Bidder To Run Ski Area Quits Riplinger, Other Investors Say Process Favors Current Mt. Spokane Operator

One of three bidders in the negotiations to run Mount Spokane ski area has dropped out, saying the state’s contract process favors the current operator.

Bill Riplinger of Riplinger & Associates brought a group of investors together to compete for the 20-year concession for Mount Spokane. But after examining the Washington State Parks Commission’s contract, Riplinger said he wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

“I think this process is so seriously flawed that it could result in the contract they create being void,” Riplinger said Tuesday from his office near Bellingham. “I’ve got bigger fish to go after than this.”

That leaves the current operator, Mount Spokane Ski Corp., and the Mount Spokane 2000 Study Group as the two parties the state will choose between to negotiate a new concession contract.

The parks commission has had meetings with both groups, said Wayne McLaughlin, contracts manager. More meetings with each group will be held next month, with the goal of picking the concessionaire before the current contract expires in June, he said.

Mount Spokane 2000 wants to create a non-profit agency to run the ski area, directed by a board made up of a variety of skiers with different interests, spokesman Ted Stiles has said previously. Members of the study group would not necessarily run the non-profit group, he has said.

Stiles was not available for comment Tuesday.

Efforts to reach representatives of the Mount Spokane Ski Corp. were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Riplinger objected to the parks commission’s handling of the contract. He said the fact that the state never audited Mount Spokane Ski Corp. and never kept track of how many skiers visited the area made it impossible to gauge the risk of operating the ski hill from an investor’s viewpoint.

McLaughlin said that the terms of the contract were set by parks commission actions decades ago, and that there is little the commission could do to change how the process worked. Many state contracts require no bidding at all, he said, but the commission held a public bidding process for Mount Spokane.

However, only the current operator submitted a bid on the proposal the state put out last year, which showed how unfair the contract process is, Riplinger said.

The assessed value of the equipment and facilities on Mount Spokane far exceeds its market value, Riplinger said. The cost of acquiring the equipment from the current bidder drove potential bidders away.