A suit filed in that court on Thursday, Feb. 20, challenged the policies and practices of the State of New York in its management of three state-operated ski centers: Belleayre, Gore, and Whiteface. The suit was filed by ten plaintiffs — six ski areas, an equipment firm, two individuals and by the Associated Ski Areas of New York Inc. — charging a violation of civil rights and deprivation of property without due process.
In one of the specific charges, the suit contends that, beginning about 1972, the defendants, “. . . through collaborating, conspiring and cooperation, have entered into a plan and scheme, the purpose of which is not only to unlawfully capture for the State of New York a predominate share of the ski business in New York State, but also to control the marketing and price structure of the private ski facilities.”
The suit charges the state spent huge sums of tax money to build the areas, then even more in a public relations and advertising campaign to draw customers away from the private ski areas.
It charges that the state maintains a rate structure and season pass system that is arbitrarily and unreasonably below the fair market value for the facilities and that this rate structure is designed specifically for the purpose of eliminating private competition.
Seeking a petition to order the state to stop its various alleged unlawful practices in its pricing policies and operation of its three ski areas, the suit also seeks a total of $2.9 million in damages.
Named as defendants were Ogden Reid, the present commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, which operates the ski areas; former commissioners James Biggane and Henry Diamond; Victor Glider, executive director of the Office of Operations and Support Services of Environmental Conservation; Gerald Buyce, assistant to the director, Bureau of Forest Recreation, Environmental Conservation and general manager of the three state ski centers. Biggane, Glider, Diamond and Buyce were also named individually, as well as in their official capacities; Reid was not. Also named as defendants, the now defunct Adirondack Mountain Authority and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
A long-time opponent of the State of New York being in the ski business, Michael Brandt, president of West Mountain, of Glens Falls, N.Y., has been a spokesman for the plaintiffs following filing of the lawsuit. Brandt said in an Albany press conference, that the lawsuit was filed to stop what he called “unfair” competition from New York State in the ski business.
Although Brandt said a purpose of the suit was not specifically to halt or hinder the holding of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games at Whiteface Mountain, some legal observers said the litigation could hold up some of the planned state spending, which includes an initial expenditure of $11 million this year at Whiteface Mountain and Mt. VanHoevenberg Recreation area, south of Lake Placid.
About a month after the filing of the suit, Brandt received a strong boost from a member of Congress. In a public letter, Congressman Edward W. Pattison, a Democrat from the 29th District of New York, which includes several counties which are sites of private ski areas, as well as Gore Mountain, said he objected to New York State pricing policies.
Congressman Pattison said: “I’m not particularly opposed to New York State being in the recreation business. My feeling is that this should be confined to the kind of recreation which uses large tracts of land, and generally is not profitable from the standpoint of private capital.” “What I do object to,” the Congressman continued”, “and object most strenuously, is New York pricing its recreational services, in areas where private competition does exist, in a manner which would obviously be unfair, and which will ultimately have the result of driving private enterprise out of business.”
Pattison said that, “It is interesting to note that if Gore Mountain were a private operation, and was cutting its prices below costs, it probably would be in violation of anti-trust laws.”
Congressman Pattison said he made the letter to Brandt public, “because I think the way to solve this problem is to create a public consciousness of it.” He told Brandt, “That is not to say your lawsuit is not useful. However, by the nature of things legal, if it is successful, it will probably be too late.”
The lawsuit charged that the state has damaged their businesses and that they have been deprived of their property without due process of law in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The two individual plaintiffs, Brandt and David Vanderzee, of Willard Mt., have been very outspoken critics of the state’s ski operations, a fact noted in the suit. They claim that as a result of their public criticism, Glider, Biggane and Buyce allegedly decided to continue the state rate structure and season pass system opposed by private ski operators. One count charges Glider made a statement that if Brandt and Vanderzee did not refrain from critical expressions in the future, the rates would never be changed.
It also charges that Biggane, as commissioner, told members of the Associated Ski Areas of New York Inc., in October 1974, that if criticism of himself and New York’s ski centers, and opposition to holding the 1980 Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid did not cease, the state’s rate structure and season pass system would be continued.
Brandt and Vanderzee said they were told by Buyce in November 1974, that due to their continued protests, the state had decided to republish the previous year’s fee schedule as economic reprisal against the private operators. The two plaintiffs claim these actions violated their constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech under the provisions of the First Amendment.
Brandt charged that the state is selling its season pass at only 36 per cent of market value. He said it costs the state $4,010,000 to operate the three major ski areas each season. According to figures found in Governor Hugh Carey’s budget, revenue from the three areas during the 1973-74 season was $1,080,054. Brandt said this would give the state an operating loss of $2,929,946.
Noting the total skier visits were 352,438, the cost per skier visit was $11.37 and revenue per skier visit was $3.06, so Brandt claimed that the taxpayers of New York State were subsidizing each visit by a skier to a state ski area by $8.31.
Christoper P. Chapman, president of Associated Ski Areas of New York Inc., issued a statement on the suit. He said the association joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff since it believes the operation of the state areas at a loss works to the disadvantage of the New York State taxpayers.
Not a party to the lawsuit, but speaking out publicly in favor and in support of it, was the Campground Owners of New York, a non-profit mutual service organization of private campground owners. The campground operators are also battling the state over fees in state operated campground.
The state has offered no official answer to the lawsuit and made no public statements. One of the few public references to the lawsuit was made by Joseph Horan, director of the Travel Bureau of the New York State Department of Commerce. Speaking at a recent ski racing dinner, he noted that many of the young skiers had been training at the Alpine Training Center, operated as part of the Whiteface Mountain ski complex.
“There are those,” Horan noted, “who would try to close us down. If you want to maintain such a training center you had all better work to keep Whiteface open.”
