Yosemite Deal Described as MCA ‘Looting’ : Parks: The company’s subsidiary paid the U.S. $635,000 in concessions fees last year, an amount environmentalists term inadequate.
Yosemite Park & Curry Co. paid the government a $635,000 fee last year for the exclusive right to provide lodging, food and other services in the popular Sierra Nevada park, a virtual monopoly that brought in record proceeds of at least $84.7 million.
The National Park Service revealed the fee Monday in response to media inquiries. In January, when the Park Service for the first time disclosed previous annual fees, the information led to charges that Yosemite was being milked for profits at a time when the park’s staff was being cut back.
The figure for sales was not provided by the Park Service but was calculated based on the contract that governs concessions at Yosemite. The fee is 0.75% of annual sales from hotel rooms, meals, souvenirs and other guest services provided by Yosemite Park & Curry Co., a subsidiary of entertainment giant MCA Inc.
Based on the formula, environmental groups estimated Monday that the company’s Yosemite Valley operations took in at least $84.7 million in 1989. In the past three years, the company has paid $1.7 million in fees and--based on the formula for setting the fee--taken in at least $236.8 million
“What it shows is that the public is getting the bad end of the deal,” said Patricia Schifferle, western regional director of the Wilderness Society. “The concessionaire is basically looting the treasury.”
Daniel Jensen, executive vice president of Yosemite Park & Curry Co., declined Monday to confirm the figures. But he said, “We think we’re a pretty darn good company.”
The Wilderness Society, joined by other environmental groups, is trying to form a nonprofit corporation to bid against Yosemite Park & Curry when the park contract expires in 1993.
Schifferle said Monday that federal law makes it difficult for a competitor to wrest the contract away from existing concessionaires. But she said the Wilderness Society and other groups believe that the exclusive contract has given too much power to the company, which has been owned by MCA since 1973.
“It’s basically a question of who’s in charge of the park, the Park Service or MCA?” Schifferle said.
The yearly fee was set in a 30-year contract signed in 1963 that was intended to ensure the survival of the park’s longtime family-owned concessionaire, the Curry Co. The terms were inherited by MCA when it took over the contract, and the company has resisted National Park Service efforts to renegotiate.
Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan and Yosemite Park Supt. Michael Finley have called the fee absurdly low and said it should be raised in the next concessions contract. But Finley said an increase would not necessarily relieve budget woes at Yosemite since by law the fees are paid into the general U.S. treasury. Congress would have to allocate any additional money to the national parks.
Some critics have suggested, however, that the Park Service negotiate specific contributions to Yosemite as a condition of any new contract.
Most Park Service officials rate the concessions company highly. The main source of controversy is objections by environmental groups and some park employees that its services have helped commercialize Yosemite Valley, which is visited by most of the 3 million annual guests to the park.
Yosemite Park & Curry Co. operates the Ahwahnee Hotel, guest lodges and a variety of shops and restaurants that range from the Ahwahnhee’s formal dining room to a pizza parlor. The company also runs wilderness camps and collects revenue from sources as varied as the tour buses that visit Yosemite to bicycle rentals.
