John and Michele Fredrickson took over the land-based operations at Crowley Lake 15 years ago, and their firm, Sierra Recreation (Crowley Lake Fish Camp), recently came out on top of the bidding to keep running the boat docks, campground and store at the lake.
“It looks pretty positive,” said John Fredrickson of the outcome of a long process that will probably result in the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extending his Crowley Lake lease for a 20-year term.
For decades, the lake, a sprawling body of water between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes, has been one of the most popular and regularly visited fishing and boating lakes in the Eastern Sierra
The only potential snag involves an appeal of the bid award by the other bidder who, obviously, didn’t win the concession contract at the lake. According to the LADWP staff report presented to the L.A. Board of Water and Power Commissioners, the other bid for the Crowley Lake lease was submitted by Larry Matsui, and Jeffery and Jo Conaway.
When Fredrickson was chosen as the preferred bidder, Matsui, owner of Summit Commercial Properties in El Segundo, protested the bidding process. The staff report noted that the insurance specifications in the bid package were changed after it went out. The staff report also notes that LADWP will not show Matsui the bid proposals or other documents, and will allow the appeal process to unwind over the next several months.
Fredrickson said he agreed with the way the commission was handling the appeal, since it’s following its own guidelines and procedures.
However, he also said he was fairly confident that, in the end, LADWP would go ahead and award the new contract to his firm. Frederickson said that his proposal was determined to be superior to the other group’s in every category but one, and the bids essentially tied in that one area. The assessment of the two proposals was made by LADWP staff members from Bishop and Los Angeles and an outside consulting firm, the staff report notes.
Fredrickson said that, despite the appeal, work is continuing to put the fine points on the new lease between LADWP and Crowley Lake Fish Camp. He said that the draft contract will probably arrive at the Bishop office fairly soon, then additional negotiations could take place, with a final deal falling into place sometime this fall.
He noted that the LADWP commissioners in Los Angeles who listened to the two presentations about Crowley “were very courteous” during the meeting to both parties, and “really listened and tried to be fair.” The LADWP staff in the Bishop office has been very “open and helpful” throughout the process, he added. “They did what they could to get it done” as fairly and quickly as possible. 
Even though Fredrickson is pretty optimistic at this point, he still doesn’t have a final, signed lease in hand, yet. “It ain’t over until it’s over,” said Fredrickson, sounding like a fisherman who has hooked a trademark Crowley Lake monster trout, but isn’t going to start bragging until it’s safely landed and in the boat.
Fredrickson and fans of  Crowley Lake from across the state and nation were a bit uneasy about the future of their favorite fishing hole when LADWP decided not to simply renew Fredrickson’s lease in 2006. Instead, LADWP went through the entire bid process, including seeking a Request for Proposals and advertising the lease opportunity across the state in addition to informing six other potential vendors, in addition to Fredrickson, of the opportunity to take over the 823-acre lease and full compliment of boat docks, campgrounds and other improvements at Crowley Lake.
Fredrickson had invested a significant amount of his own money in the facility over the years. The largest improvement was essentially rebuilding the marina, he said, in addition to making numerous other large and small improvements to the operation.
Having a lessee make those kind of improvements to the  Crowley Lake boating and camping operation was the main reason the operation was put out to bid in 1991.
The City of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation had operated the Crowley Lake location from 1941 until 1991, when a funding crunch at the city department prompted the search for a firm to take over the Crowley Lake operation.

Visitors take in a fun and relaxing 2007 Fishing Opener along the shores of Crowley Lake. A recent bid process, which caused a certain level of uncertainty among anglers and recreators for the future of the popular water body, came to an end with a 20-year lease being award to John Frederickson, who currently operates Crowley Lake Fish Camp. Photo by Keith Rainville

The staff report notes that during the first year of Fredrickson’s lease, LADWP received about $1,700 from the deal. By 2006, the lease was generating more than $60,000 for the LADWP each year, according to the report, which also acknowledges that Fredrickson had, by all accounts, not only run a successful and popular operation for anglers and campers, but one that also produced steadily increasing financial benefits to LADWP. 
The exact financial terms of the lease are still being finalized, but the staff report states the LADWP should expect to take in  at least $1.2 million over the life of the 20-year lease.
Crowley Lake, which covers 8.2 square miles with a capacity of  183,000 acre feet of water, is both the largest LADWP reservoir in the Eastern Sierra and one of the region’s most popular and well-known fishing spots.
Fredrickson’s bid to continue to run the Crowley Lake Fish Camp for the next two decades, the staff report notes, represents the best opportunity to maintain the current high level of recreational opportunities at “one of the Eastern Sierra’s premier” fishing lakes, while also “protecting the water resources of the citizens of Los Angeles.”