BEND, Ore. -- Responding to complaints, the company that owns the Mount Bachelor ski area west of Bend says it will put $3.4 million into a lift maintenance program, buses and equipment and other upgrades.

"We need to put money back into our lifts. We need to upgrade our bus system," said Matt Janney, general manager of the ski area for Powdr Corp. of Park City, Utah.

Gripes about the resort have been mounting since Powdr took over in 2001, more than 40 years after Bill Healy led a group of Bend-area boosters to put a lift on what was then called Bachelor Butte.

"There've been ongoing concerns over maintenance and things breaking down," said Phil Cruz, Bend-Fort Rock District ranger for the Deschutes National Forest, which administers the ski area's permit. "I think that people have become a little more vocal."

Despite a snowy winter, the complaints mounted.

"Over the recent holiday season I witnessed inexcusable mayhem and confusion at the ski area," David Rossell, chairman of the Bend Chamber of Commerce board wrote in the group's monthly newsletter. "I observed the anger expressed by countless tourists visiting central Oregon with their families."

"If Mt. Bachelor declines, the community declines," he wrote.

Janney listed some of the larger projects: $900,000 toward a new park and ride in Bend; $650,000 for three new, low-emission Bombardier snow cats; $500,000 for a preventive maintenance program for chairlifts; $500,000 for a new snow blower to supplement two others to clear the parking lot; and $200,000 for three new buses.

Janney worked at the mountain in the 1990s and returned in July to head operations.

"Bachelor has had a change in management, and I think they are turning things around nicely," Cruz said. "But with anything I think it takes time."