During their meeting this month, the Olympic Regional Development Authority Board discussed the possibility of retaining a consultant to review current and future venue maintenance needs. Over the weekend, the Adirondack Explorer’s James Odato reported about how the vote signifies that the state authority with 1,500 employees may not be properly equipped or sufficiently staffed to run its $625 million valued winter sports facilities, which include Belleayre, Gore Mountain and the Lake Placid Olympic venues. Odato detailed his reporting with WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley:
Odato: What I made of the debate is that there’s an extraordinary meeting in which board members queried a resolution and showed a fair amount of reluctance to go along with a resolution. So as a result the resolution was tabled because it was clear that there was going to be at best a divided vote if not a losing vote. The board’s going to try to figure out whether it’s something that’s feasible given it’s a $3 million expense for a report. It’s supposed to be a roadmap for decades. The people who are pitching it as necessary are the CEO and the chairman and the rank-and-file board members are dubious. They’re not sure this is something that they want to go along with. They want more information. You know, there was a fair amount of questioning of this proposal.
James, you’ve mentioned the cost of it. Do you think ORDA has overextended itself because it’s not just the Olympic venues in Lake Placid, they also manage Gore and Belleayre. Did the board members talk about that?
The board didn’t talk about the fact that they now have three ski centers to deal with as opposed to two and how they’ve been building up their existing franchise with improvements and things like that. No one said that they believe that this is too much to take on but what they did say, what the CEO and the chairman were indicating, is that the staff that is running the facilities is busy. They don’t really have time for the planning that would be necessary. It’s not clear as to whether they have the talent for the training either. But this is a big operation now. They have come up with fresh information which indicates that it’s worth $625 million in insured value. And the insurance company that valued it didn’t even take into account assets that are worth $150,000 and less and there a lot of those kinds of assets as well. So this is a franchise that has been built up to be worth well over $625 million and they want to make sure that their maintenance apparatus is able to keep it going on a regular basis and that as they add in the future and plan for the future, you know, new events and new activities and ways to keep it a 12-month a year operation that they’ve got a plan. And the CEO and the chairman of the Olympic Regional Development Authority do not believe that plan can be constructed with the staff they have now. They think it’s necessary to retain a consultant to do this work.
James, did you get a chance to talk to any of the ORDA employees about what they think of bringing in a consultant to review what they’re capable of doing?
The people I have talked to in the ORDA community are of the same opinion as the board members who are questioning whether this can’t be done with the current staff or why it needs to be done outside the current staff. But there are other public authorities that I have talked to as well, major public authorities that actually make money as opposed to lose money, and they are not aware of hiring out for a consultant for a strategic plan as the Olympic Regional Development Authority is proposing to do. This is not something I’ve seen, I’ve heard, other authorities doing.
The resolution was tabled to obtain more information before the board’s next meeting, scheduled for next March.
