{"id":138880,"date":"2026-07-13T14:15:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/investigations-find-no-evidence-of-government-conspiracy-in-offer-to-buy-telluride-ski-area\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:18:18","slug":"investigations-find-no-evidence-of-government-conspiracy-in-offer-to-buy-telluride-ski-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/investigations-find-no-evidence-of-government-conspiracy-in-offer-to-buy-telluride-ski-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigations find no evidence of government conspiracy in offer to buy Telluride ski area"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"People
People ski between the trees in the deep powder at Telluride Ski Resort on March 10, 2006. (Nathan Bilow\/Associated Press file)<\/span>NATHAN BILOW<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Investigators hired by the towns of Mountain Village and Telluride have found that elected officials did not coordinate with other leaders when they offered to buy the Telluride ski area<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Controversy over the deal led to the resignations<\/a> of Telluride Mayor Pro Tem Meehan Fee and Mountain Village Mayor Marti Prohaska and town manager Paul Wisor, who helped arrange the potential purchase.<\/p>\n

The third-party reviews of the proposal found that the two elected leaders in the towns were not coordinating with other officials when they offered to buy the Telluride ski area from owner Chuck Horning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence reflects an evolving effort in which personal, business, civic and governmental considerations became increasingly difficult to separate,\u201d reads the town of Telluride\u2019s report<\/a> conducted by the Investigations Law Group.<\/p>\n

The investigators who were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to compile their lengthy reports concluded that while Fee and Prohaska appeared to be making the offer to buy the ski area as officers of their towns, the deal was not sanctioned by the local governments. The investigators for both towns did not find evidence that other elected leaders on the town councils or town employees were involved with the offer.<\/p>\n

The Telluride report said Fee considered the proposal \u201ca solution to a community problem\u201d and she did not plan to negotiate as mayor pro tem. The report said Fee did not set out to use her elected position as a negotiating tool but \u201cher elected role became meaningfully connected\u201d to the deal when the contract included a suggestion that she would work to end a strike by ski patrollers.<\/p>\n

And perhaps most interestingly in the Telluride investigation are details about Chad Horning<\/a>, the son of the owner. He served as CEO of the Telluride Ski and Golf Co. before he was fired in March 2025 following a brawl with his dad at a resort restaurant. Chad Horning told investigators that he was among the first to float the sale proposal and helped craft a plan to submit to his dad.<\/p>\n

According to the 116-page Telluride investigation report, Chad Horning had long argued that his father would never sell the ski area even though Chuck Horning firmly believed that the resort was struggling because it was in a remote region without enough hotel rooms to support a thriving ski area.<\/p>\n

But at an early December meeting with local leaders concerned over broken-down negotiations between his dad and ski patrollers who would ultimately go on strike, Chad Horning said he was struck with an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told the group he believed his father might be receptive to the towns purchasing the resort, but only under a specific set of circumstances,\u201d reads the report. \u201cIf the towns approached (Chuck Horning) and said, \u2018We will buy the resort, and the reason we want to do it is you are right \u2013 this isn\u2019t as viable as other resorts, and the towns need to step up to preserve this economic engine. The towns need to do more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the community steps up and says, \u2018We get it,\u2019 there would be a chance of a sale,\u201d the Telluride report reads, quoting Chad Horning, who told investigators \u201cI gave it a 20% chance of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisor, in an interview with The Colorado Sun, said he \u201cwas very surprised when Chad showed up at that meeting and was as forthcoming as he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sale proposal morphed as Wisor, Fee and Prohaska massaged the details. And it\u2019s those details that led them to leaving their posts. The original plan suggested the three leaders had enlisted investors ready to pay $350 million for the ski area.<\/p>\n

A premium price tag for Telluride Ski and Golf<\/div>\n

That amount changed as negotiations progressed, with a late-December deal for $127.5 million that gave 51% ownership to the investment group led by the towns, while Chuck Horning and a partner split the other 49%. The contract said the value of Telluride Ski and Golf Co. was set at 13 times the average earnings of the resort company in 2022, 2023 and 2024. That formula pins the resort company\u2019s annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, around $19 million.<\/p>\n

The 13-times EBITDA price tag is above the industry\u2019s traditional valuation of ski areas at around eight-to-10 times earnings. It is unclear how the investment group determined the earnings of the privately held ski area.<\/p>\n

But the price was not the problem. The contentious issue in the sales plan revolved around suggestions that Fee and Prohaska, whose father helped build the ski area and who worked as a ski patroller, could help end the ski patrol strike and stop a plan to raise water prices for the resort snowmaking operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Private citizens\u2019 or \u2018immense leverage of their public offices\u2019<\/div>\n

\u201cBuyer will cause the town of Mountain Village and the town of Telluride to take commercially reasonable efforts to broker a cessation to the ski patrol strike with patrol agreeing to the offer made by seller to patrol,\u201d reads an addendum added to the proposed sale contract as ski patrollers were on strike and Horning had closed the resort.<\/p>\n

The deal also included guarantees that the towns would partner with the ski company to develop housing and the towns would expand spending on regional flights into the Montrose airport. It also said the new owners would invest $50 million in upgrades at the ski area.<\/p>\n

That addendum also required that Wisor be immediately fired from his job. (Wisor in March last year delivered a speech to the Mountain Village town council that suggested Horning was \u201cunwilling or unable\u201d to competently steer the resort company.)<\/p>\n

\u201cChuck has failed in every respect to meet his responsibilities in a meaningful way and he\u2019s been doing so for quite some time,\u201d Wisor told the council in March 2025<\/a>, garnering a standing ovation from residents gathered for the meeting that addressed yearslong community angst over working with Horning.<\/p>\n

Was there a promise to end the ski patrol strike?<\/div>\n

The long-simmering saga that boiled over in late December when Horning shut down the ski area<\/a> in response to the ski patroller strike is not over. The investigations are only one chapter in a complex tale of trouble in the Telluride box canyon, with communities increasingly irked by Horning\u2019s lack of investment and perpetual firing of resort captains and the owner\u2019s equally fiery disdain for the three local governments that border his ski hill.<\/p>\n

Horning is suing Fee, Prohaska and Wisor, saying they abused their positions when they crafted a bid to buy his resort. He\u2019s suing the town of Telluride over access to documents. Workers at a resort-owned hotel are suing Horning over wages.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims the promises \u201care all official public actions\u201d from the two mayors. The lawsuit said Horning asked the women: \u201cSo we sign this, and they go back to work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMs. Prohaska replied \u2018Yes,\u2019\u201d reads the lawsuit, citing a transcript of a recording made by Horning.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendants Fee and Prohaska represented that they had the power to end the strike or, by implication, to prolong it \u2013 and the resort\u2019s closure \u2013 at the expense of Telski, its employees, and the community,\u201d reads Horning\u2019s lawsuit, which includes representation by Troy Eid, the former U.S. Attorney General for Colorado now with the Denver firm Greenberg Traurig. \u201cDefendants Prohaska and Fee, in association with Paul Wisor, deliberately provoked the ski patrol strike to attempt to force Mr. Horning to sell Telski to a coalition of private actors and government officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horning, in his lawsuits, said the women \u201cused their office, threat of regulation and other official government action, and confidential information to gain personal advantages for purchasing Telski\u201d and the damages amounted to \u201cseveral million dollars.\u201d He argues the correspondence between the three and his own office reveal \u201ctortious interference and civil conspiracy,\u201d according to his response to the motions to dismiss.<\/p>\n

Was it all a trap?<\/div>\n

Prohaska, who works as a ski patroller at Telluride, Fee and Wisor, in early June, asked the court to dismiss the complaint, arguing Horning was misconstruing a promise to work with striking ski patrollers as a guarantee to end the strike. They told The Sun in January<\/a> they were acting as citizens, not elected officials, when they signed a contract proposing to buy the ski area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no allegations supporting the claim defendants intended to prolong the strike,\u201d reads the motion to dismiss filing by the three. (Fee also has filed a motion that the recording of the conversations with Horning \u2013 which were made by an associate of Horning\u2019s \u2013 in his Newport Beach, California, office were not consensual, which is a violation of California law.)<\/p>\n

The first time Fee learned the meeting had been recorded was later, when a transcript \u201cwas being publicly circulated\u201d by Horning in Telluride, reads her motion to strike the recordings.<\/p>\n

Wisor, who also served as an assistant town attorney for Mountain Village, said he and the two leaders \u201cthought we were on a track that was Chuck\u2019s idea and was something that was going to work for Chuck, the ski company and the community to lead us to a better future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisor, who said he needed to guard his comments because \u201cI\u2019m still being sued,\u201d said the effort was anchored in a desire \u201cfor what was best for the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, he wonders if it was all a trap orchestrated by Horning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will always go back and forth on whether there was really something there or if there was always a plan for it to end up just like this,\u201d he said. \u201cI never thought any of this would happen. I truly thought this would go another way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire process not only cost Fee, Prohaska and Wisor their jobs, it cost taxpayers. The town of Telluride has paid $54,000 to the Investigations Law Group to study the sale proposal and expected a total bill to fall between $100,000 and $150,000. Mountain Village budgeted $350,000 for national civil litigation firm Wheeler Trigg O\u2019Donnell\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

The Wheeler Trigg O\u2019Donnell final report suggested that Mountain Village add guidelines to its town charter that would better prevent conflicts of interest and prohibit town officials from making \u201cunauthorized commitments or promises of any kind\u201d that involve the town. The Telluride report, by design, was a factual investigation and did not include any policy recommendations.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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