A standing-room-only crowd filled the main floor of the Mount Sima chalet Wednesday night, looking for a way to reopen for the 2013/2014 winter season.

The two-hour session, drawing upwards of 100 people, was the first open meeting the hill's operators – the Great Northern Ski Society – has held since the financial crisis that closed the facility early this month became clear.

The city has turned down repeated funding requests from the board to keep the alpine facility going, though council did vote in favour of paying off the debt on the chair lift and securing title to the lift.

The hill's shutdown ended the short-lived summer operations that included an aerial park, with GNSS voting to begin the work of dissolving the society.

"Dissolution of the GNSS is not a fast thing,” board secretary Lee Vincent told the crowd last evening, stressing the focus of the board now is to sell off some of the hill's assets in order to pay off the $170,000 debt to local creditors and continue negotiations with WildPlay for licensing fees and the issue of the 10-year lease for the summer adventure park.

It will only be after a large amount of the debt has been dealt with that the board will call the special general meeting where members will vote on whether to dissolve the society, the crowd was informed. A 21-day notice is required before the meeting can be held, which would bring it closer to the drop-dead date of Sept. 1 to determine if the hill can open for the winter.

As Vincent outlined, the current board is focused on dealing with the debts and last night's session was simply hosted by the society as a community meeting for those who may be interested in coming up with a way to reopen for the winter season.

The current board, she said, was there to answer questions and provide support, but it's focus is not on the hill reopening, but rather paying off the debts. She acknowledged though if Sima is to reopen it can only do so after the baggage of debt it now carries is dealt with.

Since the closure was announced many have come forward, proposing numerous ideas for the hill, prompting last night's meeting to be held.

During the two-hour discussion last night, those ideas continued along with the call for core annual funding as longtime supporters of the hill assessed what went wrong.

The 2007 Canada Winter Games is "100 per cent” the reason Sima is in the situation it is right now, said Sam Oettli, the outdoor operations manager.

Playing host to the national sporting event meant turning the small operation into a much larger facility than the community could support – the new chalet which costs more to operate replaced the small ATCO trailer that served as the cafeteria and ticket sales office, and Oettli argued there's ongoing issues with the building's ventilation system that could cost upwards of $20,000 to fix because it was never put in properly.

Runs were also altered – Dan's Descent becoming two times its previous width; Gold Rush was built, replacing what Oettli called one of the best tree runs the hill had, and the snowboard/freestyle park was built. The Games also brought increased snowmaking.

While many of the improvements were made with capital funds specifically coming from hosting the Games, Oettli said staff and the board are now dealing with the ongoing cost of operating all those bells and whistles.

"We get 30 per cent more runs to cover,” he said, pointing out that diesel costs a lot of money as does electricity.

"These are numbers we can't get away from,” Oettli said.

The facility has never received core funding, he said.

This isn't the first time the city has been faced with a request for an annual grant for the ski hill.

Even before the facility hosted the national event in 2007, annual operating funds were sought. In 2004, the GNSS (then under different board members) threatened to close the hill if an annual grant of $40,000 for operations and insurance costs wasn't approved by the city.

"It's a really important community thing,” Kate White, now the NDP MLA for Takhini-Kopper King, told council at the time, speaking on the importance of the ski hill.

While the city didn't provide the requested funding then, the hill was able to reopen the following winter. The hill was closed for the 2007/2008 season after the Games amid financial problems.

While the city has not provided a core operating grant to the hill, recreation grants have been doled out and money was redirected from the city's share of federal programs to pay $1.6 of the $3 million chairlift (that was previous to paying off the lift's debt) and $1.3 million for the start of summer operations last year.

Like many last night, Oettli argued its time for the decision makers to "buck up” and come to the table.

His statement was met with applause from the crowd.

Another supporter described her reasons for wanting the hill to stay open as "selfish.”

Her daughter, now 15, has been skiing pretty much since she could walk. Now a racer, she's begging to move to Fernie, B.C. if the hill closes so she can continue racing.

The woman noted that without facilities like Sima, there are many youth who may not return to Whitehorse after they leave the community to pursue post-secondary education.

If her plan to move to Fernie doesn't happen, the girl wants to play hockey which her mother has heard her refer to as a "council-approved sport.”

Over and over it was repeated in the crowd that the hill – like many throughout the country – can't operate without core funding.

In communities Outside, it was pointed out, municipalities provide core funding for their local ski hill and benefit from the sale and tax on land near the ski hill that residents want to purchase.

Other ideas brought forward at the meeting ranged from opening earlier in the season with one or two runs to start off rather than a later opening for the entire hill; having volunteers run equipment (which current board members noted can't be done due to worker's compensation legislation and insurance) and different models for pass sales.

It was Coun. John Streicker who suggested moving away from the current model which focuses on day pass sales to one that is more focused on the sale of season passes.

"I actually believe this is an important part of the solution,” he said.

Over the past week, Streicker conducted an informal survey on his Facebook page to find out how many people would be willing to prepay $500 for a season's pass if Sima were operating, with 193 stating they would.

One supporter indicated had she known last year that Sima was in financial trouble, she would have bought a season's pass rather than purchasing day passes to ski at the hill.

Both Streicker and Coun. Kirk Cameron spoke up at last night's meeting, clarifying a number of comments about the city. A number of other city officials were also on-hand.

With Streicker outlining the results of his survey, Cameron stressed that the city is taking steps to review its policies around recreation facilities.

After the meeting, Streicker said despite the challenges, it's clear there is a desire for the hill to keep going. He acknowledged too though that within the overall Whitehorse community, opinions differ on whether that support should come from the city.

The city is doing its best to protect the major asset of the hill as a solution comes forward, he said.

But as the current board begins the process of selling off certain assets that haven't been heavily used, supporters expressed their worry that once those items are gone there will be no getting them back.

As soon as Vincent reported the T-bar (which was purchased for the 2007 Games), its generator and two grooming components for a half pipe, arguments that the T-bar could be run rather than the chair lift to help reduce costs came up as did concerns that items would be sold at a fraction of what they're worth.

Vincent said the board looked at the assets that are not often used as the first items that would be sold off and found those four.

The T-bar hasn't been used for a few seasons and it's been some time since the hill has had a half pipe.

While the board is focusing on selling the items to get the debt paid off, those at last night's meeting split off into three groups to work on setting the stage for the hill's future with a goal of reopening.

The three groups will work on short-term funding, long-term funding and governance.

After the more formal part of the meeting, Northern Vision Development's Jenni Matchett said she and her co-worker Taylor Love would likely look at being involved with the short-term and long-term funding plans.

Northern Vision, she said, is interested in the community and facilities like Sima that can generate benefits for the area.

There's an opportunity for a more efficient operation and a need to be creative going forward, she said.

On a personal note, Matchett pointed out she and others who work for Northern Vision grew up skiing at Sima and want to see it continue to operate.