Noticias

• A Mountain Village Investigation Update
• Coming Up Next, Telluride
• Lawmakers Talk Geothermal and Overtime Hours

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A Mountain Village Investigation Update

Mountain Village provided an update on an investigation into former Mayor Marti Prohaska and Town Manager Paul Wisor’s involvement in conversations about a potential purchase of a majority stake in Telluride Ski Resort in January.

“It’s definitely coming,” Mountain Village Mayor Scott Pearson said at a Town Council meeting Thursday. “It will be full and complete and highly transparent.”

During a labor dispute this winter between Telski and the Telluride Ski Patrol Union, Prohaska and former Telluride Town Council member Meehan Fee traveled to California to hold conversations with Telski owner Chuck Horning. Prohaska and Fee said they went as private citizens. Following that visit, the ski company filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking correspondence related to “a purchase offer of the ski company.”

The request included a contract indicating an agreement for Horning to sell 51% of Telluride Ski Resort to the Telluride Ski Resort Fund, an entity controlled by Prohaska and Fee. The contract was signed by Prohaska and Fee but not by Horning.

Both elected officials have since resigned from their positions. Wisor was placed on administrative leave after disclosing he knew about the trip and had put Prohaska and Fee in contact with investors interested in purchasing the ski company.

In February, Mountain Village selected the law firm Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell to conduct an investigation into the matter. The Town Council met with the firm in executive session for more than two hours Thursday to receive a preview of the report.

Pearson said the investigation was initially expected to take five weeks but has now extended beyond two months.

“The reasons for the delay are actually good,” Pearson said. “We estimated the investigation would require 10-15 interviews. They’ve conducted 21 and have two more scheduled.”

Pearson said there were some “very important people” who took time before agreeing to participate in the investigation.

“The result is we are getting a very rich understanding of the entire timeline of events that took place, and what happened,” Pearson said. “I’m confident that we will release a report that will answer a lot of questions and really share with the public, at some granular level of detail, what happened.”

Pearson said he expects the report to be released at the Mountain Village Town Council meeting May 21.

The Town of Telluride has hired its own firm to conduct an investigation into Fee’s involvement in the matter. Officials there have not provided a timeline for an update.

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Coming Up Next, Telluride

The Telluride Town Council will meet Tuesday with emergency preparedness, Telski and housing on the agenda.

In this installment of Coming Up Next, Telluride, Communications Manager Lindsey Mills previews what to expect.

Julia Caulfield (JC): Telluride Town Council is meeting on Tuesday with two of note work sessions in the morning. What’s going to be happening?

Lindsey Mills (LM): We’re diving right in with the emergency evacuation planning and municipal disaster management presentation from the county emergency manager, Shannon Armstrong. The county has been working really hard on an emergency management plan, and that includes planning all types of emergencies and this evacuation specific planning effort and then the municipal disaster management effort are going to be really relevant and topical for the town of Telluride. This will be an update for council on what’s happening there and how the county is moving forward with planning specifically for Telluride, as well as the greater region.

Then we’ll have an update from Telluride Ski and Golf Company with Steve Swenson, that’ll be happening at 11 a.m. We’re expecting to hear more about their summer preview, knowing that the bike park is going to be closed for the summer, what they’re going to be up to, and give council an opportunity to ask any questions.

JC: Then before lunch, there’s going to be a manager’s report. Is there anything in there folks should know about?

LM: We love the manager’s report and we hope you do too. It again gives you a full overview of everything that’s happening throughout the town of Telluride and every department, all of our wins, all of the hard work that everybody’s putting in and some really good previews of things like town construction projects, housing, so on and so forth.

During that report update, we’re going to hear from Zoe Dohnal, our town manager on the quarter 1 update for our 2026 town council goals and objectives. These goals and objectives are set based on what is currently open as our town community survey – that kind of kicks off the planning period and then council sets their goals and objectives for the next year, then budgeting season happens and then everybody in the town of Telluride that works for the town really gets underway with pursuing all the things we can to ensure that those goals and objectives are achieved.

We’ll also get an update on the master lease program, which just went through lottery earlier this month. That is going to be an opportunity for businesses to open a master lease with the boarding house to put their seasonal employees in or full-time employees into a boarding house unit.

JC: Then council breaks for lunch, but there’s also two more work sessions in the afternoon that people might want to tune in on. What are those?

LM: At 1:30 p.m., we kick off our afternoon work sessions, the first of which is actually going to be a discussion on our franchise agreement with Black Hills Energy. Then we’ll hear an update from Chief Comte for the Marshal’s Department annual report. This is always a really interesting report on crime and the things the team has been addressing throughout the year, in addition to their community engagement and all of their involvement throughout town.

Finally, we’ll close out work sessions with a discussion on the fire ban approval process. Right now, a fire ban has to go through council approval, so there will be a discussion around whether that needs to be the process moving forward or if they want to revise that to make it a little easier for town emergency management to implement a fire ban.

JC: Finally, Town Council will be meeting as the Telluride Housing Authority with some big discussions in there as well. What will they be talking about there?

LM: The Telluride Housing Authority is going to meet at 2:30 p.m. and they’re going to be discussing an adoption of a policy statement regarding the affordable housing waitlist. This will revise how the waitlist is administered.

Additionally, we’ll check out a discussion around the formation of a resident advisory committee. This is a continuation of last month’s council meeting where they began discussing the resident advisory committee, what that makeup will look like, what the role will be of those residents advising the THA moving forward, and how we can continue to get residents involved in guideline revisions and all the work that goes into that moving forward.

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Lawmakers Talk Geothermal and Overtime Hours

As the Colorado General Assembly nears the end of its session, a number of bills are still making their way through the House and Senate.

On this week’s Capitol Conversation, statehouse reporter Rae Solomon shares an update on geothermal energy and farmworker overtime.

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Women’s Group to Focus on Connection

Women carry a lot on their shoulders.

This week, the Wilkinson Public Library is teaming up with local counselors to host a Women’s Empowerment Group.

Kaity Swick and Sally Harris Porter will lead the group, which focuses on fostering deeper connections with women in the community and with oneself.

The group will include a mix of somatic practices, mindfulness exercises and practical tools rooted in mind-body awareness.

The Women’s Empowerment Group will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, at the Wilkinson Public Library and will meet on the fourth Tuesday of each month. Registration is available at telluridelibrary.org.

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Interior Secretary Defends Project Reviews

In a hearing before the U.S. House Appropriations Committee last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the department’s policy requiring secretary-level reviews for solar and wind projects on public land.

Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Caroline Llanes reports environmentalists say the policy is another way the Trump administration is supporting a fossil fuels agenda.

California Democrat Josh Harder questioned why wind and solar projects on Bureau of Land Management land require approval from Burgum, while oil and gas projects do not.

Burgum did not directly answer questions about the policy, instead saying wind and solar energy are unreliable.

“And when the sun goes down and the wind’s not blowing, there’s no electrons going down those transmission lines,” Burgum said. “The cost of all that is borne by the person paying the electric bill.”

He said solar and wind are not viable without subsidies, though he did not mention subsidies for the fossil fuel industry or that solar and wind are often cheaper.

Harder said that if Burgum truly believed that, there would be a permitting process that puts all energy projects on a level playing field.

“What I see now is secretary-level approval required for one type of project, but not for another, and again, I don’t think that’s sustainable or good policy,” Harder said.

The president’s proposed budget makes “ending the green new scam” a priority, clawing back millions of dollars for renewable energy projects.