Summary of Concerns At Hyland

Safety

• Numerous collisions with serious injuries - some life threatening due to lack of basic safety measures and controls.
• Lack of fencing and crowd control such that risk of collisions is high and many accidents have occurred because of this.  Some injuries have been life threatening.  Most involve children and there have been numerous concussions and other serious injuries reported and witnessed.
• Lack of fencing in beginner areas to protect skiers
• Lack of communciation for patrolling, lighting, signage and control fencing when a new "acces trail" was opened as run called Borealis.  This new run has no safe merge with the bottom of North and fencing that was added is sporadic and ineffective at stopping skiers who may "bomb" and cause collisions. A major incident occurred here in January 2021 which caused a life threatening injury.
• Not providing safe access for skiers/riders to the North Hill beneath freestyle jumps
• Lack of safety out in front of the chalet where children/adults put skis on because there is a terrain park with hundreds of kids continually flying down the hill and over jumps placed too low on the hill.  There is  no barrier between the park skiers and patrons - mostly children. This is also the only way to exit the ski area and get to the stairs to the shuttle and parking lot.  It's dangerous when there are kids in the terrain park wich is when most people are at Hyland and is during the busiest times. 
• Not limiting ticket sales and not holding one team, Team Gilboa to it's operating number of 275, allowing it to balloon to 550 over the last 5 years.  This causes crowding and increased risk of collisions everywhere at Hyland.
• These unmitigated safety hazards lead to unnecessary injuries (mostly to children) year after year.  Many of these injuries are very serious and some are life altering and life threatening.

Discrimination because of lack of a fair process to allocate facilities which is discriminatory and violates DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion).

• One Team that trains at Hyland Hills, Team Gilboa, is given most of the facilities (including the best lanes/start ramp which are necessary for improved racing) and the other 16-18 programs/high schools teams must fight for the leftover lanes that are inferior.  This happens year after year as evidenced by the "lane schedules" which show the egregious favoritism each year.  
• See detailed stats, analysis and lane schedule here.
• An average child on Gilboa will receive 4X (times) the practice time of an average high school child and 5X the amount of time on "prime" facilities vs. inferior.  Prime facilities are longer, steeper and have start ramps.
• A Team Gilboa high school child will have 100% of their time on prime facilities (ABC/123).   A non-Team Gilboa child will have 1/5 the time on these prime facilities as a Gilboa child
• The average Gilboa racer gets 16.5 X (times) the access on the very best lanes (ABC) as non-Gilboa racers. 
• All children pay the same flat fee to Hyland, which is the cost of a season pass.
• In effect, the non-Team Gilboa kids, many of whom can least afford supplemental race training, actually pay more to Hyland per allotted training than the Team Gilboa children who pay thousands of dollars (up to $35,000) to join Team Gilboa.
• The premiums paid to Team Gilboa for favorable facilities are kept by Team Gilboa, essentially allowing Team Gilboa to profit off of public facilities that are owned by the taxpayers.

When the BOC was asked about these inequties, the answers were:  NOTHING. (not a typo - we received no response).

As egregious and shocking as these stats may seem, they are accurate and computed from TRPD/Hyland's own schedule.  And sadly for our children, this unexplained favoritism has been going on for decades supported by the TRPD Commisioners, Superintendent and Hyland Hills Management.  

The majority of children do not have the same opportunities or access to public facilities as the children whose parents who can pay the private club for more access.  

This may seem hard to believe but it's true.  And it's wrong - especially in this day and age of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies that well-run organizations adopt - especially public organizations..

Financial responsibility of a taxpayer funded organization & subsidation of a private, elite ski program for children

• We question why a privately run organization (for profit or not) can “profit” off public facilities at the expense of 1,000s of children/families each year who actually pay more per for their access than the children who can afford the private program that costs up to $30,000 - $40,000 per child?
• And, why should this organization be given favors that other patrons must pay for, resulting in and estimated $ 6.6  - 10.2 million (not a typo) in taxpayer funding over the last 25 years?  Approximately $276,000 - 416,000 in subsidies per year are awarded to Team Gilboa.
• Why should the public be subsidizing Team Gilboa,  a private and elite ski program?  Especially when this results in safety hazards and discrimination? Is there a public benefit here?  We know this harms the public in many ways.
• And why would the Hyland Hills General Manager (Jeff May) be making donations of rounds of golf at Baker Park to this club.  Isn't this a conflict of interest?
• The answers were:  NOTHING. (not a typo - we received no response)  
• See here for here for estimated costs of these favors.

Retaliation

• Those speaking up on these matters run the real risk of retaliation – and the fear of this retaliation is WHY these issues continue year after year... for 20-25 years.  
• Forms of retaliation have been job loss, teams/children being discriminated against with facility assignments, citizens being yelled at and berated by commissioners in public meetings and in private and threats made verbally and written by TRPD/Hyland management in meetings.

Please see these links for more info on:

• Safety
• Equity
• Retaliation
• Financial Subsidies to Team Gilboa

Please note:  The first letter with questions was delivered in May of 2023.  As of December 2023, seven months later, no information that counters anything we have presented to TRPD has been given to Friends of Hyland by TRPD.   We welcome any information that would provide better insight to these issues presented.