The mayor of a small town surrounded by the Telluride Ski Resort resigned on Wednesday over an unfolding controversy with the resort. The city council wanted to investigate her after she tried to make a deal that would include the resort’s controversial owner selling his controlling share of the famed ski area.
The Colorado Sun reports that Marti Prohaska, the mayor of Mountain Village, traveled to California in late December to meet with Chuck Horning, Telluride Ski & Golf’s 81-year-old billionaire owner. Alongside Telluride’s mayor pro-tem, Meehan Fee, Prohaska tried to convince Horning to agree to a payout of $127.5 million for 51 percent ownership of the resort.
In Prohaska’s resignation letter, she said she made the decision to leave after being informed that the town council had requested a private investigation into her conversations with Horning.
The meeting took place during the resort’s recent ski patrol strike over wages, which ended Jan. 9, with the ski patrol union saying that the “broken wage structure” had still not been addressed.
Prohaska, who is also a ski patroller and was raised in Mountain Village, said that the strike had “exposed the vulnerabilities of a destination dependent upon a company that lacks leadership.” She said that until the strike, many locals were “too complacent, or too afraid, to discuss this fact.”
The Sun reported Mayor Prohaska and Telluride Mayor Pro-tem Fee spent three days negotiating with Horning on a plan where he would remain the chair of the resort’s board, while investors would make decisions about its daily operations and future. Prohaska and Fee told the paper it seemed as though Horning was considering the sale.
In the end, while Horning seems to have entertained the idea of selling a large part of his share, the resort released a statement this week insisting that “the ski area is not for sale.”
Both Prohaska and Fee have said they were acting as private citizens and not in their official capacity.
Horning has been a controversial leader at Telluride since buying it in 2003. In the past decades, critics have called him unpredictable and aggressive, saying he’s shirked responsibilities, including not funding the gondola that connects the resort to the little town below or building more affordable housing.
Prohaska added that flying to California to talk to Horning about the strike and the selling of the resort “was born out of that love and hope, coupled with a sincere desire to find solutions to a real and pressing crisis that threatens our shared future.”
Neither Prohaska nor Fee could be reached for comment Thursday but the Mountain Village Town Council shared a statement at a Thursday afternoon meeting praising former mayor Prohaska.
“Whatever one’s view of her actions, we have no doubt they were motivated by a sincere desire to advance the long-term health and future of our region,” the statement said.
The council will elect a new mayor within 30 days — one who will inherit the complexities Prohaska was attempting to navigate.
