As the president of the board of directors and representing Anthony Lakes Outdoor Recreation Association (ALORA), we felt it would help clarify confusion by addressing the withdrawal of our proposal for the Baker County Visitor Services contract. Multiple county residents have contacted us over the past couple of weeks expressing their disappointment with our decision to withdraw the application. Our decision was based on the reality that, even with our best laid plans for Baker County visitors and businesses, being awarded the Visitors Center contract would require us to work with certain elected officials from the County and City governments who are at great odds over many elements of the contract and what a Visitors Center purpose should be.

Over the past two years, the focus of this discussion has never been on the actual contents of the proposals and the services contained within each proposal, nor how they complement the Baker County Marketing Strategic plan. Instead, the County and City officials focused on turning a simple proposal process and contract award into a confusing combination of procrastination, turf fighting and political agendas. With a less than ideal (and much delayed) RFP (Request For Proposals) process, the County and City have demonstrated lack of trust in the people they’ve appointed to perform the tasks at hand. As stated above, there continued to be little to no discussion on the actual plans in the applications or the County’s strategic tourism plan. These actions do not align with ALORA’s mission, values, or way of conducting business. As a nonprofit, all our enterprises (the ski area, campgrounds, bike/ski shop, and golf course management) strive to work with the community and its businesses with the end result of making a better Baker County. We finally reached our choke level with the infighting that is taking place between certain County and City elected officials more worried about political turf than about the best interest of businesses in Baker County.

While we would have enjoyed working to expand the role ALORA plays in this community, we don’t feel like we need to continually defend our mission and our business model. In the past five years, ALORA has grown the number of full-time employees working primarily in Baker County from one person to 14. We’ve also grown from 30 part-time winter employees to 55 part-time winter and 20 part-time summer employees. ALORA’s payroll package in Baker County last year was almost $1.5 million. The total dollars in goods and services ALORA spent last year was $2.4 million with an estimated 75% of that being with local merchants. Based on the County Factor for Visitor Spending, out-of-town guests at Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort spent over $450,000 with local merchants and out-of-town guests at Quail Ridge Golf Course spent $175,000 with local merchants. These figures do not include monies spent by guests from the campgrounds we manage. After 10 years of managing the ski hill, season ticket prices are the same for local residents as they were in 2011. Quail Ridge golf passes have not been raised since we began management and there is no intention of needing to anytime soon.

Our point is that ALORA has been and will continue to be committed to Baker County and its citizens. We have a strategic vision, the resources, and the will to execute this vision. We believe that we helped raise awareness and raise the bar by which the Visitors Center should be measured. We hope that this process has alerted Baker County and the TLTC to institute Key Performance Indicators for the Visitors Center contractor that are more relevant to how visitors gather travel information today. Over the past decade, a lot has changed with how people travel, and we hope that the County and City will use this opportunity to capture, educate and retain more visitor dollars for Baker County businesses.

We have offered all the help we have available to the Chamber and are happy to assist in any way we can. ALORA will continue to further our efforts to promote Baker County, manage tourism sustainably and create family wage jobs for local residents. In the end, we simply determined that we could be far more effective by staying independent from the local politics.