Environmentalists Seek Yosemite Contract : Parks: A newly formed trust hopes to replace the current concessionaire, an MCA subsidiary accused of putting profits before preservation. The contract is up for bid in 1993.

Environmentalists and businessmen who say they are unhappy with commercialism at Yosemite National Park established a nonprofit organization Monday to compete for a government contract to run hotels, restaurants and stores within the famed park.

The effort is believed to mark the first time environmentalists have tried to shape a national park by helping orchestrate an attempted takeover of a park concession. Directors of the effort say they are confident they can pose a serious challenge, but incumbent concessionaires enjoy several advantages in bidding under federal law.

At Yosemite, the for-profit concessionaire that runs the accommodations is known as the Yosemite Park & Curry Co. It is owned by entertainment giant MCA Inc., whose contract with the National Park Service expires in 1993.

“Yosemite deserves better than to be treated as an MCA profit center,” said George T. Frampton Jr., president of the Wilderness Society, which helped put together the group that will compete with MCA. “In the management of this extraordinary park, nature should come first--not the shareholders of MCA.”

Called the Yosemite Restoration Trust, the nonprofit company intends to bid against MCA for the concession contract. If successful, the trust’s directors say, they would move to reduce development in the park by enacting a 1980 National Park Service management plan.

The plan calls for removing 17% of Yosemite Valley’s overnight accommodations and establishing a shuttle bus system to ferry visitors from parking lots outside the park into Yosemite Valley. But much of the plan has not been realized, partly because of a lack of federal money.

The trust will be run by a board of directors that includes Frampton; Peter Dangermond, former director of the California Department of Parks and Recreation; Richard Goldman, a San Francisco businessman and philanthropist; Richard Martyr, executive director of the American Youth Hostel Assn.; Dr. Edgar Wayburn, a Sierra Club director, and Bernard L. Butcher, a San Francisco investment banker.

Daniel Jensen, executive vice president of the MCA-owned Curry Co., said he knows too little about the trust to evaluate its strength as a competitor. But he noted that its directors sound “like a pretty impressive group.”

“We are not afraid of criticism, and I would be disappointed if people didn’t have strong feelings about Yosemite Valley,” Jensen said.

Environmentalists have waged a campaign against the Curry Co. for the past year, accusing it of putting profits over preservation. The company has fought back vigorously, citing as accomplishments the voluntary removal from the park of several of its non-essential operations, including its reservation office. The concessionaire enjoys a good reputation within the National Park Service for its service to visitors.

After learning that Robert O. Binnewies, a former National Park Service superintendent in Yosemite, would serve as co-chairman of the trust, the Curry Co. on Monday released a copy of an informal and highly complimentary note Binnewies had written to company President Edward C. Hardy in 1983.

In it, Binnewies commended the company for “excellent improvements in service” and for operating with a “spirit of understanding and support” for the general management plan. He could not be reached for comment Monday.

But at a news conference in San Francisco, directors of the newly formed trust charged the Curry Co. with attempting to transform Yosemite into a “theme park” and denounced many company operations, including a pizza stand and video rental operation for employees and a wine-tasting event in Yosemite Valley.

“We think the Curry Co. runs a pretty good resort, but we don’t think that’s appropriate for Yosemite National Park,” Frampton said.

George Berklacy, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said he could not recall a previous instance in which leaders of environmental groups have expressed an interest in assuming management of a park concession.

Berklacy said many of the trust’s directors are already well known within the Park Service and called their challenge “in keeping with Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr.’s desire to bring competition to the contractual process.”

But he added that “one problem” for the trust could be financing. MCA’s interest in Yosemite’s accommodations has been estimated to be as much as $200 million to $300 million. A new concessionaire would have to buy out MCA’s interest. Frampton said the trust will raise money from foundations to prepare a bid. If the government accepts the bid, he said, the organization would seek financing from banks and corporations.

William Alsup, a San Francisco attorney and the other co-chairman of the trust, said the concession would produce enough revenue to satisfy any lender. “It would be a huge revenue stream under which any lender in the country would be happy to lend money,” he said.

If the Park Service decides it wants a for-profit concessionaire, the trust will simply ensure that its profits are returned to the park under the terms of the contract, Alsup said.

Under its contract, the Curry Co. now pays 0.75% of its gross revenues to the federal government each year in the form of a franchise fee. Last year, according to the trust, the company paid $636,000 to the federal government in franchise fees and rent. Outsiders have estimated its profits from 1989 to have been $12 million to $17 million, figures the company calls grossly exaggerated.

John Poimiroo, a spokesman for the Curry Co., said the MCA subsidiary would be willing to return more of its profits to the park under a future contract. Under existing law, the franchise fee goes to the federal government, not just to Yosemite, and MCA has been barred from making donations to the park because of conflict-of-interest regulations. “We would like to see more of what we’ve made come back to the park,” he said.