June 1, 2001
 
 
 HAGERSTOWN - The Rocky Gap Lodge & Golf Resort is under new management, but the secretive, quasi-public owner of the state-subsidized hotel in Western Maryland refuses to say why.
 
 "I don't think that's any of your concern," Hans Mayer, executive director of the Maryland Economic Development Corp., said yesterday.
 
 Mayer said MEDCO did not solicit bids for the five-year contract it awarded in May to a new company headed by Charles F. Ingalsbee, the resort's general manager.
 
 MEDCO was created by the General Assembly in 1984 as a "public instrumentality" to foster economic development in distressed areas. It is exempt by law from the rule requiring other public entities to seek competitive bids on contracts.
 
 Neither Mayer nor Ingalsbee would discuss the contract's financial terms.
 
 Ingalsbee has managed the Allegany County resort for the past two years as an employee of former contractor Buena Vista Hospitality Group of Tampa, Fla. He said he formed his own company, Resort Hotels of Maryland LLC, and sought the contract because he knew MEDCO's pact with Buena Vista was set to expire May 9. Ingalsbee's firm took over May 10.
 
 Ingalsbee said he didn't know why MEDCO and Buena Vista did not continue their business relationship.
 
 "It just seems that Buena Vista's orientation was changing more and more toward development than toward operation," he said.
 
 Buena Vista officials did not return telephone calls yesterday.
 
 Ingalsbee said there would be no change in operation of the $55.6 million resort, which opened in April 1998 inside Rocky Gap State Park, about six miles east of Cumberland.
 
 State taxpayers have contributed more than $16 million to the project. MEDCO raised most of the rest through sales of bonds to private investors.
 
 The resort lost $2.1 million from its opening through June 30, 1999, according to MEDCO documents. Ingalsbee said the resort had an operating profit in the fiscal year ending last June 30, but he wouldn't disclose the amount.
 
 Mayer said MEDCO's long-delayed, audited financial report for that period was complete but he said a request would have to be filed under Maryland's open records law to obtain it.
 
 
 
 
 
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