Steamboat Council allows Resort’s RTA pledge to move forward as frustration with Ski Corp. mounts
- Dylan Anderson
- Aug 26
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 29
In extended comments, Council member Brian Swintek blasted Steamboat Resort, saying “this is not a partnership,” and “they aren’t our friendly local resort.”
Steamboat Springs City Council signaled the are okay with a funding pledge from Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. for a Regional Transportation Authority in a special meeting on Monday, making way for five other jurisdictions to move forward with ballot questions to form an RTA this fall.
The $1 million per year for three years pledge includes language that the resort will negotiate an agreement extending funding until 2046 by April 2027 in “good faith,” though there is nothing holding Ski Corp. to closing a deal with a future RTA board.
But as Council agreed to give this agreement a “thumbs up,” several members expressed deep frustration with Ski Corp.
“We don’t have time to try to rejigger this thing,” said Council member Joella West. “I think we’re at the point where we say, is this something we can live with? … We don’t have to love it, but we do love the formation of the RTA and this is how we get there.”
“I feel somewhat between a rock and a hard place on this,” said Council member Steve Muntean. “I don’t like it, but I can support this to move forward.”
For the last year Ski Corp had said they would pledge $1 million a year for 20 years to the RTA, but balked at putting that agreement on paper earlier this month. When the ski company offered a one-year, $1 million pledge with no commitment to negotiate further, the Routt County Commissioners threatened to pull out of the RTA, insisting on at least a three-year deal.
After last week’s council meeting, where Council revived their Lift Tax proposal, Ski Corp. quickly agreed to a three-year funding pledge. Council’s decision Monday was whether they had any issues with the pledge before the other partners of an RTA — Routt County, Craig, Hayden, Oak Creek and Yampa — start approving ballot questions to put formation to voters in November.
“[Ski Corp.] is fully committed to the long-term success of the RTA and building an innovative and robust transportation system benefitting our region,” said Katie Brown, vice president of brand and resort strategy at Ski Corp. “[The three-year funding pledge represents] a clear signal in our belief in the importance of the RTA and the future of our good faith with the city, county and regional partners as we finalize a long-term agreement.”
The main issue Council members highlighted with the pledge was the lack of any measure requiring Ski Corp. to come to a deal with the future RTA board. The agreement states that Ski Corp. will work in “good faith” to strike an agreement for RTA funding until 2046, meeting the Resort’s initial 20-year pledge. The agreement says those talks would be complete by April 1, 2027, but there is no repercussion for passing that deadline.
“From my perspective, the resort’s good faith has been used up,” said Council member Brian Swintek, who was one of Council’s two negotiators with Ski Corp. during Lift Tax talks. “There is very little incentive for them to do anything other than what they’ve been doing and what they have done: pay lip service, say they will do it in good faith and then when the rubber meets the road, they say they didn’t have enough time. So, I no longer trust the Resort’s good faith.”
But in public comment, Routt County Commissioner Sonja Macys asked Council to approve the agreement, despite their frustration with the situation.
“We really have an opportunity to put our constituents first here and really step back about 60,000 feet and look at what it is we are trying to accomplish,” Macys said, noting that she was speaking for her fellow commissioners as well. “Please, set aside the anger and frustration with the situation that we don’t have a 20-year commitment and really try to work with us to get this back on track.”
Council members didn’t take a formal vote; instead, six of them gave thumbs-up approval to the agreement, signaling they didn’t have glaring issues. Swintek opposed, saying he felt the agreement simply kicked the can down the road.
“I’m going to take that 60,000-foot level perspective that Commissioner Macys has encouraged us to do,” Garey said. “The time is now to move forward with the RTA, and I certainly wouldn’t want to stop that conversation today.”
Lift Tax talk still turning
While council members allowed Ski Corp.’s pledge agreement to move forward, some council members indicated that lift tax talks are not necessarily dead.
A shorthanded Council approved the first reading of a Lift Tax last week on a 4-1 vote with only Council member Michael Buccino opposed. Muntean and Swintek were absent from last week's meeting. The second reading is scheduled for Sept. 2.
At the first reading, Council members directed City Attorney Dan Foote to craft a Lift Tax ballot question that would allow for $1 million to flow toward the RTA.
While Ski Corp.’s initial funding agreement would have nullified had council referred a Lift Tax to voters, that was updated last week to only kick in if voters approve a Lift Tax. Additionally, Foote said he worked with RTA lawyers to add language to the RTA’s Intergovernmental Agreement outlining what happens if the city does move forward with a Lift Tax in the next three years.
“If the city were refer a Lift Tax to voters and it were to pass prior to Dec. 31, 2028, the resort pledge would go away in that situation, but the city would agree in that situation to dedicate $1 million annually to the RTA through 2046,” Foote said, stressing that this does not put the city on the hook for any RTA funding unless voters approve a Lift Tax.
In extended comments, Swintek suggested Council should abandon the Resort’s pledge and move forward with a Lift Tax including RTA funding.
“If anything, I would encourage Council to not to support this and for us to pledge $1 million of the money we have extracted from the Resort,” Swintek said. “Support the RTA with that and push forward with a [Lift Tax] ballot initiative.”
Additionally, both Garey and Council member Amy Dickson specifically noted next week’s scheduled Lift Tax discussion.
“We specifically talked about the RTA and had commitment from Ski Corp. so we pulled it out of our [Lift Tax] negotiations,” Dickson said. “[I’m] looking forward to our meeting next Tuesday to talk more about whatever we are going to talk about for the RTA and our Lift Tax.”
“We do have the opportunity to continue this conversation on Sept. 2, when we revisit these questions as well as when we talk about the Lift Tax,” Garey said.
‘They screw us’: Swintek blasts Ski Corp.
Watch Council member Brian Swintek's remarks on Ski Corp. at Monday's Special Meeting.
In extended comments at the end of Monday’s meeting, Swintek blasted Ski Corp., saying that “billion-dollar companies become billion-dollar companies by manipulating the system in their favor.”
“They fluff us, they screw us, and then they give us their pittance and we thank them for it,” Swintek said. “I saw this in our Lift Tax negotiation with them, we are seeing it now, and we are all falling for it again.”
“This is not a partnership. You can call it a partnership, you can call it good juju — that has been destroyed, it doesn’t exist,” Swintek said. “We are all kidding ourselves if we believe that they will come back to the table in a different fashion a third time. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
Swintek continued, arguing that $1 million a year is a discount for Ski Corp., as they stand to benefit from an RTA, as it would help move both workers and tourists into Steamboat.
“Yet you still balk at this because you know you can win the game,” Swintek said. “You can have someone in our meetings for a year and a half make promises, and then at the eleventh hour manipulate the system in your favor and then make us look like the bad ones.”
He then turned to a familiar refrain from Swintek, who has frequently pointed out the billionaire ownership of Alterra Mountain Company, the parent company of Steamboat Resort, and that the Resort is not “our friendly local Resort.”
“You are backed by big money, you have the funds, you simply are playing the game to maximize your bottom line,” Swintek said. “I do not support this, I don’t think it is a fair agreement, there are no teeth in it. We will find ourselves in this same place in three years.”
