By REID PRIEDHORSKYLos Alamos
Some of your readers may be aware that the Los Alamos Ski Club is seeking a new arrangement for Pajarito Mountain. The original proposal was to transfer ownership of the ski area to the county, and a private company would operate it. However, that never actually happened, and now the club’s board wants to transfer ownership directly to this private company. I believe this poses an unacceptable risk that the public will lose access to the mountain.
This opinion is based on my reading of the ski club’s background memo to members (link). Quotes are from the memo, and the ski club board is to be commended on the memo’s quality.
I am disappointed that the ski club is making a very significant decision that affects everyone in town but made no apparent effort to seek or incorporate the opinions of the public. We did not learn about this proposal until a concerned club member pointed it out only a few days before the vote.
The ski club’s board assures us that the public’s interests will be protected. I am not convinced.
First, we are told that the company’s “record” is “currently” aligned with the public interest. But companies get sold and leadership changes; things like this are not a “sale of the property” that would give the county “first right of refusal to acquire the Ski Area”. This particular company has strong leadership from a single individual. What happens when he retires or dies? The profit motive will always and continuously pressure company leadership.
Second, we are assured that the ski area will be “Open and Available to the Public”, except under six exceptions, including “for health and safety reasons, as determined to be appropriate by [the private company] in its sole discretion”, “as may be required by [the company’s] liability insurance carrier”, and “to otherwise facilitate Ski Area business”. These are massive loopholes. Private companies routinely hire smart people full-time to defeat such protections; the above would not be much of a challenge.
It’s also worth noting LANB’s role in this. The stated reason that the prior deal (county ownership of the land) failed to complete was that LANB wanted loan collateral consisting of all the land, in addition to the buildings and equipment. LANB tells us often that it’s a community bank, but now that there’s a real opportunity to do sorely needed good for the community, i.e. by supporting the original proposal for public land ownership, the answer is no. Actions speak louder than words.
Consider the old Smith’s. We were assured repeatedly by council members at the time that Kroger’s incentives were aligned with ours and the space would definitely be occupied promptly. We were told Kroger was friendly and they didn’t want it empty either. But these guarantees did not make it into the contract adequately, so now we have an empty building rotting away with no end in sight.
I realize that there are no easy answers here, and I acknowledge and appreciate the hard work of the ski club board and others. I worry about the future of skiing here too. However, the right answer is not to transfer ownership of Pajarito Mountain to a private, for-profit entity. This isn’t the only way to keep skiing in Los Alamos; we need a deal with strong public access protections, whether or not skiing is a going concern. I urge ski club members to vote “no” this evening.
