Mountain Village voters pass lift-ticket tax to fund Telluride gondola in rebuke of ski resort owner

Residents of Mountain Village the European-style town that encompasses the Telluride ski resort on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a lift-ticket tax to help fund the construction maintenance and operation of the iconic gondola that connects the mountain with the town of Telluride More than of the town s voters backed the measure which is estimated to generate million per year through the new excise tax The town will transfer the money to the San Miguel Authority for Regional Transportation to help replace the existing gondola and maintain the new one The gondola is the region s majority vital shared asset and the cornerstone of our current and future success Mountain Village Town Manager Paul Wisor reported in a report In this voting process the Mountain Village region reaffirmed its commitment to securing the gondola s future ensuring that the ski resort along with its visiting guests contributes its fair share to building a new gondola The vote serves as a population rebuke of the resort s owner Chuck Horning who initially agreed to a deal in which the ski company would contribute million annually to the county for gondola funding But in March just hours before the county was set to approve the signed contract Horning pulled out of the agreement Forced to scramble both Telluride and Mountain Village representatives referred measures to November s ballot asking voters to approve taxes on visitors lift tickets That money will be collected by the ski company and paid to the county but Horning can choose to pass the costs on to the customers The tax will not apply to local residents season passes Is Telluride ready to chuck Chuck Why the opulent ski town turned on the resort s longtime owner This file is auto-generated function d l use strict l querySelector d addEventListener undefined typeof URL d wp d wp d wp receiveEmbedMessage d wp receiveEmbedMessage function e var t e facts if t t secret t message t value a-zA-Z - test t secret for var s r n a l querySelectorAll 'iframe data-secret ' t secret ' ' o l querySelectorAll 'blockquote data-secret ' t secret ' ' c new RegExp https i i i