Last week, we reported on the latest straw poll at Curbed.com. The poll asked for readers’ opinion on the incorporation effort in Olympic Valley. It’s not the first time, and probably not the last time, that the battle at Squaw Valley has caught the attention of national media. The results of the poll are no surprise. As in every other poll, people still seem to be in favor of the residents of Olympic Valley to have a voice of self-determination by an elected town council. In fact, the latest survey shows people support incorporation by 62%, or nearly a 2 to 1 margin. Representation for locals is currently handled by one Placer County supervisor, and an army of well paid lobbyists. Squaw Valley Ski Holdings LLC has contributed over $130,000 to the effort to squash local control over the last two months alone. It’s expected that they will likely pick up the tab for the current outstanding debt of over $50,000, which is currently owed by Save Olympic Vallley.
The question remains…how much is Squaw Valley Ski Holdings and KSL Capital willing to spend to avoid working with the residents of Olympic Valley? It seems like nearly every skier and rider that bought a season pass for next season wonders whether there’s better ways to improve our experience. Here’s a proposal, if SVSH sold Alpine Meadows, there would be plenty of money to pay for meaningless mailers, legal services and lobbyists. #FreeAlpine
Here’s the address for the Curbed.com article: : http://ski.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/the-results-are-in-62-want-to-incorporate-olympic-valley.php. Sorry if that’s not an active link. Posting from my iPad is not ideal.
SOv-iets are “in the red”, eh?
Keep Squaw True………it’s the right thing to do.
Says one Sov “testimonial-er”, : “What about a music club under the MAC?”.
Uuum, isnt there a farking big aquifer just ~ 20′ under the big in-ground pool in the water park?
The music club better do limba dancing.
Yes, the aquifer is only 75′ below ground level according to this article today:
http://tahoequarterly.com/2014/06/groundwater-drought-weigh-on-water-managers/
After excavating a pool and a sub-terranium carpark, SOV’s discothque better specialise in Wet T Shirt Nites.
Obviously Sov will never be more than a joke. It’s no alternative community leader imo. It’s board member Andy might be a genius (and he is) but he’s lost the plot sidling up with these Sov people. He’d be better off working with the community and displaying genuine leadership. Grubby politicking and checkbook ‘activism’ is backfiring don’t you think?
So if Troy won’t sell, and the village continues to get delayed, it is not that far fetched to think that KSL could unload Alpine Meadows to the right buyer. How rad would it be for the new buyer to be the community, which would return Alpine Meadows to its glamorous past. Not to mention, KSL would score big points for doing the right thing.
#FreeAlpine
#FreeAlpine!
This I like. I said it would be great if Donald Sterling had been forced to sell to the citizens of LA to hold the team as a public utility for the benefit (socially and economically) of the locals. Alpine would have to incorporate too (or are they in Tahoe City limits?) but a locally owned and run ski hill would be awesome (and a lot of work).
AM could be run on the smell of an oily rag.
No Wet Amenity!!
In long lift lines, Geppetto and I sing the puppet song. .
I know something about throwing a great tea party but who’s advising KSL for big bucks and negative results?
Just look at the train wrecks time and time again ‘as seen on UA”.
They’re mad! And I should know – I have a certificate to prove it 🙂
…figures. Here are references to minutes from Jan 2013, yep a year and a half ago : http://unofficialalpine.com/?p=2030#comment-7046
Sov are way behind the eight ball. Do you think they have what it takes the lead a community like they say they want to? I don’t. AW’s position on SOV’s three person board reeks of a possible conflict imo.
There really is a faultline in the aquifer as we read on UA long ago!
Where’s that siesmic report that predicted West shore is overdue for a event that’ll lift west shore – and a 8 mile pipe of poo over the aquifer – by 6 to 12 feet?
Will the new village look like FoSV’s picture of leaning casinos as poo water drops from busted pipes into the very water supply that the 8 mile pipe is supposed to protect?
Wasn’t the 1 mile pipe a safer idea? Pop over to SOV and ask them what they think. Their home base area had 7000 cases of dysentry in March 1970 if I recall correctly when bacteria bred in the aquifer.
Cheerio
Dear UA.
The linked article says minerals in the water at one end of the aquifer make the water undrinkable. Isn’t that why it’s used for the golf course, not for drinking? Isn’t that why the Phase 2 at the Resort was stalled for years – they’ll need to share water with squaw’s 3rd water district, or with Geary’s if a 3rd water district doesn’t reduce his jurisdiction to a ‘few’ acres.
Won’t they need two sets of pipes: undrinkable for the garden, and drinkable for the condos?
I hope KSL-SOV know what they’re doing because SOV seems one-eyed and uninformative and it took years for Squaw to recover economically from the mass dysentry outbreak in 1970 at rhe Lodge/Plumpjack end of the village. 7000 victims iirc. It was quite the vomitorium: a wet amenity with chunky bits of carrots 🙂
Oh btw, egressing over Cushing/KSL’s land free for 55 years might mean they can’t build over public rights of way and easements, but maybe the Berkley Local Gov Law School Library don’t have good legal articles. Did that nice young man from the county explain that easement/way thing at the DRC meeting because I think issues like that helped KSL invent the “Not as wrong plan”?. The whole think might need to go back to the drawing board. The whole thing could be better presented, warts and all’ and thereby gain support of the community under genuine leadership. What are KSL scared of?
http://unofficialalpine.com/?p=2030#comment-11974
Just looking at a few old links, there’s unemployment figures here. UA’s an encylopedia, and still SOV people spout ‘crapfacts’. Sov should do some research. Bwhaha @ the idea for a music hall under the wet amenity
Hey Doc, – remember the Under the Sea Prom theme? It rocked.
Ah Marty,
but Biff built that huge casino, remember? We gotta get the Delorean up to 88 mph and stop Biff from changing the future!
how many committees are people on, how much info was gleaned, and what barrows did they recoomend the committees implement eg sov’s board, for buses, olympics, planes, zoning, county subsidies, regional planning, land acquisition by counties, etc etc? how many companies do the same people hold sway with?
Can you investigate if a ‘price setting deal’ is in play between lodging places and, if so, what’s the phone number for the DoJ Anti-trust division in Washington for free expert legal advice 🙂
Ask the book keeper dude in Hidden Loop Lane or the well dressed Calpier’s ceo: he’s easy to see in that orange onepiece
Abysmal timing by the PR people to place advertisments in the press as the Feds were releasing their press statements. Surely any marketing guru would ask his testimonialist ‘are the Feds chasing your old compant for paying off Russian government officials’ before putting Hewlett Puters up as a book keeper’s poster boy.
Gracious, you should see the law reform submissions by associations for lots of pension funds – they don’t put HP and Enron up for awards y’know. What were SOV’s bosses thinking?
Now they’re paying a Activist the big bucks to tell us the truth. I’d believe her, but thousands won’t see past the big checks, in my view.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U6-dgEDySZh
KSL just think like these guys. It’ll end in tears for them I think.
Even with his extra nuts, SOV’s Big Banana wouldn’t win in a month of Sundaes.
Are condos in “Water District 3” securing rights to ‘free admission’ to the wet amenity + concessional pricing on water, power and gas in the ‘pipe’?
Ksl’s survey a little while ago asked about prices and whether the economy influenced your decision. As a private equity firm in a region with developers all building for the 1%, look out: The Bank for International Settlements aren’t that positive about the future.
“The international body representing central banks is warning its members that record low interest rates are generating conditions for another global financial crisis that may be worse than the first.
In its annual report, the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) expressed serious concern that global share markets had reached new highs and the interest rate premium for many risky loans had fallen.
“Overall, it is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally,” the bank wrote.
The BIS says the disconnect is largely due to continued monetary stimulus in the form of money printing and record low interest rates by many developed economy central banks.
“Financial markets have been exuberant over the past year, at least in advanced economies, dancing mainly to the tune of central bank decisions,” it observed.
“Volatility in equity, fixed income and foreign exchange markets have sagged to historical lows. Obviously, market participants are pricing in hardly any risks.”
This has led to another run up in global debt, with private debt outside the banking sector now 30 per cent bigger than it was before the financial crisis.
Of even more concern to the BIS than the total size of the debt is where it has gone, with many signs that risk is again being under-priced and finances being misdirected to speculative asset booms – just as it was in the run up to what the bank calls the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).
“Tellingly, growth has disappointed even as financial markets have roared: the transmission chain seems to be badly impaired,” the bank lamented.
It is a warning central banks and market participants should heed, as the BIS was one of the only major international financial organisations to warn of the GFC before it began.”
Ho-gan!!!!!
KSL would be wise to appeal all demographic groups or else it can make Squaw Creek into a moat.
I also have some spare razor wire and pre-loved machinegun turrets to keep the locals out too.
Col. Klink
Squawlag 13
http://unofficialalpine.com/?p=2382#comment-9481 is another comment – made 3 months before KSL’s Presentation – that is simply prophetic.
What are KSL paying their Sov and experts and lobbyists for, apart from picking UA’s brains trust?
Good Morning,
Andy’s new aircraft deal sounds fab. I am rather chuffed that he read and acted upon UA’s posts like this one http://unofficialalpine.com/?p=2171#comment-8171. He’s a clever chap. Pity he doesn’t have smarter in-tune people working for him. PS: For $183,000 a month I’d tell him a thing or two too.
How come SOV doesn’t mention that IOV has guys like the ski town manager of Sun Valley and Big Bear or this investment bank advisory guy??
“Vito Palermo is founder and managing director of 38º Advisors an advisory investment bank located in Woodside, CA. He is a former financial and operations executive with over 25 years of experience leading startups and multinational corporations. Vito is an expert in complex negotiations and financial budgeting. Vito is an avid skier, having skied at Squaw Valley since 1978, holds avalanche certifications and enjoys backcountry skiing. His 3 children all learned to ski at Squaw and his youngest daughter Lauren is currently in the Far West racing program on the Squaw Valley Ski Team.”
So far, all I’ve seen from SOV are half baked ideas by a groupwho haven’r run a cake sale yet.
At the NLT Resort Association Breakfast, can someone ask why Squaw taxes go to Placer that go to the Resorts Association to …market Squaw and Nstar Resorts. Don’t Squaw and Nstar have ‘zillions’ to splurge, as illustrated by the $183,000 blown on SOV’s advertorial “questions” campaign. Do Squaw and Resorts need taxpayer money? Wouldn’t that $697,000 be better spent by locals to market local businesses and lodging deals?
Btw at the breakfast will be the Vito Palermo fellow we’re hearing a lot of great things about from everywhere (except the Sov-ettes):
:Olympic Valley Incorporation — What’s Happening? Update on the progress of the process with questions and answers with Fred Ilfeld, MD, board chair, Incorporate Olympic Valley and Vito Palermo, lead negotiator and board member, Incorporate Olympic Valley.
Purchase your Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club ticket at https://northlaketahoeresortcacoc.wliinc28.com/events/Tuesday-Morning-Breakfast-Club-105/register.
Tickets are $15 each, per meeting.
Dear UA,
When comparing the TDT Poll to Curbed’s poll, SOV are slipping backwards fast.. 51/40 is now more like 66/33%. The undecided have made up their minds by the looks of things.
http://unofficialalpine.com/?p=4216#comment-17192
SOV should hang their heads in shame. Shocking! Disgraceful! Worst of all, its costly, inept, pathetic, childish, devisive, and damaging.
…. “I’m like many of you. In a conversation, I like to sound like I know what I’m talking about even when I’ve just cursorily reviewed the info online. It’s the way the world works now isn’t it? You can get by socially by not digging in too deep. Well when it really matters, you can’t take that approach. With the issue of whether Squaw should be a town or not there’s a lot of funny information floating around out there. So you have to go to the horses mouth.
Don’t be Gertrude from Topeka, Kansas who concludes she doesn’t like Melba because of something Beatrice said Melba said. Attend a town incorporation meeting – can you really conclude anything if you don’t?
You can learn A LOT tomorrow (Tues, June 30th) at:
1) 7am at the Granlibakken Conference Center and Lodge, breakfast club
or
2) 7pm at the Squaw Fire Station (PSD) conference room.
Don’t worry, you can like and share this even if you can’t make it. There are regular factual and informational meetings monthly to help keep people up to speed.”
Good advice Robb.
I’d listen to a Gertrude, not those ‘Sov-ietz’, realtors or pension fund investment Bankers. If they want Wall street, it’ll be Berlin Wall street, mark my words.
http://on.rgj.com/1mf0U9h
See it’s true!!! , and UA told one of SOV’s spokeslady long ago about these extra planes.
Sov should find out what’s going on if they want to be the leader in the sandpit. Do you think SOV could lead a diverse community, or are they too fixated on self interest?.
Suffering suckatash Tweety, SOV’s publications hold more crap than kitty litter
With things like this going on around Squaw, the locals’ own town better be on the list of informed stakeholders. Or else everything comes as a surprise. To be forewarned is nice. To be mushroomed, isn’t. and Sov isn’t doing much in the real information stakes, unlike UA, Moonshine, Fosv and Iov. Is there any cance that Sov could ever become the ‘follow me’ leaders they (with a Board, I read, that’s under SVSH/SV Lifts & KSL’s Ceo?) could independently lead the valley?
http://on.rgj.com/1wg5cNp is about extra services on Greyhound Buses from places like Sac, or from Oakland. to Reno. Can you ask your pals at SOV to update Squaw’s How to Get Here info coz I doubt they keep up with things.
fyi http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/12152333-113/traffic-tahoe-tourism-transportation
(I couldda told them the same thing, for half the price).
…read Unofficialalpine. I’m glad they’re keep updated on all things Squalpine. The SOV “secret meeting” made some good points though of course the meeting was thin on the pros of incorporation.
I also hear that the older generation (who don’t ‘do’ facebook) are also turning to Unofficlalalpine for balanced news, as are teenagers.
Keep it up.
$183,000 in 2 months and layoffs/derostering is a stark contrast against Squaw’s good works, like supporting athletes/teams and High 5s. Good corporate citizenry is good for business, but a few dumb dumb penny pinching ideas (like layoffs not running an extra lift) backfires on them. KSL should wake up and smell the roses don’t you think?
Can anyone secede from trpa? The new hi density plans sound like they want to sement the sierras.
Love
Seymour Sement.
Hey I read on IOV’s facebook page about the mousetrap, but UA’s readers ‘knew’ that a long time ago. I’m pretty sure there were costings and roadword interection improvement figures – to reduce dirt washed into waterways – as well.
Brockway’s stretch of road is due for an upgrade too I see – not far from a proposed bus transit center site someone was looking at. I’m sure I saw plans for possible sites at Tahoe Vista on facebook about the time Ua revealed the $5m/64 acre bus project – at a bridge that can’t handle the traffic. (Is it true there’ll be a road built on USFS land that basically runs, sorta, from Squaw and the Martis swap to Homewood for a ’20 mile pipe’ idea?
There’s so much going on in the region,so thanks for keeping everyone updated. Pity SOV doesn’t have figures for tax revenue or bus train plane and auto figures. Are Sov really hoping to ‘lead’ the community, or are they wannabe pretend leaders of a pack mentality with an agenda, no clue and no vision?
Hi
I was reading p13 of the sierra sun where 8 Squaw Businesses praise their landlord. They’re lucky tto have an amazing landlord: unfortunately some us too often come across the ‘landlord from hell’ or the building company from hell’, or the receiver.
Ask Park City wtf can go wrong with landlords who run ski lift companies and hotels.
Would these businesses care to show us the lease clauses that’ll come into play if the hypothetical ‘landlord from hell’ or the ‘builder from hell’ decided to relocate them, block access, use jackhammers etc etc. Having a fair lease, and strongly enforced permits, can be pretty important during major projects. Just saying. If their businesses are impacted by things, they won’t get far whining to Placer imo.
And what do their leases say about ‘food stall trucks’ as competetition, or crowd control at events that block employees from getting to work, or that stop KSL opening a wine bar pizza photo gallery in the Aqua center?
I just hope they have better lawyering than some of the lawyering I’ve seen so far.
locals can enforce permit conditions (eg noise, bans on nite time work, traffic issues) better than people 70 miles away?
who make boo boos.
http://desertsnowjunkies.com/utah-the-greatest-snow-or-show-on-earth/#more-1712
At least Squaw lifts is a separate entity to the planned building development. Let’s hope KSL gets it right, except the guys and gals I met briefly didn’t know facts and figures, gallons per minutes, or laws or engineering or grants or executive ordered initiatives, or roads. Don’t they read UA’s wealth of information – the planning dude does I think. So’s Jen.
The SOV lady wanted to know tax info. A IRS Code 528 exempt place’s financials says “federal and state income taxes for 2013 were $0 and $800 respectively”. That’s why some developers build ‘member clubs’ …and one ski hill has ‘member skiers on $800/adult member season passes’.
Do SOV know what they’re on about?
And has SOV stopped its ad campaign – coz it’s not working.
A skiaster in park city is due to boardroom machinations, legal screw ups, and lease problems.
http://www.parkrecord.com/Viewpoints/ci_26070462/Letters-to-the-Editor-July-23
I hope the businesses and anti- and pro-town groups evaluate the pros and cons in the business plan that lies behind the development.
In that park city place, the Pot accused the Kettles of backdating too. Can’t be too careful with them city slickers. Ma
3
Talisker and Peninsula. Talisker engaged in no
activity from June 27 to July 8 that was
inconsistent with pursuing the June 27 agreement with Vail.
Vail reasserted its rights under the Exclusivity Agreement multiple times to both Talisker
and Peninsula between June 27 and July 1, 2007. By July 6, there was a Vail/ASC agreement for
Vail to purchase ASCU. Steven Gruber, ASC’s Chairman, stated in an email that “last night we cut
a deal with Vail to sell [Vail] the Canyons . . .”
By July 9, 2007 Talisker and Peninsula concluded Vail was pursuing ASCU. The Vail
agreement to purchase ASCU failed, which Vail believed resulted from misrepresentations by
omission by Talisker; however it is ASC’s position that the reason the deal with Vail did not
materialize was based solely on Vail’s conduct in concluding the deal.
On July 15, 2007 a purchase agreement for ASCU between ASC and Talisker was
executed. According to ASC, this agreement was entered into by ASC, without consideration of
any deal there may have been between Talisker and Peninsula. However, ASC was very concern
about Vail’ failure to provide information about the Exclusivity Agreement.
On July 15, 2007, Peninsula and Talisker were still operating under the belief that their June
22, 2007 Agreement would be fully consummated with the acquisition of ASCU. After this request
for injunctive relief was filed, Talisker and Peninsula created a document that they backdated
asserting that on July 15, 2007, Peninsula had discla
imed any interest in ASCU. Peninsula and
Talisker dispute Vail’s claim that the backdating was part of a cover up scheme by Peninsula and
Talisker. According to Talisker and Peninsula, they reached an agreement on or about July 12 that
Peninsula would have no interest in Talisker’s acquisition of The Canyons.
That agreement was
later memorialized in a letter dated July 15 to coincide with the date of the ASC/Talisker
transaction and signed on July 31.
B.
Legal Analysis.
A preliminary injunction may issue if the moving party can show: (1) a reasonable
probability of success on the merits; (2) danger of real, immediate, and irreparable injury which
may be prevented by injunctive relief; (3) that the balance of equities favors the injunction; (4)
there is no plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law; (5) granting a preliminary injunction will not
disserve public interest; and (6) the injunction will preserve the status quo pending a trial on the
merits.
See Rathke v. MacFarlane
, 648 P.2d 648, 653–54 (Colo. 1982);
City of Golden v. Simpson
,
83 P.3d 87, 96 (Colo. 2004).
Is there merit in KSl’s claim that a town would have to pay for wildfire fighting, or would a town just call the Feds? Squaw’s surrounded by USFS land, isn’t it, and don’t the Feds pay for water bombing – Washoe charged the feds $1700/hour for the Washoe County fire fighting chopper, Raven, according to http://on.rgj.com/VL0xbq . So what’s the real truth about who pays to waterbomb a wildfire on USFS land?
Cal Fire deals with USFS land not the new town.
Thanks. There’s a lot of smoke, and mirrors, in Sov-iette Island. Maybe its from all the pants on fire 🙂
Well the SOV-iettes do have the KGB and their propaganda engine on their side.
Their engine is a putt putt and it is kaput.
~ Boris and Natasha
Saw this! (and Wasn’t andy himself on the SOV Board?)
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/northshore/12161103-113/valley-olympic-iov-squaw
The whole Political Commission thing is an awful way for SOV’s supporters to get at a bunch of volunteers.
Ah Mark-san,
Are sov tied up in knots?
On FoSV’s facebook page, Sov”s testimonial lady says the $183,000 is old news.
No it’s not for those who learned about it for the first time over a cup of coffee in town; eg the merchants that Sov want to support them.
And won’t anyone with a mail box think ‘hmm, does my lift pass ultimately pay for this junk mail and these full page testimonials?”.
UA-san, I think SOV does ju jitsu on itself.
Wanna bet what andy has in mind for the unusual traffic idea? I’s reckons it was on UA ages ago.
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/12217255-113/squaw-region-alpine-valley
I apolgise for thinking democracy was a good idea.
Btw I though Vail’s visits were down 25% over the season, and KSL had a 42% average occupancy. Did Squaw really do better than the neighbors.
I found a spring in the desert and parted the Sea, but this guy found acres of water and parted a community!
Hey Moses,
I moved one lousy mountain but He joined them! I am impressed. 🙂
This is an interesting observation on facebook
“Importantly, from the customer’s view, we’ve invested in virtually every facet of the mountain experience.” And that no doubt includes investing serious money in a smear campaign against the local incorporation proceedings and pre-judging the outcome of Placer County LAFCO’s financial analysis (as he explains later in the interview). Oh, but look over there: shiny objects like interconnecting with Alpine and hosting the Olympics.”
I’d like to know why he doesn’t say he’s the big bakuna of Sov when he makes political statements in the media. What’s the Political Practicing Commission think about that?
What’s the Political Practicing Commission think about that? They have a free help line but the hours don’t suit me coz I sleep at odd hours.
If the locals had a say before KSL plonked that first big dumb plan at Placer, maybe KSL would be turning dirt by now. The way things are going, things will be tied up for years.
Did you see Moonshine’s cartoon on FoSV’s fb page? Bwahaha.