County wants to save, but not run, Ski Anthony Lakes

A packed audience urged Baker County commissioners Wednesday to accept Ski Anthony Lakes as a gift from the current owners and to create a nonprofit entity to run the resort.

Commissioners could decide at their next meeting, on July 28, whether to do so.

Connie Kearney, part of the three-family group that owns the ski area about 35 miles northwest of Baker City, said she and her husband, Lee, and the two other couples in the ownership group offered to donate the resort to Baker County because they don’t want to either dismantle the business or sell it to private investors and risk seeing it shut down and its assets, valued at $1.2 million, sold piece by piece.

Connie Kearney said the owners, who bought the resort in 1998, have been absorbing operating losses averaging about $45,000 per year over the past several years.

“We could sell the lifts and other equipment and possibly come out ahead, but we don’t want to do that,” Kearney said. “We want to see it continue to be a wonderful asset for people to enjoy, but we just can’t do it any more.”

Fred Warner Jr., chairman of the three-member Board of Commissioners, said he envisions the county using some of the $190,000 in cash reserves that have accumulated in the Transient Lodging Tax Committee’s budget to pay to market the ski area and create a contingency fund for the nonprofit organization.

“Under no scenario that I see, without a lot of community debate, would we put any tax dollars into Anthony Lakes,” Warner said Wednesday.

Warner said the $190,000 in cash reserves in the Lodging Tax Committee’s budget was built up a few years ago when the committee went without a marketing director. He plans to ask the committee to consider allocating some of the money to a nonprofit entity that would run Anthony Lakes, if the commission winds up voting to accept the resort as a gift at a planned July 28 meeting.

The owners have requested a decision by Aug. 1.

“I don’t think we are ready to take the resort on Aug. 1 and run it, but I do think we have to make some accommodations to the owners to give them some sense of where the county can be on this,” Warner said. “I think we will say we are working on how to take the gift. We will accept the gift Nov. 1, but they will continue to operate it until then.”

During the Aug. 1-Nov. 1 period, Warner said the county would have time to complete a review of the resort’s financial records, set up a Friends of Anthony Lakes nonprofit entity and appoint a board, work on the first year business plan and possibly hire a general manager to run the resort.

In response to questions from people who attended Wednesday’s hearing at the Courthouse, regarding potential risks or liabilities the county might face from accepting the resort as a gift, Warner said he doesn’t see any.

“The way the owners have structured this, there are no liabilities,” Warner said.

Alice Trindle, who has a horse training business in Baker County and also manages the Eastern Oregon Visitors Center in La Grande, said Anthony Lakes is the region’s premier winter recreation attraction.

The resort draws tourists who stay in area motels and buy gas, food and other items from local businesses.

“My wife and I spend hundreds of dollars every year on food and gas going to and from the mountain,” in addition to the money they spend on ski equipment and apparel and other supplies at local businesses, said Brian Vegter of Baker City .

Lois, David and Fletcher Johnson, owners of the Haines Steak House, submitted a letter, which was read during Wednesday’s hearing, saying that the closure of Anthony Lakes would be detrimental to their restaurant.

“The visitors who come to ski the resort come to our establishment to complete their visit to the Baker County area. At this particular time of year, these folks are vital to our business,” the Johnsons wrote.

Marie Hall of Baker County wrote that Anthony Lakes is a key to maintaining current property values in the city and county, as many residents moved to Baker City and Baker County because of the close proximity of the ski resort and winter recreational opportunities it provides.

“As rural areas work to attract doctors and other medical personnel, professionals in education, the trades and recreation-based businesses, access to a quality ski area is a huge advantage,” Hall wrote.

Eric Schoenfeld of Haines wrote a letter urging commissioners from Baker, Union and Grant counties to share the risks and costs of keeping the ski area open — he pointed out that the resort is almost directly at the intersection of the three counties.

The ski lift, lodge and other buildings are in Union County.

“In my humble opinion, all three counties should put a ski area district item on their respective ballots,” Schoenfeld said.

His idea is to create a property tax-funded district, much like a library or irrigation district, to pay to operate the resort.

Trindle told commissioners that ski revenues from local area skiers would soar if volunteers did more to form ski clubs in area communities and schools.

If the resort was marketed more aggressively outside the local area as well, Trindle said skiers might flock to Anthony Lakes from Boise, Pendleton, Tri-Cities, Portland and other areas, and that increased business would more than offset the losses reported by the current owners.

Trindle said she supports Warner’s idea of  developing a marketing plan paid for with lodging taxes.

Mike Rudi, a Baker City real estate businessman and former chairman of Baker County’s Lodging Tax Committee, said he believes marketing Anthony Lakes and providing seed money for a nonprofit entity would be a good use of the taxes, which are collected from visitors who stay at area motels, RV parks bed-and-breakfasts.

 “This is a perfect example of a tourism use of that money,” Rudi said.

After the meeting, Rudi pointed out that  “we have to have an attraction before the tourism comes.”

“If you need to use TLTC money to generate tourism, that is what it is there for. It isn’t tax dollars, it is transient lodging funds,” Rudi said.

Warner listed five options under which Baker County could accept the ski resort as a gift and ensure its continued operation, without investing or risking general fund tax dollars:

• Option 1: Calls for the county to accept the resort as a gift and form a Friends of Anthony Lakes nonprofit to operate the resort under direction of a board appointed by the county commissioners.

• Option 2: The resort would be gifted directly to a nonprofit entity, which would operate it under direction of a board of directors.

Option 3: The county accepts the resort as a gift and then sells stock or the assets to a private company, which would run the resort.

• Option 4: The owners gift the resort’s assets directly to a nonprofit, which would then lease the resort to a private company to operate.

• Option 5: The county accepts the gift and hires a general manager to run the resort as a special fund within the county’s budget.

Of those five options, Warner, in common with Commissioner Tim Kerns and most of the people who spoke during Wednesday’s hearing, said they prefer either Option 1 or Option 2 — keeping the resort under local control, but with a nonprofit running it instead of the county.

Commissioner Carl Stiff did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, but he intends to be on hand for the July 28 meeting.

Steve Edwards, a local woodland owner, was among those who spoke against Option 3 — the county accepting the resort as a gift and then selling the assets to a private company to operate.

“If they sell off parts of that mountain, that resort will never reopen,” Edwards said. “There is value in the ski lifts. There is value in the snow cat. We do not want a private entity to come in and sell off bits and pieces.”

Linda Collins, a longtime school teacher in Baker City, said the benefits of saving Anthony Lakes go beyond the economic boost it generates.

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about money, but I want to talk about something more intrinsic,” Collins said.

With all the pressure on youths today to use drugs and alcohol or get involved in other illegal or unhealthy activities, Collins said keeping Anthony Lakes open for winter recreation is worthy of community support.

Cory Parsons, Oregon Sate University Extension agent for Baker County, said he also sees maintaining winter recreation and potential expansion of summer recreation opportunities at Anthony Lakes as important for area youths.

Parsons pointed out that the Forest Service lease calls for improvements such as the chairlift to be removed if the owners cease to operate the ski resort.

(Although the lift and other buildings are privately owned, the resort is located on public land, managed by the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.)

However, Warner said Forest Service officials assured him that the agency considers the resort a valuable asset to the community.

“They will do everything in their power to keep it operating,” Warner said.

Mike and Anna Dean of Haines also spoke in favor of the county accepting the resort as a gift, expanding marketing efforts outside the local area, and putting together a plan to keep it operating, summer and winter.

“I am typically not in favor of the public getting involve in business, but this is different,” said Mike Dean. “If this goes away, I am concerned it will never come back.”

Anna Dean said she believes the resort’s economic benefits could grow if a new nonprofit adds summer activities such as mountain biking and hiking.