George. “Whenever they were open, they marketed on the cheap.”
Whiteface is the site of mountain bike races, brewfests and concerts on an almost weekly basis throughout the summer.
Even the gondolas won’t be running at Gore.
Jon Lundin, a spokesman for the Olympic Regional Development Authority, which operates the two mountains, said previous summer events at Gore have lost money.
“It basically comes down to the fact that Gore is not a summer destination like Whiteface is,” Lundin said.
The conversation continued this week in an essay in the Adirondack Almanack by John Warren titled “How Gore Mountain Abandoned North Creek.”
Gore Mountain’s marketing slogan “More Gore” may be catchy, but it’s far from reality – local residents, local officials, and local media should start asking serious questions about why North Creek is getting less Gore, instead of more.
There has been resentment and concern in North Creek about ORDA’s focus for years, with some local leaders concerned that the state organization’s center of gravity is too heavily focused in the Lake Placid region.
In 2007, the ORDA board even briefly considered rerouting roughly $5.5 million in state dollars earmarked for the Gore-Ski Bowl interconnect to other projects. That didn’t go over well.
So what do you think? Now that the interconnect is up and running, is Gore getting a fair shake? Or is ORDA’s other mountain getting lost in the mix? And how would it change things if ORDA also begins managing the Belleayre Resort in the Catskills?
As always, your comments welcome below.
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All this talk about ORDA has me curious about their operating budget, who appoints the administrators (the Governor?) their staffing numbers and salaries, etc. Since they’re an “Authority” and thus somewhat shielded from oversight and the prying eyes of the public, does anyone know where I could find this information?
In response to the above inquiry — ORDA’s chairman is appointed by the governor. In turn, the chairman appoints the president/CEO (Ted Blazer).
There’s some information available at http://www.orda.org/corporate/
I little research at seethroughny.org reveals Blazer’s salary to be about $175,000. You can salaries for most employees there.
Hope this helps.
* you can FIND salaries for most employees, sorry.
Thanks, Chris…..Almost as much as the Governor to run ORDA? Pretty good gig. I wonder if the ORDA employees are eligible to be members of the state retirement system?
Gore can’t compete with Lake George in summer. Whiteface does not have that problem. Hunter Mountain in the Catskills is very successful all summer long with ethnic related festivals but Hunter has no Lake George type competition. Belleayre is too close to Hunter to ever be viable as a summer destination. As far as summer commerce goes Lake George is to Gore as Hunter is to Belleayre.
If you look at the budget from a revenue perspective Gore is pretty much on par with Whiteface. So Gore is making almost as much money as WF and doing it with mostly winter activity. What’s the problem again?
Gore can’t compete with Lake George in summer? Huh? Why not say Whiteface can’t compete with Lake Placid?
Paul, Gore Mountain is making about the same money and has many more visitors than Whiteface due to its closeness to suburban areas – the complaint is that the money they are making is going to Wilmington.
Taxpayers in North Creek deserve the same respect from ORDA as taxpayers in Wilmington – don’t they?
I think it is important to point out that Hunter Mountain is a private business, and unless it has changed hands in thew last few years it is a family business. They have the advantage that they can be more flexible in many ways than a quasi-governmental agency. On the other hand, they can’t just go to the state taxpayers for a few million dollars here and there to put in new lifts and other equipment.
Clearly, the money spent on the Gore Mountain interconnect wouldn’t have happened in a private business because there is no way it will pay for itself.
On NCPR today was the report that ORDA was ecstatic that they had projected a profit of $47,000 but they actually profited $296,000. What is the value of the real estate and investment in improvements over the years to all of the ORDA properties and they are crowing about such a pitifully small profit?
Take a look. Compare and contrast:
http://www.huntermtn.com/
http://www.goremountain.com/
http://www.whiteface.com/summer/index.php
http://www.skiwestmountain.com/
I see my comment is awaiting moderation so I’ll answer Joh Warren’s question about taxpayers deserving respect.
The taxpayers in North Creek and the taxpayers in Wilmington each deserve the same amount of respect. But what about the taxpayers in every other city and town in New York state? How many millions of dollars have the taxpayers spent on ORDA? And some of those taxpayers actually run or have run competing businesses. Look at Big Tupper; how was it that Big Tupper ski area was supposed to compete with Gore and Whiteface when the state paid for new lifts, snowmaking, groomers and all kinds of other stuff without ever having to go to a bank to finance it?
People up here like to complain about the City getting everything, but in reality Adirondackers can’t get enough of the government teat.
Knuck, I would dispute your assertion that, “Clearly, the money spent on the Gore Mountain interconnect wouldn’t have happened in a private business because there is no way it will pay for itself. ” Prior to Gore being built there were, IIRC 7 private ski areas in the greater North Creek area. Had Gore never been built and the State never had gone into direst competition with private industry there is no way to say what would have happened.
“Paul, Gore Mountain is making about the same money and has many more visitors than Whiteface due to its closeness to suburban areas – the complaint is that the money they are making is going to Wilmington. ”
Sure taxpayers in North Creek deserve the “same respect” whatever that means?
But John it looks like the amount of money that ORDA is spending on Gore again is on par with WF (4.3 million vs. 4.9). More money is being spent in Lake Placid but that is because there are other venues there. If you just look at the ski areas it looks pretty equal. What am I missing? It must be in the “events” numbers or something but that is like 400K, help me out. The business plan appears to be working out they just had a very good season. I better read these articles again I am missing the point.
John, Whiteface is complimented by Lake Placid whereas Gore is forced to compete with Lake George. That is the difference.
I think Bob S pretty much hits the mark. back in the day people that skied at Gore or Little Gore (The Ski Bowl) stayed at the few hotels in the area, the cabins still open from the post WW2 or earlier era and the hostels/bed and breakfasts (ie- rooming house). The days of people wanting to sleep in less than modern conditions ( and trust me, some of the old stuff was ancient even then!) and with little after hours entertainment. Lake Placids accommodations are certainly more in line with Lake Georges, plus West Mountain and Vermont are an easy drive from Lake George.
I can recall back in the late 70’s when the first talk of making North Creek a “destination resort” came to light. I don’t know if it’ll ever happen.
All the millionaires and billionaires have already spoken and Gore mountain is not on the list of destination resorts.
Bret, I’m not exactly sure what your point is on your 8:13 post. I completely agree that Gore has done serious damage to other privately run ski areas. But there isn’t enough money being generated by Gore Mountain itself to warrant a connector to North Creek and there isn’t enough business in North Creek to make someone want to make the endless journey into town to make the interconnect financially feasible.
Had Little Gore remained open things might have been very different but we aren’t in the Land Of What If.
Just sayin’ there has been some talk about orda taking over belleayre, I don’t know if that’s a good idea or bad, but belleayre has a summer music series that brings in pretty big acts. I lived in north creek for a while, and that town’s local businesses put in their fair share of effort, raising money for the music by the river events to attract summer interest, also partially funding the ski shuttle that now runs from town to the mountain. If ORDA put in the effort, there’s plenty that could be done at Gore i.e. festivals like hunter and music like Belleayre, to boost summer tourism that would benefit the town’s economy.
Sorry I missed this Knuck. My point was that had the State stayed out of the ski biz we don’t know what would have happened. The smaller private areas of the 60’s were pretty much like the small private areas of Vermont in the 60’s. Had they had the chance to develop the North Creek/North River/Chestertown/Warrensburg/Glens Falls area might have been like the ski center areas in Vermont are today. The State KILLED off at least 7 areas IIRC the number correctly. That’s the problem with socialist enterprises in competition with private enterprises- the private industry always loses to the unlimited taxpayer dollar, all while the State taxes their competition!