SARANAC LAKE — A proposed partnership between Franklin County and the Jamaican bobsled team has been rejected by the county after its Tourism Advisory Committee declined to back the plan.

If the plan were approved, the county would have spent $135,000 in occupancy tax revenue on making the Hotel Saranac the team’s home away from home while they practice sliding at Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid this winter.

County officials interviewed by the Enterprise weren’t entirely sure why the TAC didn’t back the deal. The TAC chair has declined to divulge the committee’s reasons for its vote. He has also declined to share how each member voted.

Earlier this month, after hearing the proposal, the legislature asked the TAC to review the plan. With TAC’s opposition to the contract, the Franklin County Legislature’s agenda for its Thursday meeting does not include a vote on the bobsled contract.

“This is disappointing for the southern end,” said Franklin County Legislator Lindy Ellis, who represents the Saranac Lake region in the county legislature.

She said as the winter weather gets more uncertain, she believes the region needs more winter sports events based on refrigeration rather than the weather, like bobsled.

“TAC did not provide a positive recommendation,” said Phil Hans, who directs the county’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism.

North Country Sports Council, a local sports promotion group, was brokering the deal. NCSC Chair and Saranac Lake native Neil Fortier said he was frustrated by the TAC’s decision.

“It’s their loss,” he said.

Fortier indicated he intends to pursue this plan sometime in the future, but probably with a different partner.

“The TAC voted and it didn’t receive support to advance as a recommendation to the legislature,” TAC Chair Chris LaBarge said.

LaBarge declined to share whether the vote was unanimous or split. He also declined to share the TAC’s reasons for its decision. He would not share what was discussed in their meeting.

Legislature Chair Ed Lockwood said the legislature takes the TAC’s advice strongly.

“We were looking for their recommendation. To spend the tourism money we need to … it goes to TAC … and then they would put that in their budget for that year and bring it up for us to pass,” Lockwood said. “We listen to what they want to do.”

Lockwood did not know the TAC’s vote count or its reasons for opposing the proposal.

“They just weren’t in favor of it. We didn’t dive into it,” he said.

Ellis said she was not privy to the TAC’s vote count.

“The county legislature really used TAC’s recommendations as a critical first step,” Ellis said.

Ellis had advocated for the Saranac Lake Village Board to support this partnership earlier this month.

Ellis said TAC members have described viewing this plan less as a marketing venture and that members had indicated they wanted more partners in the deal. Franklin County Legislator Andrea Dumas had asked when the plan was pitched why Essex County was not also asked to put money toward this. It’s a large ask out of the county’s tourism dollars, she said, and she wanted “backup support.”

Fortier, a Saranac Lake native, said he knows the vote was a split vote but doesn’t know the breakdown of that split, or how each member voted. He said he does know that if Hotel Saranac General Manager and TAC member Jacob Kipping hadn’t had to abstain, it would have been a tie, which would have made LaBarge vote as a tie-breaker.

Ellis confirmed that she had heard the same — it was a split vote that would have been tie without Kipping’s recusal — but she did not know if this was a 2-3 split or a 3-4 split on the nine-member board since not all members were in attendance.

Normally, Lockwood said, this proposal would be brought to the TAC and the TAC would present it to the legislators, but this proposal was done the other way around.

“Franklin County was approached to sponsor the team for $135,000,” Lockwood said, reading a statement written by Franklin County Manager Donna Kissane. “The legislators met and chose to refer it back to the Tourism Advisory Committee for discussion and consideration. TAC has decided not to move the proposal forward at this time.”

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Fortier questions TAC

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Fortier said he doesn’t know why the legislature wouldn’t vote on the proposal.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Fortier said. “The TAC is an advisory committee. They advise. But in the end, the legislators ultimately have the vote.”

Kissane said the legislature sent the proposal back to TAC for review and consideration, “with the instruction to bring it back to the legislature if they recommend the plan.”

“TAC is not recommending it at this time,” she wrote in an email.

“I question some of the people who sit on TAC,” Fortier said. “They look at it as if they were buying rooms and not seeing the value of the marketing.”

He said it was essentially paying $135,000 for marketing on a global scale.

“There are people on TAC that get it and there are people that don’t,” Fortier said, adding that he feels there’s a divide between the north and the south ends of the county.

Fortier said the region is not the same as he remembers it. He remembers the days of the Tupper Lake Woodsmen’s Days, Big Tupper Ski Area and CanAm Rugby bigger and only in Saranac Lake. He sees big sports events as a way to revitalize the economy. He works in sports consulting around the country, has been the vice president of the Cleveland Cavilers and consulted with USA Nordic.

Fortier said the state Olympic Regional Development Authority buys sports events for Essex County — adding that he thinks the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism should, but ORDA does because it has state money — but in Franklin County, he doesn’t see anyone buying big events to drive tourism.

“But the group that ultimately has the funding that comes from the hotels, for some reason, made the decision that they didn’t see that as an opportunity,” Fortier said.

The TAC’s operations are funded by occupancy tax. Fortier said this is not a tax on locals. It’s a tax on people like him. As a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, he said he’s visited the Hotel Saranac 65 times in the past year and contributed to that tax revenue. As someone with a foot in the sports promotion world around the U.S., he felt this region has not identified what exactly the occupancy tax revenue should be used for.

He questions how many “heads in beds” — meaning how much tourism — TAC has produced. The Roedel family, which owns the Hotel Saranac, tells him they need more heads in beds.

“Something is not happening,” Fortier said.

Fortier said they started these conversations in July, but felt they were rushed at the end.

“We asked for multiple times to meet with the TAC and were not provided those,” he said, adding that when they were provided, they were given meetings on short notice. “I think given the way it was all mashed together in the last second, I would vote ‘no,’ too.”

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The proposal

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Dougherty and Hans said the Hotel Saranac was offering its room suites for a minimum of 900 nights at a “significant discount.” The county would have used $135,000 of its occupancy tax dollars to pay for these rooms.

This past October, Nelson “Chris” Stokes, the president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation and the brakeman for the team’s legendary 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics debut, told the Enterprise that he wants to make Lake Placid the “home” of Jamaican bobsled, saying it’s always been their second track. The 1988 Olympic debut of the Jamaican bobsled team inspired the 1993 Disney movie “Cool Runnings.”

The team is already in and out of the area for training as Lake Placid has one of only three Olympic-level bobsled tracks in North America.

The sliding track is in Essex County but the hotel is in Franklin County. The state Olympic Regional Development Authority manages Lake Placid’s Olympic winter sports venues and Dougherty said ORDA is letting the team have free sledding time during their training.

There would have been cross-pollination between their branding, with the Jamaican bobsled team putting Franklin County logos on their sleds and uniforms, and the county being able to use the team’s logo in its marketing, as well as community appearances, autograph sessions and a potential athlete parade in Saranac Lake.

The bobsled season is now well underway.