Noticias

• Telluride Releases Investigation Report
• Adventure Race for Mental Health
• Bird Song on the San Miguel

---

Telluride Releases Investigation Report

Telluride’s independent investigation into former Town Councilmember Meehan Fee’s involvement in an offer to purchase a portion of the Telluride Ski Resort is ambiguous in its findings.

Meanwhile, a recently released report from Mountain Village’s investigation cleared former Mayor Marti Prohaska and former Town Manager Paul Wisor of any ethics violations. KOTO News reported on that investigation report June 3.

Fee, Prohaska and Wisor resigned from their respective positions at various points during the investigation.

While the investigation does not provide definite clarity on Fee’s actions, it states that no other town official knew of or agreed to the purchase offer.

Denver-based Investigations Law Group, or ILG, conducted Telluride’s investigation, interviewing nearly 20 individuals, including Fee and Prohaska; Telluride Mayor Teddy Errico; Town Council members and staff; Mountain Village and San Miguel County elected officials and staff; Chad Horning, Telski owner Chuck Horning’s son; and others close to Chuck Horning.

Chuck Horning, his counsel Lupe Mendoza and Paul Wisor all declined to participate in the investigation. While their first-person accounts are not included, their participation in events is detailed through text messages, emails and accounts from those interviewed.

In the report, which spans more than 450 pages, ILG illustrates the events beginning in early December 2025 that ultimately culminated in Fee and Prohaska taking a trip to California to speak with Horning, a proposition to purchase a majority portion of the ski resort and the fallout that ensued.

The report provides a history of the ski resort’s ownership, the “turbulent” nature of Horning’s ownership and the strain between Telski, the community and local governments. It also includes a chronology of “what happened leading up to the meetings in California, what transpired during those meetings, and what events took place after the California meetings.”

Unlike Mountain Village’s investigation, which provided a determination on whether Prohaska and Wisor violated town ethics codes, the Telluride investigation sought to answer eight specific questions.

At the center were questions about whether public funds or town resources were used — the report says they were not — and whether Fee was acting in her personal or official governmental capacity.

The report notes that Fee maintains she was acting as a private citizen. However, it questions whether a “reasonable person” would have understood that distinction.

The report states commitments laid out in Exhibit B — things like holding water prices, housing partnerships and flight spending — could not have credibly been made by a private citizen. It adds that Fee’s language and actions “created the reasonable impression that she was offering governmental commitments supported by her elected role.”

The report concludes that Fee was pursuing what she saw as a solution to a community problem, adding: “Fee’s conduct during these events is best characterized as primarily personal in motivation and framing, but not consistently or wholly so.”

Jason Dunn, a lawyer representing Fee, said the report supports his client’s intentions.

“I think the major takeaway from the report as it relates to Meehan Fee is that the investigators clearly found that she was acting, above all else, in the interest of the community,” Dunn said. “That she wasn’t in it for personal gain. That she wasn’t deceptive about who she was working for, and that all she was trying to do was find a way to benefit the community by trying to end the ski patrol strike and to see if there was a way to transfer the ownership of the ski resort to those who would be better stewards of it for the community.”

Dunn added that he hopes the community can move on now that the report has been released.

“She did her best to try and help the community through the efforts she made at the time,” Dunn said. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t successful, but obviously the strike ended, the ski season concluded, and I think it’s time for everybody to think about what’s the next steps they can be doing to move the community forward.”

Telluride’s full investigation report is available at bit.ly/totrecords.

---

Adventure Race for Mental Health

Ryan Larkin was a Navy SEAL. He completed four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a son, a brother and a friend.

In 2017, he died by suicide.

“What I observed with Ryan was that his sleep health was not so good,” remembered Robert Sweetman, a fellow Navy SEAL, friend of Larkin’s and founder of 62Romeo.

“I thought there was some sleep health issues that could have led to his mental health conditions, and his suicide,” Sweetman said. “I began doing research and I found out there’s a bidirectional relationship between sleep health and mental health. That foraged my next chapter in my life. I committed my life to study of sleep science, and since then we created this organization.”

The organization works with veterans and first responders to help improve sleep health and support mental health.

This weekend, Sweetman will be in Telluride to cross the finish line of the inaugural Ryan Larkin Invitational Adventure Race.

“We are going to bring 10 teams of four, these wild veterans and first responders and patriots, they’re going to race in teams of four for three days, across 62 miles, all in honor of Ryan Larkin, and all to raise money for this beautiful charity,” Sweetman said.

Teams are coming from across the country, including individuals from the NYPD Dive Team, 10th Mountain Division medics and the Marines.

The race starts in Montrose, but it’s not just a hike over some mountains.

“This is going to be like no other race you’ve ever seen before,” Sweetman said. “We’ve got lots of surprises planned. This is a military-themed event. Through this process we have lots of challenges for them. Those challenges include things that represent physical challenges, mental challenges that they might encounter on a mission.”

The scenario for the race, Sweetman said, is that the teams are on a top-secret mission.

“To go catch a bad guy and protect freedom for all of us,” he said. “But the mission goes bad. They’re attacked, everything goes wrong, their equipment is damaged, and they have to do what we call ‘escape and evasion.’ So, they’re going to be on escape and evasion. They’re going to begin on BLM land up in Montrose. They’re going to hit the trail systems. We’ve got lots of planned surprises.”

After braving three days and a number of those surprises, racers will finish running into Telluride.

Sweetman said at the heart of it all, the race is a way to honor Larkin and help others in the community.

“I think Ryan would be proud of us,” Sweetman said. “Ryan always wanted to help others, but unfortunately, he couldn’t help himself at that time. It’s a great time to talk about these issues. It’s not just for veterans and first responders, everybody across the county has their own mental health concerns, and sleep health is at the top of the challenges that we face with mental health.”

Finishers of the Ryan Larkin Invitational Adventure Race will cross the finish line at Telluride High School on Sunday, June 14, likely between 3 and 6 p.m.

The entire weekend will be livestreamed for those interested at rliar.org.

---

Bird Song on the San Miguel

Summer is here, the birds are singing, and ornithology expert Katie Triest is teaming up with the Wilkinson Public Library for a series of birding walks.

The Birding Walk will take place Thursday, June 11, beginning at 8 a.m.

Participants should meet at the gondola plaza in Telluride, bring binoculars if they have them and dress for variable weather.

Former KOTO intern and future KOTO news reporter Eliza Dunn — who returns to the station in September — tagged along on one of these walks. Today, we’re rebroadcasting that story, which originally aired in July 2024.

Story begins at 8:25.

---

SMPA Elects Yonder, Szwarc

Joanna Yonder and Valentine Szwarc have been elected to the San Miguel Power Association Board, SMPA announced Tuesday.

Yonder defeated incumbent board member David Alexander with 228 votes to represent District 3. The district covers portions of San Miguel, Montrose, Ouray, Dolores and San Juan counties, including Norwood, Placerville, Sawpit, Rico and Dunton.

Szwarc was reelected to represent District 6, which covers parts of Ouray County, including Ridgway and Log Hill Mesa.

SMPA selects its board through an election of its membership. Board members serve four-year terms.

---

Colorado River Study Warns of Rapid Reservoir Depletion Under Continued Dry Conditions

A new study from the Colorado River Research Group shows that if the next water year is as dry as this one, reservoir storage would be basically depleted.

The analysis found that even a very wet year would only create a safety net of about two years.

The study was released the same day the Bureau of Reclamation announced at a conference in Boulder that it had the outline of a plan for the river.

The 10-year framework would see operating guidelines revisited every two years, meaning there will not be a long-term plan for a warming and drying climate.

Chris Winter, an environmental attorney at the University of Colorado Boulder’s law school, says what is known so far does little to ease uncertainty for water users facing a drier future.

“The river is in crisis right now, and I think we could have and should have seen this coming earlier in time,” Winter said. “And now I think over the last day or two, we’ve really seen a collective reckoning about the very serious situation that we’re in.”

He says leaders on the Colorado River, including negotiators for the seven states in the basin, are in a very difficult position as climate change worsens drought.

---

GEO Group Sues Colorado Over New Detention Facility Inspection Law

GEO Group, the corporation that operates immigrant detention facilities nationwide and in Colorado, has sued the state over a new law requiring health and safety inspections.

According to the Colorado Capitol News Alliance’s Bente Birkeland, GEO Group says Colorado’s law is unconstitutional because it infringes on federal immigration authority and violates the supremacy clause. The company argues that the activities of the federal government are free from regulation by any state. GEO is asking the courts to block the law’s implementation.

Gov. Jared Polis recently signed the bill into law.

Backers of the law say they have heard disturbing reports of unsafe and unhealthy living conditions for immigrants in detention and say GEO should be able to prove they meet basic levels of care.

---

Bilingual Families Work to Preserve Heritage Languages Across Generations

For many households in the U.S., more than one language is spoken.

For bilingual families, speaking a heritage language can help preserve cultural traditions and strengthen connections across generations.

But maintaining that tradition isn’t always easy, especially as children grow older and spend more time in English-speaking environments.

For Rocky Mountain Community Radio, Lorelei Wohlbier brings us this report on one bilingual family working to keep both languages alive.

Story begins at 17:40.