NEWRY – Word that American Skiing Co. continues to divest itself of ski resorts drew guarded optimism Wednesday from Bethel officials.

Additionally, rumors that the former owners of ASC’s Sunday River resort in Newry and Sugarloaf/USA resort in Carrabassett Valley, Leslie B. Otten and Warren C. Cook respectively, are interested in buying them back from ASC, remain unsubstantiated.

To pay off $305 million in debt, ASC is selling five of its eight ski resorts. On Tuesday, Park City, Utah-based ASC announced it would sell its Killington and Pico resorts in Vermont for $83.5 million.

Four days before, ASC announced its sale of Mount Snow and Attitash resorts in New Hampshire for $73.5 million. On Dec. 19, the company announced the sale of Steamboat Ski Resort in Steamboat Springs, Colo., for $275 million.

The Steamboat deal closes on or about March 31, and the other four deals, on or before April 30.

According to company spokesman Chip Carey, ASC has no plans at this time to sell its remaining resorts: Sunday River and Sugarloaf/USA, and its flagship, The Canyons in Park City.

Bethel Town Manager Scott Cole said town officials are monitoring the resort sales.

“Everyone’s aware of the sales, but there’s been no speculation as to what the post-sale effects will be,” he said by phone late Wednesday afternoon in Bethel.

“We want ASC and Sunday River to thrive, and, if these property sales move in that direction, then, that’s a good thing.”

Likewise, said Robin Zinchuk, executive director of the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce, by phone late Wednesday afternoon.

“I hope Sunday River stays strong as a result of, or despite the actions of ASC, selling off its mountains,” she said. “If it’s meant to be that someone comes along and buys it, I hope we will have as good a relationship with them as we have had with ASC.”

Calls Wednesday afternoon to officials in Kingfield and Carrabassett Valley were not returned.

Cole also said that Bethel has more of a relationship with ASC than just its proximity to Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry.

The company leases an aircraft hangar at Bethel Regional Airport, paying annual rent of $63,900. The lease expires in 2008.

“It’s been under town-owned lease to ASC for a number of years. Presumably, they’ll be there until the lease expires, but, hopefully, longer,” Cole said.

Otten, contacted by phone late Wednesday afternoon in Boston, said it was hard to see ASC being taken apart. Then, abruptly, he declined further comment, citing his position on the ASC Board of Directors, which he has filled since the company’s inception in July 1997.

Otten, who served as chairman, president and chief executive officer of ASC (or its predecessors) from 1980 to April 2001, also declined to comment about his intentions toward Sunday River or Sugarloaf ski resorts.

Cook, contacted by phone in Carrabassett Valley late Wednesday afternoon, essentially said the same thing.

“I’m not surprised,” he said about the ASC news. “They’ve been selling them off one by one.”

Cook was president of the company that owned Sugarloaf until it was sold to Otten’s company, S-K-I Ltd in 1996, two years after S-K-I acquired a majority interest in the Carrabassett Valley resort.

Regarding the buyout rumor, Cook said, “That rumor’s been going on since I left. I have an interest in Maine, and an interest in things going on in Western Maine, and I live there. But, as for any specifics, I don’t have knowledge of them. It’s still just a rumor, I guess.”