BONUS: ORDA has proven once again it can lose money
DiNapoli report `The doctor is ... out" tells important story about rural counties
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The Olympic Regional Development Authority should get a gold medal for losing money.
The big red number was $50 million last year and that was during a winter with a solid snowfall and little need to make snow, according to James Odato in The Adirondack Explorer.
ORDA operates all the Olympic facilities in Lake Placid along with ski businesses at Belleayre, Gore, Whiteface and Mount VanHoevenberg.
The good news is ORDA added $6 million in revenue - $71 million total - but that wasn't even close to offsetting operating costs of $121.3 million.
What's worse is this is no surprise.
This has been the norm going back to the 1980 Winter Olympics when the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee needed an $8.5 million bailout from the state after the Olympics.
Some things never change.
The state certainly has been patient. It agreed to invest $638 million in 2023 to upgrade venues so Lake Placid could host the World University Games.
But the parade of red ink continued with losses totaling approximately $30 million from 2020 to 2023, then rising to $47 million in 2024.
Lake Placid and the Adirondacks has always done better tourism business in the summer than the winter.
The Olympics was supposed to change all that.
It didn't.
Sure, people still talk about the Miracle on Ice and Eric Heiden's five gold medals, but those are just memories in the museum at the Olympic arena.
Odato wrote that the audit "showed expenses rose by millions the past two years as the authority prioritized events, which tend to be money-losing."
And while tourism has doubled in Lake Placid since 1980, the state has essentially subsidized its efforts to make it an international winter sport venue.
Getting ORDA back in the black would be a good summer project for Sen. Dan Stec instead of parroting political abuse on fellow Republicans at the behest of Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Maybe Rep. Stefanik - she's really good at fundraising - could help ORDA with its finances as well.
Naturally, Stec is obligated in supporting ORDA since it is in his district and Stefanik will tell you the Olympics will return someday.
ORDA's communications director, Darcy Norfolk, told Odato that costs have increased because it is pursuing year-round activities whlie paying its 1,500-person workforce higher wages.
Naturally, economic impact studies - including one commissioned by ORDA - points out that ORDA creates about $342 million in total economic impact in the Adirondacks while supporting nearly 3,500 jobs and generating $25 million in state and local taxes.
Generally speaking, I'm skeptical of economic impact studies sponsored by the organizations they are supposed to be evaluating.
With the facilities upgraded, Lake Placid has managed to draw some World Cup events and some mountain biking contests, but these events rarely draw big crowds or much revenue.
ORDA board members attribute the spending to putting on world-class sporting events.
There are those who still believe that Lake Placid might some day host the Winter Olympics again and there was talk of it hosting the sliding events in 2026 after construction in Italy ran behind schedule.
But that isn't happening.
Along the way, ORDA has adjusted its "mission statement" saying it wants to "maximize visitation to the Adirondack region" with its operation of the Olympic facilities.
But the mission statement also says that it should be done in a "fiscally responsible manner."
That is obviously not happening.
Nobody wants Lake Placid to fail, but after 45 years, someone in state government has to be realistic. ORDA should be at least breaking even by now.
Depending on the advances of climate change, that red ink might get even worse.
So far this year, hotel occupancy and average daily rental revenues have been down, but that may be because of a Canadian boycott.
It makes you wonder how much money ORDA will lose this year.
Doctor shortage
While we here in Warren County have plenty of doctors to choose from, that is not true of our rural neighbors in Essex, Hamilton and Washington counties.
North County Public Radio reporter Cara Chapman recently spoke with long-time New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli about a recent report "The doctor is ... Out" that evaluates healthcare resources in rural counties
Rural parts of the North Country are suffering from the lack of health care professionals in specific areas of expertise such as gynecology, dentistry and mental health.
"The severity of the lack of mental health professionals was one thing that jumped out to me," DiNapoli said during the interview. "National studies have shown that suicide rates are higher in rural communities. I'm not 100 percent sure of the reason for that, perhaps isolation in general and economic challenges, but it's exacerbated by the lack of access to mental health professionals. There are some counties that don't have any physicians providing obstetrics and gynecology. Hamilton County has no dentist."
DiNapoli also cited concerns that the recent cuts to Medicaid could force the closer of more than one hospital in the Adirondacks.
"I think families are vulnerable again," DiNapoli said.
"Our rural counties may not be the population centers for the state, but still every New Yorker should be entitled to access to quality health care," DiNapoli said. "The reason we've been doing this series of reports and analysis on rural issues is to make sure our rural communities are not being left out."
It's an important report we all should read.
60 years of memories
As part of its 60th anniversary celebration, the Chapman Museum brought together two past members of its staff with the current executive director, Nicole Herwig for a trip down memory lane.
While Herwig has been in charge just three and a half years, Lisa Simpson Lutts became executive director in the 1990s and Mary Sayers Doeden started her museum career at the Chapman as just a teenager.
The three recounted their personal recollections of their time at the museum and how it furthered their own careers.
Doeden recounted how important it was for the museum to add exhibition space to go with the house museum.
Sayers told about how her experience as a young person opened the door for other opportunities. She encouraged other young people to do that as well.
More importantly, it was a reminder of how important institutions like the Chapman are in preserving local history.
Visit the Tang
The Tang Museum on the campus of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs has been open 25 years.
I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I had not visited until Thursday afternoon when I took part in a "Behind the scenes" tour that showed the exhibition space as two new exhibitions are being put together.
It was a fascinating look behind the scenes while the exhibition is still being fine-tuned.
I probably appreciated that more than seeing the art in the finished product.
It is a reminder that there is so much to see in our region.
The Tang is opening two new exhibitions in the coming months.
On Aug 23, "All these Growing Things" will make its debut at the museum
and "presents contemporary and historical paintings, prints, textiles, photography, and sculpture from the Tang Museum collection that explore questions of becoming and belonging."
It will run through next July 16.
On Sept. 13, a selection of the art from the collection of Ann and Mel Schaffer will take up an exhibition wing through January 4.
The Tang describes the exhibit as celebrating the "art and artists brought together by Ann and Mel Schaffer, collectors whose empathy, curiosity, and embrace of our complex humanity is evident throughout their artworks. The Schaffers are drawn to artworks which describe the messy, rough, and visceral narratives that are bound up with urgent issues of today."
If you have never been to the Tang, check out the new new exhibition.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
ORDA is the socialism local Republicans love, love, love!
While they whine and cry about state spending they cannot get enough of the ORDA slush fund. ORDA is a pie which local bigwigs can reach in and pull out plums to distribute to good little boys and girls. Does anyone remember when Gov Pataki doled out free tickets to Whiteface and the state fair?
It’s easy to get “Albany” to send $100 million to ORDA and local assembly or senate members can say they brought funding to the community. And “downstate” representatives get to say, “look, we gave you funding.”
But building better, more resilient communities, or stemming our losses, is harder work that requires more determination and imagination.
And the proof is in the pudding, or the plum pie.
Between unwise, politically tinged spending and the dangerous lack of wi-fi coverage and even worse, inadequate medical care, it seems to me that the priorities are skewed in the wrong direction.