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ORDA Fights Back On 'Level Field' Debate

By Craig Altschul
November 20, 2007

Peter Harris, owner of the privately held Song Mountain, quoted a former employee in that story, saying that he didn't ski where he worked because he could get a $99 season pass at state-owned Gore Mountain. "He told me he couldn't pass up the deal," Harris said.

That didn't sit well with Sandy Caligiori, the long-time, well-respected communications professional with the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) which operates both Gore Mt. at North Creek and Whiteface Mountain at Lake Placid. Caligiori took The Industry Report to task.

"Gore and Whiteface never offered a $99 season pass. When Whiteface got into that business about 9-10 years ago, it presented a $199 season pass with holiday blackouts. Gore has never done a $99 or $199 pass," Caligiori said. "Why were we not contacted for confirmation of this info? Why were we not contacted in the interest of balanced reporting instead of taking another's word as gospel?" It's a legitimate question. We should have contacted ORDA to check that quote.

But, Caligiori, speaking to us on the record on behalf of ORDA, had much more to say on the "level playing field" issue.

"When state operations were not viewed as competition, the private ski areas ridiculed us for not knowing what we were doing and being outdated. Now that we are presenting state-of-the-art ski areas and have developed good marketing strategies, there are still concerns.

"The State of New York decided to enter into the ski business over 60 years ago. Tourism and recreation are the industry of the Adirondacks. Gore Mountain and Whiteface come close to the largest ski areas in the East in terms of vertical and acreage. Our resorts are not competing with smaller, urban ski areas for visits. We are, as a region, competing against Vermont, Canada, the West, cruise lines, and Disney. We owe it to our local economies to compete at the highest level possible or those visitors will go elsewhere," Caligiori said.

He said that the New York State Constitution created ORDA to run those ski areas. ORDA was charged with developing unit management plans "to continually evolve the venues so they are environmentally sound and present real economic benefit to the communities that they serve."

But, is the field level on the other side? Caligiori doesn't think so.

"Private operators use golf courses with greens fees that exceed lift ticket prices as well as condominium construction to generate four-season revenue," says Caligiori. "On the other hand, the state-run areas are one-trick ponies. Gore and Whiteface basically generate revenue by selling lift tickets four or five months a year with a little mountain biking thrown in on the side. We can't build golf courses, villages, and housing units on the lands that we manage."

There are clearly two sides to this issue. It just depends on the side of the field where you sit.

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