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Thursday night was a brutal one for Telluride Ski & Golf owner Chuck Horning, who bore the brunt of a rare public rebuke from the town manager of nearby Mountain Village, which was fully backed by a Telluride City Council member even as Horning reportedly fired his son Chad.
Mountain Village Town Manager Paul Wisor slammed the elder Horning as an out-of-touch owner whose resort is aging and needs major infrastructure upgrades and engaged ownership that works productively with his town, which is connected to the old mining town of Telluride by an iconic public-transit-style gondola that is aging out.
“Tonight, I think it’s pretty clear that Chuck is neglecting both the resort and the community,” Wisor said at a town council meeting that went viral on Instagram. “Chuck is failing us all. I think this underscores the glaring need for both TSG and the community to have a competent and engaged CEO running the resort.”
The Mountain Village council Thursday voted unanimously to use its condemnation power to impose an easement on Horning’s land where a popular concert series has been going on for 25 years. Wisor, in a follow-up phone interview, said the council doesn’t take condemnation lightly but that Horning had been dragging his feet on the formerly perfunctory easement agreement.
“Chuck Horning is not here, and that should concern all of us deeply,” Wisor said at the meeting. “Tonight, we deliberated about something that affected his private land and he didn’t care. And to me, more importantly, we debated about something that affected his community, our community, and he didn’t care to show up.”
Telluride City Council member Dan Enright posted on Instagram Friday praising Wisor under the tagline “It’s time to chuck Chuck: Telluride, it’s about damn time for a change. While getting a leadership change at the resort is no small task, the first step is a public conversation. Paul Wisor took that first step last night, and I am here to stand with him.”
Chuck Horning did not return calls and texts seeking comment over the weekend.
According to Wisor, the elder Horning famously and purposefully has not had the title of CEO since buying into the resort in 2004 as a California commercial real estate investor with his son Chad, who also held a title-free role with the company.
“He fired his son last night,” Wisor said by phone. “Chad was one of those people who was in a tricky place because he obviously needs to keep his father happy, but was always mindful of the impacts that the decisions, or lack of decisions that his father was making or not making, was having on the community. And he was really trying to be that bridge.”
Back in 2004, Telluride was coming off an unprecedented spree of expansion and lift upgrades under previous owner Joe Morita of Sony fame. It had added Prospect Bowl and the iconic and free Telluride-to-Mountain-Village interconnecting gondola. But now those upgrades and older lifts are in need of investment, several sources say.
Wisor said another missed opportunity came Thursday with the failure of a seemingly ironclad agreement to direct new taxes raised by public vote in November and a lift fee Horning would self-impose and put toward a new gondola, all because of Horning’s continued lack of action.
“And so now, because he didn’t do that, we now have on our agenda for next Thursday a lift tax,” Wisor said, adding there is now real urgency to get it on the June ballot to satisfy TABOR law. “There’s a chance that the community and the council are going to say, ‘We’re going craft this in the way that we want to see it, and TSG’s input is no longer welcome given that they have intentionally thrown that opportunity away.’”
A prominent Telluride homeowner who requested anonymity said, “Chuck hasn’t put any money into infrastructure since he bought the place. Lifts are breaking all the time. They had to evacuate 70 people off the Chondola on Christmas Eve. This is a novelty for him and he doesn’t care about it. It’s like this is his trophy, and he got it kind of on the cheap. Are we at the point where it could be dangerous? That’s where it gets interesting.”
Asked if he is concerned about lift safety and staffing levels, town manager Wisor replied, “Personally? I am. Yep.”
Several sources confirmed rumors have been swirling that the Crown family that owns Aspen made Horning an offer for $200 million, which one ski industry expert said was probably somewhat “low ball” and that the resort is probably worth closer to $250 million but likely needs another $75 million in infrastructure spending.
“I can see that there is some sort of play to be had where for a time you defer some maintenance and then hopefully you’re able to sell and still recoup a lot of money without having put in a lot of those capital improvements,” Wisor said, acknowledging he’s not a ski industry expert. “But in Chuck’s case, he’s waited so long that the deferred maintenance is over the entire mountain and he’s missed his window.”
Editor’s note: A version of this story first ran in the Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette newspapers.
