Eaglecrest board opts to fight demotion to advisory status; Assembly to give proposal initial look Monday

Mayor says willingness to fund ski area may depend on city having stronger decision-making role; city manager says costs likely to rise if her office is managing the resort

Skiers ride the Ptarmigan and Hooter chairlifts at Eaglecrest Ski Area on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

Eaglecrest may be facing a showdown over who controls the ski area, as its board of directors Thursday spurned the mayor’s call to relinquish power even though it may put funds necessary for future operations at risk.

A draft ordinance demoting Eaglecrest’s board to an advisory role, rather than an empowered board able to make policy and budget decisions, is scheduled to be considered by the Juneau Assembly’s Committee of the Whole on Monday. The ordinance was requested last week by Mayor Beth Weldon after the ski area’s general manager and board president announced they are stepping down, and as Eaglecrest is facing a multitude of financial and operational challenges.

Jim Calvin, during a special meeting of Eaglecrest’s board to discuss the proposed change in authority, said he met with Weldon earlier during the day and she indicated the outcome could affect funding the Assembly approves for the city-owned ski area.

"I'll preface what I'm going to say by noting that she's a friend of Eaglecrest, been a longtime supporter of Eaglecrest, and I truly believe has the best interest of Eaglecrest in mind," he said. "But she truly believes that this shift to an advisory board is the only way that she's going to secure adequate support for continued funding of Eaglecrest at the levels that we're likely to need. So she's very serious about this, and if she had her way that it would proceed at the most rapid pace possible."

Weldon, in response to an inquiry by the Juneau Independent about Calvin’s remarks, stated Friday she believes it’s unlikely the Assembly will continue funding for planned operations without more direct city control. But she stated that observation isn’t intended as a threat to the board or claiming definitive knowledge of how Assembly members will vote.

Neil Steininger, the Assembly’s liaison to the Eaglecrest board, has said he supports changing Eaglecrest’s board to advisory status. Nano Brooks, newly elected to the Assembly last October, told the ski area’s board during its meeting Thursday "there is a lot of support and recognition of the value of Eaglecrest from the members on the Assembly."

"We are getting a lot of emails and community support for the board," he said. "It's very overwhelming and that's heavily considered."

Calvin and other Eaglecrest board members said they believe remaining an empowered board is essential at a time of major transitions for the ski area, and agreed their next step of action is drafting a letter making that case to the Assembly.

"I think it would be a bad, bad idea to disempower our board," Calvin said. "It's a model that's worked pretty well for nearly 50 years, and Eaglecrest has been through thick and thin, and we've always managed to make this model work."

"So it's our responsibility, it's our charge to communicate with the Assembly and the community that we need to be part of this solution."

Eaglecrest, which celebrated the 50th birthday of its opening date a week ago, has seen a sharp drop in season passes and large increase in deficits the past few years. Among the resort’s ongoing difficulties is aging infrastructure that has resulted in extended or permanent shutdowns of lifts, and a broken water main this season that meant no indoor plumbing was available for a month until service was restored this week.

A key decision on the ski area’s future is looming as the Assembly is expected to decide in March whether to proceed with the installation of a used gondola intended to allow Eaglecrest to expand into mass year-round tourism in time for the 2028 cruise ship season. City and Eaglecrest officials say they expect the decision will be to proceed, but that may change if the installation and operating costs are too high.

All of those issues have been discussed — often contentiously and at great length — during public testimony and other portions of Eaglecrest board meetings in recent years. Calvin said the intensity of that participation is among the reasons the board should retain its empowered status.

"I think our skiing community is a passionate group of people who want to speak to an empowered board," he said. "They're not going to want to speak to an advisory board, so that means that they will be talking directly to the Assembly. And I'm just not sure that that's what the Assembly would want. I don't think the community wants that."

Several people offering public testimony during Thursday’s meeting expressed support for the empowered board — and recently elected board chair Brandon Cullum noted more than 40 people signed up to testify, although most opted out after he made the announcement.

"Most people that we've encouraged to participate today and follow this meeting are all pretty much of the same mindset of we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the empowered board," said Bruce Griggs, a former Juneau Ski Club president and competitive racer, after other public participants dropped off the testimony list. "I think if we lose the empowered board we lose a lot of control over the future of Eaglecrest."

Among the concerns, Griggs said, is if the gondola makes Eaglecrest profitable the Assembly could redirect funds towards general city spending rather than reinvesting it in ski area improvements.

Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting will be the Assembly’s first official consideration of the proposal. The full Assembly would have to pass the ordinance at a subsequent regular meeting, during which public testimony would be allowed, before it could be enacted.

A memo by City Manager Katie Koester to the Assembly ahead of Monday’s meeting states the proposed change to Eaglecrest’s board "would also transition Eaglecrest to utilizing more CBJ policies and procedures – and it may be bumpy to adjust to new standards."

"For example, the City Manager is much less tolerant of risk than the Eaglecrest Board because of the fiduciary responsibility to the CBJ treasury," she wrote. "Lower tolerances for risk generally mean higher operational and/or capital costs in order to mitigate those risks (liabilities). Further, Empowered Boards and Enterprise Funds (Special Revenue Funds, in Eaglecrest’s case) are typically more reluctant than the Manager to seek General Fund support for their operations and capital needs."

"Conversely, on the revenue side, the Manager is likely to be quicker to increase user fees than an Empowered Board to offset costs. Speaking generally, you should expect Eaglecrest to cost more money, not less, if managed by the Manager."

Eaglecrest is facing significant challenges in the years ahead, regardless of who is making the decisions, and changing the structure of the board is not a silver bullet for Eaglecrest," Koester wrote.

"Years of not being able to replace aging infrastructure have left the ski area with tens of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance," she wrote. "Competitive compensation has been addressed by the board and the Assembly, but this only increases the gap between revenues and expenditures. Summer operations are lauded as a potential savior for winter operations. However, developing summer attractions and the infrastructure that is required to support them will require substantial investment in capital and staff before any of those gains are potentially realized. The hole will get bigger before it gets better."

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.