TELLURIDE, Colo. – As the town of Telluride works to minimize the economic impact of the ski patrol strike at Telluride Ski Resort, there’s renewed interest in the community’s contentious relationship with Telluride Ski Resort Owner Chuck Horning.
Horning bought the resort in 2003 and has maintained a rocky relationship with town leaders and other community members.
“Leaders in Telluride, community members, people in his own company, have found him incredibly difficult to work with. The analogy that was brought up to me a lot was sort of the Charlie Brown, just pulling the football. You know, he just, he'll walk up to the end line with a negotiation or a deal, and then at the last minute, he'll sort of pull out for unknown reasons,” Sam Tabachnik, Denver Post investigative reporter, said.
Back in October, as ski patrol union leaders and the resort were in contract negotiations, Tabachnik published an in-depth story on the town’s relationship with Horning.
“It's really kind of striking how the community and Chuck Horning have sort of reached this impasse," Horning said. "You know, talking to locals in Telluride, this has been building for quite a long time. The relationship between the ski company there, known as Telski, and the town has always been kind of fraught and contentious, but it really seems to have deteriorated in recent years. Telluride is proudly an independent mountain. They are independent. They're not part of, you know, Aspen or Vail Resorts or Altera, some of the big corporations. And so they're not corporate. And around Telluride, there are a bunch of stickers that say 'crazy is better than corporate.' And that is kind of the mentality in Telluride. But they're kind of reaching an end to that, it seems.”
To read Tabachnik’s full report click here.
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