Volume 16, Issue 13
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
Single bid greets Powder Ridge ad hoc committee By Sue VanDerzee Town Times At a meeting on Tuesday, July 8, members of the ad hoc committee on Powder Ridge were greeted with a single bid for the 115+/- acres of Powder Ridge ski area property they wish to sell or lease. The proposal was prepared by CDF and Associates LLC of Windham, NY and Snow Time Inc. of York, PA. However, an apparent UPS snafu held up a second bid – by Alpine Associates, a corporation with membership in Pennsylvania, Utah and New Zealand – and the group voted to invoke a clause in their Request For Qualifications/Bid Proposal (RFQ/BP) to allow the second bid to be considered. The committee spent most of Tuesday evening in executive session, discussing the CDF-Snow Time proposal based on a previously-devel-
oped selection rubric which includes assessing the Management Team, Business Plan, Financial Strength and Responsiveness to the Town and to the RFQ/BP. According to Dave Lowry, ad hoc committee chair and a member of the Board of Selectmen, the next meeting, on Tuesday, July 15, will hopefully involve consideration of the second bid and interviewing of principals from CDF-Snow Time. That meeting will also be conducted in executive session since sale or lease of property is one of the few instances in which deliberations of a government body do not have to be public. Any votes taken, however, must be taken in public, which is why the committee came out of executive session on July 8 to vote to allow the second bid to be considered because its late arrival seemed to be based on a UPS error rather
Middlefield Rec in Durham for the summer
than on an applicant error. If a successful bidder is found to buy or lease the ski area property, it is the hope of the committee that some sort of winter activity can be supported this year. The full RFQ/BP can be found on the Midstate Regional Planning website — www.midstaterpa.org. The document includes maps and detailed descriptions of the property, which includes a pond, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, about 30,000 square feet in four main buildings, a vertical drop of 500 feet, nine ski trails, four chair lifts and three rope tows. Parking has been approved for 1,400 cars and 20 buses and a water diversion permit is in place to allow water from Lake Beseck to be pumped up to the ski area and used for snowmaking. Committee members realize, however, that the condition of the premises is such that investment in infrastructure will be considerable for any successful bidder. In other business at the July 8 meeting, committee member Marianne Corona reported that member Seb Aresco had asked her to report that he was sending a letter of resignation to the committee, and Corona also brought forward bonding figures for consideration at such time as negoatiations warrant.
In this issue ... From left, Tess McIntyre, Mazie Barrett, Hayley McIntyre and counselor Mackenzie Hurlbert enjoy a game of Connect 4 at the Middlefield Rec summer program being held this year at Strong School because of construction at Memorial School, the normal site. More photos on page 20.
Calendar...........................4 Durham Briefs ...............13 Libraries.........................12 Middlefield Briefs..........15 Mini Pages .................23-24 Scouts .............................22 Sports......................25 & 32
Friday, July 10, 2009
Hemlock on ‘life support’
Photo by Sue VanDerzee
By Stephanie Wilcox Town Times A hemlock on the north end of the Durham town green that is at death’s door may be given a second chance. David Slade of Family Tree Care has volunteered his knowledge, service and materials to try and save it. “It would be a shame to lose a tree like that on the green,” he said. “I’m always looking at trees as a tree guy, and I thought ‘gosh, it would be nice to do something about it.’”
Hemlocks are large yet graceful evergreen trees known for their pyramidal shape and drooping branches. Slade, a North Guilford resident, began noting the tree’s declining health about a year ago as he’d pass by it. The tree is browning, he said, and from a distance, the canopy looks similar to a suffering tree. Durham’s tree warden and First Selectman agreed to let him attempt to save it, which included injecting See Hemlock, page 2