Everett skating club clashes with ice rink management

Published 5:30 am Saturday, August 1, 2026

EVERETT — A nonprofit figure skating club is embroiled in a public dispute with the operators of a community ice rink in Everett, arguing that the company managing the rink is affecting its ability to operate effectively.

The company, Oak View Group, is doing so by starting another figure skating program, offering the club ice times later in the day and not signing an agreement that lays out dates and times when the organization can use the public rink, among other issues, the Everett Figure Skating Club alleges.

But the operators of the rink, Oak View Group, say that isn’t true. It wants to sign an agreement with the nonprofit, it wants to keep allowing the nonprofit use the ice at the rink, and it wants to continue growing the sport of figure skating in the city, the company has argued.

What started as conversations between the two parties over email has escalated into repeated discussions at public meetings, both at the Everett City Council and at the Everett Public Facilities District.

‘A game of Tetris’

The Everett Events Center, originally opened in 2003, contains the Angel of the Winds arena, a community ice rink and a large conference center. It’s owned and governed by the Everett Public Facilities District, and it’s day-to-day operations are managed by a private company, Oak View Group, an international venue management firm based in Denver.

In 2006, the Everett Figure Skating Club formed, a nonprofit group offering skating lessons for youth and adults while also hosting regional competitions and a large annual Christmas performance.

The club offers a variety of classes, including one known as “Aspire,” a U.S. Figure Skating program that serves as a bridge between an introductory “Learn To Skate” program and more competitive figure skating competitions.

The ice rink runs its own Learn to Skate program, and students who complete it have the option of joining the Everett Aspire program that the Everett Figure Skating Club operates. The club’s been doing so for about two years.

Now, however, the rink is planning to create its own Aspire program, named Everett Community Aspire, with a launch scheduled for this fall, according to Dottie Medalia, the president of the Everett Figure Skating Club.

The new programming, combined with issues the club says it is experiencing with scheduling and contracts, is an attempt by the rink to control figure skating programming and push the nonprofit out of operating at the center, Medalia argued. She said the similar names between the two Aspire programs has already led to confusion from parents.

“It’s an easy way of saying ‘Dottie, you’re out’ without them actually saying ‘We’re kicking you out,’” Medalia said in an interview.

Oak View Group, the company managing the operations of the rink, said that is not the case. It decided to open its own Aspire program in attempt to grow figure skating offerings at the facility after seeing increases in participation in its Learn to Skate Programs, said Richard Dana, the assistant general manager and director of operations for the Everett Events Center.

“It’s not about competing with the figure skating club, it’s not about taking anything away from them,” Dana said during a council meeting Wednesday. “It’s about providing programming that we know we can run and that we can succeed with.”

The community ice rink is used by a multitude of groups, including figure skaters, hockey leagues and time slots for public skating time, among other programs, meaning ice time is a precious commodity. Groups request times by reaching out to rink management, requesting a schedule and working with ice rink officials if conflicts arise.

Medalia said that some programs the figure skating club offers have been scheduled later at night in recent months, including the nonprofit’s Theater on Ice program, which now runs from 7:40 to 8:40 p.m. once per week. If that schedule continues into the beginning of the school year, Medalia worries that parents may pull young children from the program due to the later ice times.

“The average kid is struggling, they’re learning. They need their time to sleep, they need to do homework,” Medalia said. “You’re not going to get parents of kids 8, 9, 10 years old to allow them to stay in an ice rink until 9 o’clock at night. They know that it will kill all my programs if I have late night classes like that.”

A parent of a figure skater, Sonia Graves, wrote in an email that the club’s recent experiences with rink management have felt “increasingly inconsistent,” with confusing scheduling changes that make it difficult for families to plan ahead.

“More than anything, it has eroded the confidence that many parents once had in the facility,” Graves wrote. “Everett has long been a place where families felt comfortable investing their time and money, and it’s disappointing to see that confidence diminish in many of my daughter’s friends’ parents.”

Dana said that the nonprofit’s ice times have not changed over the course of the last year, and that ice times have not been taken away from the club, though Patrick Houlihan, the director of the ice rink at the facility, did say that this summer, some scheduled times for the club were later in the day than normal due to high demand at the rink.

“It’s a constantly shifting puzzle,” Dana said. “We receive the requests from our various users. We look at the calendar, we look at the week or the day, and we plug the public skating first, then we plug in the rink-operated programming, and then from there it is truly a game of Tetris, trying to mix and match all of the different pieces of when people have requested times.”

Medalia, along with Dustin Graves, a board member on for the Everett Figure Skating Club, have argued that the management at the rink has retaliated against them for speaking out at public meetings.

Oak View Group was made aware of accusations of retaliation and conducted an internal investigation, Dana said, which found the claims to have no merit. (He said the investigation did not result in the creation of a written document or report).

Ryan Crowther, the president of the public facilities district’s board of directors, also wrote in an email Friday that the district’s legal counsel reviewed documents and communications between the Oak View Group and the nonprofit. The legal counsel determined that the claims of retaliation didn’t warrant further investigation, Crowther wrote.

‘Checks and balances’

Every group that rents time on the community ice rink signs a deal with Oak View Group officials known as an “ice rink license and hold harmless agreement,” a standardized document that lists rates and insurance policies for the rink and its users.

In 2025, the figure skating club and the facility signed an agreement, including an addendum that listed a year’s worth of reserved times for the club’s programs. Later that year, the management group said it was adjusting its contract cycle, and the club signed a contract that would end in April 2026, rather than September 2026.

When the time came to sign a new agreement, the figure skating club asked for new protections, including clauses that would prevent the facility from duplicating, replacing or interfering with the club’s U.S. Figure Skating programming. It proposed multiple agreements to the Public Facilities District, which the district’s legal counsel rejected.

In a letter to Everett’s mayor and city council, Crowther wrote that the proposed contract would lock the facility into discounted rates, guaranteed ice times and other items that the district doesn’t agree to with any user group, according to a portion of the letter shared with The Daily Herald.

“The EPFD Legal Counsel reviewed the proposal and concluded that they wouldn’t recommend any public facility or municipality sign the agreement as written,” Crowther wrote. “EFSC has expressed no interest in compromise and has received communication at several points stating that such an agreement will not be entertained.”

An attorney representing the public facility district also wrote to Graves that the contract would restrict public access and use.

“Entering into such an arrangement would raise significant concerns under state law prohibiting the gifting of public resources. For this reason, the District cannot proceed with the agreement,” the attorney wrote in an email shared with The Daily Herald.

In an email, Graves wrote that the club was “not asking for exclusive control over all skating activity at the rink,” rather it was looking for protections to continue operating its club program and preventing the operator from creating duplicate programs.

Officials at Oak View Group said they’ve tried to meet with members of the club to discuss getting an agreement signed, without success.

“We’ve offered several times, several of us, to meet with rink management, and they have just not accepted that offer,” said Houlihan. “I would add, during Everett Public Facilities District board meetings, the board has instructed them that they need to meet directly with us to discuss these issues.”

The club’s members have argued that it remained in consistent conversation with Oak View Group to try and come to another agreement. After the Public Facility District’s attorney denied the club’s requests for a different contract, Graves asked in an email if the club could simply renew the agreement the two parties had signed back in 2025. The club said it didn’t get a response.

Dana said that the company will “absolutely” issue another agreement with the figure skating club once a schedule for ice times is finalized. The club submitted a request for ice times in the fall last week, Dana said during Wednesday’s council meeting.

Currently, Oak View Group is allowing the club to rent ice time without a license agreement, Dana said, as “a good faith act and in a spirit of partnership and collaboration.”

The management company is also continuing to sell ice time to the nonprofit even though it, as of Thursday, had over $11,000 in unpaid bills, Dana said. (Some of those charges, however — about $4,000 worth from a Blades on Broadway competition earlier this year — have been disputed by the club, which argued that, wihtout prior notice, charges were added after the event). He said no other organizations currently renting ice have an outstanding balance with the rink.

The nonprofit brings in less than $50,000 in revenue per year, according to IRS records from 2024, the most recent year available. Medalia said that delays in getting schedules from the rink and inconsistent ice times were among the factors in preventing the nonprofit from paying its bills on time.

“If they say we’re running behind on our bills, we’re getting behind on our bills because they’re killing us on these times, marketing, and the pipeline from Learn to Skate because they’re not running it properly,” Medalia said. “It has nothing to do with us failing as a group.”

Although the operations of the rink are managed by Oak View Group, over the past few months, the club has asked both the Everett Public Facilities District and the Everett City Council to step in to “enforce the actual policies and contracts and delegated authority that’s there,” Graves said.

“There needs to be a way for there to be oversight,” Graves said. “There’s no checks and balances.”

In a July 8 statement, Crowther wrote that the public facilities district has a management agreement with Oak View Group to operate the facility, and that they share “the same goals and vision” with a focus on financial sustainability and maintaining public access. He wrote that the district wants to continue expanding public access to the facility.

“OVG has reviewed the programs offered at the community ice rink and has seen strong growth across several areas,” Crowther wrote. “The next step is to build on that momentum, optimize opportunities for growth, and make the best use of our resources.”

Crowther said the past two years have amounted to the strongest financial performance in the building’s history.

“OVG has doubled participation in the Learn to Skate program, facilitated growth in the Everett Youth Hockey program through strong community partnerships, and we’re excited to continue expanding opportunities for the community,” Crowther wrote.

Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin said at Wednesday’s council meeting that the city has heard concerns from the figure skating club, but the arena is managed by the Everett Public Facilities District and state law limits the city’s oversight of the district because it is managed by its own board of directors.

‘Let’s figure this all out’

The figure skating club has said it wants to sign an agreement, but argues that Oak View Group hasn’t responded to written requests to come to a deal.

Oak View Group has also said it wants to sign an agreement, but argues that the figure skating club has repeatedly refused to meet with management.

Medalia said she just wants to get the figure skating club’s regular dates on the schedule for the upcoming months: Four weekly events, each listed in a document that covers one year of operations, like her agreement in 2025 had just a year prior.

“I just need four,” Medalia said. “I just need four little pieces of chunks of squares throughout the whole year, and they’ve forgotten them, or they want to move it around. So I go to them and say ‘Listen, you’re hurting my company. You’re hurting my business.’ Like, let’s talk, let’s get to the table and let’s figure this all out.”

Dana said it is not Oak View Group’s intention to shut the club out of the rink or out of negotiations for an agreement. It wants to sign an agreement with the nonprofit, he said, and wants the club to continue operating at the Everett rink into the future.

“We are not opposed to working with the figure skating club,” Dana said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “We are very much committed to renting them ice. We’re committed to the Christmas program, it’s on our schedule for Dec. 20. We are committed to doing Blades on Broadway in March. We’re committed to continuing the test sessions with them. We’re committed to maintaining their home ice designation. We’re very much in support of the figure skating club and we believe they do have a place at the community ice rink.”

He added in an interview that the rink’s efforts to add more figure skating programming was not an attempt to affect the club’s own programming or offerings.

“We want to grow bigger,” Dana said. “And there’s a way for all of us to do that together.”

Medalia worried, however, that the rink’s new Aspire programming, and what she sees as late and inconsistent ice times being offered by the rink, may threaten the existence of the club she’s led for the past five years.

“We want to save our community that they’re trying to tear apart,” Medalia said.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.