July 27, 2010 -- printable htmlCommentary
Still here after all these years -- Delaware North Companies headquarters in Yosemite Village.
On the Trail of Yosemite's Monopoly Concessionaire
By Rosemary RegelloUpdate 11/12/11 -- The National Park Service has announced it will delay bidding on the new contract until some time in 2013. See Note #4 below.
It has been more than 15 years of water under the bridge since the National Park Service awarded Delaware North Companies its most coveted prize: the contract to sell lodging, food, gas and other services at Yosemite.
At the time DNC acquired the “Crown Jewels” of the park system – as one congressman put it – the company had never held a wilderness park concession. Nor had it ever operated any resort or lodgings in the United States. Its universe revolved around fast-food concessions at ballparks and airports, as well as pari-mutuel betting on greyhound dog races and other gambling enterprises. A spokesman for the company, in defending the award, reminded the Los Angeles Times that DNC had catered the last three presidential inaugural balls.(1) It was a revealing statement. By all accounts, politics figured more prominently into the equation than park service administrators were letting on.
Ironically, DNC's near century-long entrenchment in the greyhound industry should have placed it at loggerheads with the NPS mission to protect and preserve wildlife. According to animal rights advocates, thousands of jack rabbits and other critters from the wild are sacrificed annually as training inducements for the racers, who themselves live unhappy lives locked in cages. Before rescue groups were organized in the 1990's, most were destroyed or sent to testing laboratories when their track careers ended at age three.
DNC greyhound racing logo
photo: grey2kusa.com
Yet dogs were the last thing on anyone's mind when the brouhaha over the Yosemite contract erupted in December 1992. A month before the first Bush Administration left office, Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan joined an NPS evaluation committee in declaring DNC the only bidder to meet the criteria set forth in the park prospectus. Environmentalists found the decision hinky, coming just 17 days after the committee sat down to review some 50,000 pages of documentation submitted by six finalists. The process should normally have required several months, suggesting that either the evaluators were speed readers on steroids, or the fix was in.
In addition, DNC was not the top money bidder. That distinction went to long-time parks contractor TW Recreational Service Inc. (now Xanterra). Also in the running was a consortium of private and nonprofit concerns formed specifically to administer the 15-year, $1.5 billion contract. The Yosemite Restoration Trust Services Corporation combined the talents of such disparate outfits as the Walt Disney Company, the San Francisco Exploratorium, Rockresorts, American Youth Hostels and The Nature Conservancy. The group raised $7 million in capital, and like TWRS, offered to contribute a higher percentage of its profits to the government than DNC.(2)
Consequently, The Wilderness Society filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. That was thrown out, but the firestorm of controversy made its way up to Capitol Hill, where the House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing in March 1993. "I think we want to look at it very carefully," Rep. Bruce Vento of Minnesota told the Washington Post following the NPS announcement. “This is one of the crown jewel parks, and it makes a lot of dough." (3)
All the eleventh-hour maneuvering, however, would be for naught. Like the Chaco Canyon sun dagger aligning with its spiral on the Autumn equinox, DNC nailed up its shingles right on schedule, Sept. 30,1993. Thereafter, the Buffalo-based conglomerate settled in for its long winter’s nap.
Information
presented in this commentary has been compiled from newspaper articles and other previously
published sources. Footnotes are located at the bottom of each page. The concessions contract is set to expire September 30, 2011. Bidding on the next 15-year cycle is due to start soon, although even so routine a task as issuing a prospectus is not without drama here. In January, NPS announced it was postponing the April release date, adding only that the process would occur later in 2010. (4) There's certainly cause for anticipation. As it currently stands, the concession amounts to a breathtaking monopoly. At Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, NPS farms out service contracts to multiple firms. Not Yosemite. The
receipts of all park hotels, lodges, restaurants, cabins, retail shops,
grocery stores, gas stations, in-park bus tours, ski resort operation, rafting
center,
stables, bicycle stands, auto repair garage, dog kennels, golf course
and now even a
mountaineering school inevitably get deposited into one bank account.
And since DNC is a company privately held by one family,
it's
under no obligation to publicly disclose its earnings. Delaware North's latest "racino" is under construction at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens N.Y. The complex will include a 184,000-square-foot gambling floor, 4,500 video gambling terminals, and "at least 300 hotel rooms", according to a company press release. State officials say they awarded DNC the contract because it offered the most money up front. Beyond transforming Yosemite into a
company town over the past decade and a half, billionaire Jeremy
Jacobs, Jerry Jr., et. al. have acquired the historic Tenaya
Lodge
and other hotels perched along
the various routes leading to the land of enchantment.
In 1998, the firm also snagged the concession for nearby
Sequoia
National Park. If all that weren't enough to make competitors and local area business owners ponder, “What have those park rangers been smoking?” there are also links to organized crime to consider. A news search of DNC’s previous moniker, Emprise Corporation, brings up plenty of interesting reading, but few people are aware of the connection. Jacobs changed the name in 1980, no doubt hoping to cover tracks he and his father tramped down in decades past. Both Louis Jacobs and Jeremy's brother Max were named as unindicted co-conspirators in a1972 racketeering case, yet the extent of criminal associations stretches far beyond a single transgression or time frame. And DNC's reigning monarch apparently rode shotgun through it all. 1.
"Yosemite Pact Given by U.S. to Stadium Firm”. By Maura Dolan. Los
Angeles Times Yosemite Trekker main
menu. Copyright 2010 TheCityEdition.com.
DNC
Continued on Page 2
Notes:
December 18, 1992.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-12-18/news/mn-2103_1_park-service | Return
3. "Hill Controversy Looms On Yosemite
Concession." By Don Phillips. The
Washington Post 12/18/92. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1040140.html | Return
4. Solicitation
for proposals for a new
Concession Contract
to provide hospitality services including Lodging, Food and Beverage,
Retail,
Auto, and Other Services within Yosemite National Park.
Solicitation Number: YOSE004-15. FedBizOpps.gov 10/4/11 | Return