By the time Marti Prohaska, the mayor of Mountain Village, and Meehan Fee, a member of the Telluride Town Council, boarded a plane to Orange County, Calif.,, to pitch the owner of Telluride Ski and Golf on selling the resort last December, they had been mulling over the idea for several weeks.
The women met with resort owner Chuck Horning on Dec. 29 as unionized members of the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association were on strike and the ski hill was closed. With the local economy on the brink of crisis, Prohaska and Fee aimed to bring stability to their towns both in the short term, by finding a resolution for the strike, and in the long term. The intention was, in part, to “gauge his appetite for a change with the understanding that there were people interested in both purchasing and partnering,” Prohaska told The Denver Post in a January interview.
Instead, the meeting resulted in both women resigning from their positions as public officials and triggered a lawsuit by Horning, alleging they conspired to pressure him into selling and leveraged the patrollers’ strike to do so. The California meeting was subsequently investigated by two separate law firms on behalf of the neighboring towns of Telluride and Mountain Village, and the results, made public this month, reveal new details about the events leading up to the offer.
According to investigators, the idea to buy out Horning originated on Dec. 5 with a previously undisclosed source: Chuck Horning’s son Chad Horning.
Chad Horning, whose relationship with his father has been rocky, not only initially suggested the towns attempt to buy Telluride Ski Resort, but also drafted the first purchase offer, the investigations found. That draft included additional stipulations that would eventually become known as “Exhibit B” — a document at the center of the controversy and an essential part of the inquiries into whether Prohaska and Fee crossed ethical boundaries when they made their purchase offer.
The deal never came to fruition and remained largely confidential until after the union accepted a new contract on Jan. 8. However, in mid-January, a copy of the offer was leaked online. Its goal was to transfer a 51% stake of the resort into the hands of an entity called the Telluride Ski Resort Fund, for $127.5 million.
The documents, which were verified by The Post, also suggested in an addendum (Exhibit B) that if a sale were finalized, local officials would help broker an end to the strike and address municipal projects such as workforce housing, future water needs, infrastructure upgrades and generating more tourism to the area.
Many residents who saw the leaked offer viewed the addendum as ethically dubious, since it appeared Prohaska and Fee engaged in a quid pro quo by leveraging their influence as elected officials. (Prohaska and Fee maintained they were acting as private citizens during this trip.)
Town councils in both Telluride and Mountain Village decided to investigate the incident as a matter of public transparency. They commissioned Denver-based firms and , respectively, to conduct separate but concurrent inquiries into the events leading up to and following the California meeting with Chuck Horning.
The fallout was swift. Prohaska resigned as Mountain Village mayor on Jan. 14, and Fee resigned from the Telluride Town Council on Jan. 26. Mountain Village Town Manager Paul Wisor, who was also involved in drafting the purchase offer, went on paid administrative leave on Jan. 27.
‘A 20% chance of success’
On June 2, , which determined Prohaska didn’t technically violate the town’s code of ethics. Her actions, however, undermined the public’s confidence in government officials and were “inconsistent with her ethical obligations as the Mayor of Mountain Village,” according to investigators. Wisor was also cleared of ethical misconduct.
On Wednesday, , which sought to establish a timeline of events surrounding the California meeting and determine whether Fee, who was mayor pro tem at the time, acted in a personal or professional capacity.
The report concluded her conduct “is best characterized as primarily personal in motivation and framing, but not consistently or wholly so. Her elected role became meaningfully connected to the acquisition effort as it developed, in ways she did not fully account for and lacked authority to deliver.” (Fee’s lawyer Jason Dunn disagreed with this conclusion.)
The investigations also uncovered new details about who was behind the attempt to buy Telluride Ski Resort from Chuck Horning. Both trace the genesis of this idea to a meeting held on Dec. 5 at which Chad Horning volunteered the idea.
Neither Chuck Horning nor Chad Horning participated in Mountain Village’s investigation. However, after the first results were made public, Chad Horning contacted Investigations Law Group and offered to cooperate with Telluride’s probe, according to the report. Investigators interviewed Chad Horning on June 5.
The Post reached Chad Horning by email on Thursday, but he said he was not immediately available to discuss the investigation.
Chad Horning’s involvement on the back end of this deal is noteworthy, given there are indications in the reports that the relationship with his father is not totally amicable. Chad Horning served as CEO of Telluride Ski and Golf, known as Telski, until March 2025 when his dad fired him. Before that, the two had been seen fist-fighting in public.
Chad Horning acknowledged this in an interview with investigators, stating, “I don’t think my involvement (in a deal) would have helped anybody.”
On Dec. 5, officials from Telluride, Mountain Village and San Miguel County met to discuss ways to improve their long-strained relationship with Telski, and prepare for a looming ski patrol strike, according to the reports. Anne Brown, who sits on the San Miguel County Board of Commissioners, invited Chad Horning to the meeting, the reports state.
Chad Horning told investigators he thought he was invited because he had long worked as a “bridge” between the community and his father throughout his years working for Telski.
Is Telluride ready to ‘chuck Chuck?’ Why the opulent ski town turned on the resort’s longtime owner
Chuck Horning purchased the Telluride Ski Resort in 2003, but in recent years, his relationship with the local community has been fraught with disputes over using the resort's land for summer events and cost-sharing of the area's gondola system. Locals have advocated for a new owner, but the resort has never been listed for sale.
Chad Horning told investigators that an idea struck him during the Dec. 5 meeting, as officials discussed potential paths forward: Maybe his dad would entertain the idea of selling the resort if it came with a specific message.
“Chad Horning told the group he thought his father might be open if the Towns approached him and said, ‘We will buy the resort, and the reason we want to do it is you are right -- this isn’t as viable as other resorts, and the Towns need to step up to preserve this economic engine. The Towns need to do more,’” the report from Investigations Law Group states.
That suggestion was enough for Prohaska, Fee, Wisor and Chad Horning to reconvene about a week later and further consider what a purchase might entail. Chad Horning told the investigators he offered to connect with the towns with potential investors and that he had two specific ideas that would make an offer appeal to his father.
Those ideas included terminating Wisor’s employment, which Chad Horning said he believed would be an act of good faith to build trust, and to “give Horning what he wants on water rates,” the report says. (Chuck Horning had been sparring with Mountain Village over a move .)
“My idea was to approach him (Chuck Horning) as Mayors on official business,” Chad Horning told investigators. “That is what I thought he would be receptive to because it would be the community saying it understands now, there is no economic viability. Even with that, I gave it a 20% chance of success.”
Chad Horning also offered to draft a contract, which he sent to Wisor on Dec. 17, according to investigators. The document listed the purchase price at $350 million and contained the infamous Exhibit B in its first iteration
'Genuine interest' or 'calculated ambiguity'
The investigations illuminate extensive back-channeling on the part of many Telluride and Mountain Village officials, as they worked to resolve the strike and minimize the economic repercussions.
Fee and Wisor remained focused on the effort to purchase Telluride Ski Resort, contacting potential investors and collecting financing data in the weeks leading up to the California trip, the reports state. The offer and Exhibit B underwent many changes between the time Wisor originally received it and when it was presented to Chuck Horning.
The governance structure and other details were also amended based on feedback from Chuck Horning during his meeting with Prohaska and Fee in California, the Investigations Law Group's report states.
Before they left for California, Prohaska spoke with Chad Horning, who advised her on how to best approach his father. “He is much better at meetings in the morning than afternoon, and for good, effective communication, you should do that,” Chad Horning said, relaying the guidance he gave Prohaska to investigators.
Prohaska told The Post on Thursday that she had a trusting relationship with Chad Horning from his years working at Telski and acting as a liaison between the community and his father. Asked if it still felt that way, Prohaska said, "That's the million-dollar question. Chad has not reached out to me. I have not spoken to him.”
On Dec. 28, Prohaska and Fee met with Lupe Mendoza and Baylor Blanchard, two of Chuck Horning’s associates. That evening, Prohaska emailed Fee and Wisor a list of outstanding questions related to the prospective resort purchase. One item stated, “Chad is OUT” -- a reference to Chuck Horning’s desire to prevent his son from being involved, according to Mountain Village’s investigation.
“Ms. Fee said that Ms. Mendoza ‘hates’ Mr. Chad Horning, and Ms. Prohaska said that Mr. Horning does not trust his son and would never contemplate a sale if Chad Horning was involved,” the report says. (Mendoza didn't formally participate in either investigation.)
Prohaska and Fee negotiated with Chuck Horning and his team throughout the day of Dec. 29, before eventually returning home before the start of the New Year. Conversations with Chuck Horning and Mendoza reportedly continued for another week, and on Jan. 6, Prohaska and Fee were asked to sign the purchase offer, according to the investigations. However, the deal appeared to stall out after the ski patrollers’ union voted in favor of a new contract on Jan. 8.
As word of their California trip began to spread on Facebook, Prohaska and Fee reached out to Chad Horning to ask if his father would try to trick them or otherwise act in bad faith, the report says.
On Jan. 13, the offer was leaked to social media.
“The record reflects that (Chuck) Horning entertained the process long enough to receive a signed offer and allowed communications to continue for several days thereafter, before going silent after the resolution of the Ski Patrol strike,” investigators wrote in their report. “Whether that engagement reflected genuine interest, calculated ambiguity, or as some witnesses speculated, a deliberate effort to embarrass and expose the parties who had made the offer, is unknown.”
