Early in the afternoon of October 26, 2009, fifteen or twenty people milled about in the mud at the top of Spirit Mountain, waiting for the mayor to arrive. Spirit Mountain employees and board members made up two-thirds of the gathering; the rest were from the media. We were there to watch the mayor cut a ribbon.
The occasion? The old chairs on Big Air Lift, the mountain’s northernmost ski lift, had been replaced. The new chairs hung motionless from their cables in the gray fall air. I studied them with a journalistic eye. They looked like ski lift chairs, all right.
This was purely a media event: Round Two in Spirit Mountain’s public relations campaign to get more tourism tax. The media seemed eager to oblige. Reporter Trevor Roy from Channel 6 was there with a camera, along with a guy from WDIO with his own camera and an unidentified woman bearing a third camera and tripod. As far as I could tell, no members of the general public were in attendance.
“I saw your piece on the hundred-year-old man last week,” the woman said to the WDIO guy as they unpacked their gear. “I liked it.”
He laughed. “Everybody liked it.”
A table and portable lectern bearing the logo of Spirit Mountain had been set up on the ski lift’s wooden dismounting platform. After consulting with the TV people, Renee Mattson, executive director of Spirit Mountain, moved the table farther back.
Denny Monson, Spirit Mountain’s director of skier services, stood nearby with a few employees. “Spread out,” he instructed them. “They might want to get a shot of the big crowd.” The workers laughed and moved apart.
SM Executive Director Renee Mattson and Mayor Don Ness
SM Executive Director Renee Mattson and Mayor Don Ness
SM Executive Director Renee Mattson, SM Board Chair Nancy Nelson, Mayor Don Ness and unidentified SM employee
Mayor Ness arrived promptly at 2:00, looking dapper and self-assured in a well-cut gray suit. Nimbly negotiating the mud, he shook hands with Renee Mattson, schmoozed briefly with board members and employees and ascended the platform to the microphone.
Mayor Don Ness: Today is a very exciting day for Spirit Mountain and our community, and I think it’s a continuation of a true success story of what’s been happening up here over the past few years. And I give a lot of credit to the Spirit Mountain staff, to the Spirit Mountain board, and in particular to Renee Mattson, who has done a fantastic job bringing vision and management to this operation, and this is, I think, probably the most visible example of the improvements being made up here at Spirit Mountain, and there’s more to come. And it’s because of the hard work of the board and Renee and her staff that this success is possible. And we’ll make Spirit Mountain a viable and successful entity in Duluth for many years to come.
- Reporters
In two minutes, the mayor was done. I gathered from his remarks that he supported Spirit Mountain. Board Chair Nancy Nelson replaced him at the microphone.
Nancy Nelson: Thank you, Mayor Ness, and on behalf of the board, I do welcome you here today, and thank you for coming. It’s a very exciting day for Spirit Mountain. This is the completion of one of the first major projects that’s part of our new master plan, so we’re very excited. And now we’re gonna continue working on that master plan, and see if we can make more of those new projects happen, help to make Spirit Mountain an even better asset to the area, to the community, and so we’re very excited about it, and we really appreciate all the support from your administration. Thank you very much for being here with us today.
When Nelson wrapped up her comments, Trevor Roy popped up from behind his camera and asked a question.
“Mayor, if you have time,” he said, “—if you—with the current state of the city’s budget, how much of a priority is Spirit Mountain to get the influx of cash to—?”
Before Roy could finish, the mayor cut him off.
Ness: Well, I think, to point out, Spirit Mountain is its separate authority. It’s a state authority of the State of Minnesota. They obviously have a relationship with the City of Duluth. The city doesn’t provide any general fund support to Spirit Mountain. The support that does come to Spirit Mountain is from the tourism tax funds, the funds that this entity helps generate. It’s one of …obviously, our premier wintertime tourist destination, and so they reap the benefits of the tourism tax that is generated from their operations over the course of the year.
I noticed the mayor committing the usual oversight of public figures who discuss the tourism tax—that is, failing to acknowledge the contributions of local residents. It is true that Spirit Mountain “helps generate” tourism tax. It is equally true that every local resident who eats in a restaurant or drinks in a bar helps to generate tourism tax as well, some of which goes to support Spirit Mountain. For some reason, getting politicians to mention this fact on a regular basis is virtually impossible. Everybody just keeps forgetting.
My own pet peeve aside, I guessed that when Spirit Mountain came to the city for more tourism tax, the mayor would lobby energetically on their behalf. He seemed pretty pumped up about their mission.
“All right, let’s get the ribbon out,” said the mayor. He was more businesslike than I remembered, not that I ran into him much. How many ribbons did he have to cut in a week?
Snip, flutter, light applause. Board Chair Nelson, Board Member Jane Gilbert-Howard and an unidentified Spirit Mountain employee arranged themselves in a new chair lift chair, spun around the wheel and descended the mountainside, getting smaller and smaller until they were lost in the backdrop of still-spectacular fall colors.
- SM Board Member Jane Gilbert-Howard and SM Board Chair Nancy Nelson
With a smile, the mayor declined to take a ride. Saying his goodbyes, he strode away, a man with places to be.
- Mayor Don Ness
- Trevor Roy heads out
The media packed up their gear and headed down to the parking lot. Trevor Roy lit up a cigarette. Business North reporter Richard Thomas and I agreed that there was no story here. I got into my car and went home.
And that night, what happened? Was the media bursting with stories about Spirit Mountain’s wonderful new ski lift chairs? You might think so, but no. The chairs got a brief mention on Channel 6, along with a short companion piece on the Channel 6 website that inaccurately claimed Spirit Mountain had built a new chairlift (Exact headline: “New Chairlift Ready For Use this Winter at Spirit Mountain.”) None of the other TV stations or websites carried the story.
- New ski lift chairs
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 8:54 pm
A story about no story…with big non-pictures!
on Nov 2nd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
“Business North reporter Richard Thomas and I agreed that there was no story here…” That’s gonna look good since after the event I pestered them for more information. It wasn’t a story in itself, but I’ll probably mention it in a larger article. Nice picture of my bum, though.
on Nov 5th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I’ve never seen someone actually use the pockets of a suitcoat for their hands like that. Looks sorts of uncomfortable and dumb.
on Nov 5th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Thanks for keeping an eye on Spirit Mountain John.
I have to say though, those chairs needed replacing. They felt like they tilted forward and, seemed kinda sketchy when they’d ice up. Also, 30 ft up and swinging, the last thing you want to consider is that budget considerations kept Spirit from making the engineer-recommended upgrades.
I’d would like to see the rest of their ‘new master plan.’
on Nov 7th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I am sure the chairs needed replacing. Whether they also needed a mayoral press conference is another matter.
Spirit Mountain’s master plan envisions a great many possible improvements to the hill, both near- and far-term. All of them are contingent upon funding. At their October board meeting, the board appointed a Finance Subcommittee to work on the next phase of master plan funding. Headed by the president of ZMC Hotel Group (and former City Finance Director) Todd Torvinen, the subcommittee plans to recruit a small group of connected individuals from within the community to help them out.
Currently, Spirit Mountain is working on securing funding for the Alpine Coaster and a snow-making water supply pipeline from the St. Louis River. My guess would be that the next project Spirit Mountain might pursue would be a tubing hill (eight lanes, serviced by “moving carpet lift system”) to operate in conjunction with the Alpine Coaster, and a new chalet and parking area at the bottom of the hill, off Grand Avenue.
Our representative in Congress, Jim Oberstar, is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. He has indicated that federal funding might be available to build a “transportation hub” at Spirit Mountain’s Grand Avenue entrance. This would undoubtedly help to finance the parking lot.
I hope to post the master plan documents shortly.
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I for one am grateful the mayor does not have image consultants to tell him, “Take your hands out of your pockets!”
on Nov 11th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
It was nice to see Spirit put money into that place. I see they got a new paint job inside and out and now new chairs for their lifts. I love the beautiful pictures of the bay also and that of Ness dodging mud holes.
on Dec 7th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Pretty perplexed why this story was even done on a non-story. Spirit will take its PR as far as it can go, so I can understand this little event. I can also understand why there wasn’t much press on it.