RANGELEY – A board member of the Rangeley Lakes Cross Country Ski Club says that the club has never missed a loan payment for a groomer purchased by the town and has three years left to pay it back.
In an e-mail Wednesday, Carol Sullivan said selectmen “effectively called’ our loan” and have demanded full payment for the groomer that was purchased through the town to take advantage of a low municipal-loan interest rate.
Both selectmen and the Budget Committee are recommending against passing two articles at today’s annual town meeting for ski club funding: $10,000 for operating costs and an additional $15,000 request to construct new trails near Saddleback Mountain. The town meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. in Rangeley Lakes Regional School.
Earlier this week, Town Manager Perry Ellsworth said officials think since the trail system is proposed to move to Dallas Plantation, the town should not pay for the trails. He also said the club owes the town between $60,000 and $70,000 for the groomer.
But, Sullivan argued, the new trail system promises to be a great regional resource providing not only cross-country skiing in winter but year-round, nature-based activities.
“We don’t thumb our noses at Saddleback because they are out of town’ when they obviously provide a great many tourist dollars in our economy,” Sullivan wrote in her e-mail.
“It’s quite beyond us why they are so down on something that is so good for people, the town and the boom in eco-tourism,” she wrote.
“With a state facing the epidemic of obesity and sedentary lifestyles, we need to do all we can to make healthy lifestyles available to all,” said Andy Shepard, president and chief executive officer for the Maine Winter Sports Center, on Wednesday.
Though he hasn’t skied the trails in Rangeley, Shepard said cross-country skiing is beneficial to the local economy and to community health.
“The experience the Maine Winter Sports Center has had in western Maine and Aroostook County clearly demonstrates the viability of cross-country ski trails as an economic engine and as a way of making a healthy lifestyle more accessible to communities,” he said. The success of the center’s ski areas happened because the surrounding communities have gotten involved, he added. The center’s ski areas include Black Mountain in Rumford.
Linda Dexter, acting ski club president, said the annual Rangeley Loppitt Race, organized by the club on its 75 kilometers of trails, has drawn skiers from all over the world, bringing 600 to 700 people for the weekend. Last season, 365 skiers participated in the race; she estimated at least half those who came for the race stay in hotels or eat at restaurants in Rangeley.
This year, “we packed the town,” Sullivan said about race weekend.
Dexter estimated skier visits are 2,500 to 3,000 annually. She said skiers aren’t as distinguishable as snowmobilers, another popular recreational activity that attracts thousands to the region annually. Skiers do not walk around in their gear as snowmobilers do.
“There’s more of them (cross-country skiers) than people realize,” she said.
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