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Committee eyes public access for Big Tupper

The slopes of the Big Tupper Ski Area are seen across Raquette Pond in 2018. The Tupper Lake town board recently put together a citizen advisory committee with plans to reopen this mountain to public access. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

TUPPER LAKE — The town board has created a new citizen advisory committee with plans to potentially reopen Mount Morris — where the Big Tupper Ski Area sits — to the public.

Renewing public access to the mountain was one of the main reasons town Councilman Rick Donah ran for office last November, and he’s excited the town is taking action on getting the process started.

“This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he said. “It’s just a tragedy to have that mountain sitting there and not have people use it.”

Donah said reopening the ski lifts is not on the agenda right now. That would be a huge undertaking with many legal, financial and governmental steps first. Even without the lifts, he says the mountain has a lot to offer as a 3,117-foot-tall recreational opportunity in and of itself. He said people could hike, backcountry ski, snowshoe, bike or even picnic on the mountain.

He envisions a recreation area connected to existing amenities like the town-owned golf course and the cross-country ski trails there.

The town currently has a lease agreement with property owner Michael Foxman extending its James C. Frenette Sr. Recreational Cross-Country Trails onto the base of the mountain. Donah hopes when this contract is up for renewal at the end of April, they’ll be able to expand it to lease the whole mountain.

Donah said Foxman is “open to the idea,” and the town would just need to work out insurance, policies and procedures for use there.

Donah said he and former town Supervisor Clint Hollingsworth began speaking with Foxman in January, before Hollingsworth’s death in February.

Donah said he feels strongly about opening the mountain to the public. Growing up here, he said he knows how valuable a place the mountain is, and how difficult it’s been without public access to the trails.

Donah said it was a “tragedy” for the town to lose control of Big Tupper. He said the negative effects of the ski area being closed for years has slowed economic growth in Tupper Lake.

Cost to open to public

Donah said the town’s goal is to keep the burden on the taxpayer low as it seeks to open public assess to the mountain.

He said they expect it will only cost the town $275 a year to insure the property, based on a quote from the New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal.

The Tupper Lake Business Group recently set up Recreate Tupper Lake Inc., not-for-profit organization to raise money for future improvements through donations.

“We actually (finally!) received our 501(c)(3) approval letter last week,” Kelly Fleury, an accountant with Martin & Dukett, LLC who helped the TLBG, wrote in an email.

Ray Martin, who co-owned the accounting firm, helped set up this organization before his death in November 2021.

Fleury said this 501(c)(3) designation will allow donations to the group to be tax deductible and for revenue and purchases it makes to be tax exempt, as long as they relate to the organization’s charitable purpose — to promote economic growth in Tupper Lake.

The group also hopes to build and expand local cross-country ski trails, snowmobile trails, downhill ski trails, biking trails and the town-run golf course.

Committee members

Donah said members of this committee have been meeting informally for around a year through the Tupper Lake Business Group, and they also spoke with former town Supervisor Patti Littlefield.

The action the board took last week formalized the creation of the committee.

“This is a big step forward,” Donah said.

On the advisory committee, Donah represents the town board, Rob Gillis and Matt Ellis represent the Tupper Lake Business Group, village Trustee Ron LaScala represents his board, Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce President Jocelyn Law represents her organization, and Patti and Rosi Littlefield are representing town residents. Patti brings knowledge from her terms as supervisor.

There are also several members involved in the ski community on the committee who volunteered at the ski area or still work on the cross-country trails — Charlie Frenette; Jim “Jim Jim” Frenette Jr.; Scott Brandi, who owns I Ski NY; and Eric “Shakey” Lanthier, a former ski patrol member at Big Tupper.

“It’s a fully-endorsed community group,” Donah said.

The committee’s first meeting will be March 31.

Ski area past and future

After the town sold the ski area in 1987, it changed hands several times and eventually closed in 1999 and fell into disrepair.

Developers Foxman and Tom Lawson started planning to revive the ski area in 2003 and wanted to build the Adirondack Club and Resort there, a resort and luxury home development.

The development stalled as state agency permits were held up through legal battles, both with environmentalists and creditors. The project eventually ran out of momentum and money.

From 2009 to 2016, a group of volunteers under the name Adirondack Residents Intent on Saving their Economy resurrected the ski area, but when funding ran out, the ski lifts stopped again.

Foxman and Lawson’s legal battles put them into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt in unpaid back taxes with Franklin County. The county is now attempting to foreclose on the property.

Last year, the town board sent a letter to the county, saying if Franklin County forecloses on the ski area, the board would be interested in having a chance to purchase it. The foreclosure effort stalled in court at this time last year, when property owners and lien holders filed an attempt to get the foreclosure thrown out by challenging it.

Franklin County Treasurer Fran Perry said the county is still working on a response. Last year, she said she’s confident the foreclosure will be upheld and called the challenges a “delay tactic.”

Perry said the county’s been busy with a three-year backlog of foreclosure cases, which has built up as the state stopped all foreclosures during the pandemic, a moratorium which lasted from December 2020 until Jan. 15, 2022. The county also has a new attorney.

If the foreclosure goes through and the county puts it up for auction, the town of Tupper Lake would have first rights to buy the mountain if the county allows, and some hope the town could buy the land at a reduced price for just the cost of the back taxes owed.

Currently, Franklin County is missing more than $241,000 in taxes it is owed by the ACR developers over the course of several years. Maroun, who is also a Franklin County legislator, said the county board is open to eliminating the penalties on these back taxes, just so the taxes can be paid back and the mountain can return to the tax roll.

Last year, Donah said he believes the town, which initially created and ran the ski area, has a right to take it again.

“It’s all negotiable. In my opinion, I don’t think the town should have to pay anything for it,” he said while campaigning for his town board seat.

The town invested a lot of money into the ski area when it owned the mountain and he said the county can choose to give it back.

When asked about it last year, Maroun said this is unlikely to happen. The other six county legislators won’t be willing to let the town take the land, and have their taxpayers lose out on the back-tax revenue they are owed. He said he’d do the same thing in their position.

Maroun said there are several law firms and lien-holders who don’t want the judge to eliminate the liens and allow the property to be purchased for only the cost of the back taxes. A lien gives someone the right to keep property owned by another person until a debt is paid.

A Franklin County judge will ultimately decide whether to eliminate the liens.

Maroun said he’d like to see some action soon on making the mountain a ski resort again. The permit allowing this ski area to exist is likely the last of its kind in the Adirondack Park, he said, because the Adirondack Park Agency is unlikely to issue such a permit again. It took a fight to get this one, he said.

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