Steamboat Springs is again considering asking voters to approve a tax on lift tickets after city officials say the Steamboat Ski Area “abruptly reneged” on a 20-year pledge to invest in regional bus service in the Yampa Valley.
If the tax is put on the ballot and passes, the funds would support public transportation and parking. Council members are also considering using a portion of the tax to support the proposed expansion of regional bus service.
The city council had put the tax proposal on ice earlier this month after the resort signed a separate 20-year deal supporting local transit.
But on Tuesday, the council voted to revive the potential lift ticket tax, citing the resort’s inability to commit to funding a regional transportation authority, or RTA, for 20 years.
“We are having this conversation because (Steamboat Ski Area) did not honor their commitment, what they have been saying,” council member Amy Dickson said Tuesday before voting to revive the lift ticket tax proposal. “That's why we're talking about this.”
The friction over the funding commitment has become a last minute complication for several communities in Routt and Moffat counties that are considering asking voters to approve the regional transportation authority in November.
The RTA would deliver expanded bus service throughout the Yampa Valley.
Dave Hunter, the president of the ski area, said Tuesday the resort was still committed to helping “stand up” the regional transportation authority.
But he said getting the approval for a 20-year commitment to the tune of $1 million each year “doesn’t happen quickly.”
He said the resort was given a short timeline to sign a pledge agreement earlier this month.
“We did not renege on a 20-year agreement. We asked for time to work through the details of a 20-year agreement,” he said. “An organization of any size, signing up for a 20 year agreement, the devil is in the details.”
The resort on Tuesday presented an initial one-year, $1 million investment in the RTA with a promise to negotiate toward a "sustainable, long-term deal.”
But that pledge wasn’t enough to appease a majority of the city council, with four members voting to approve the first reading of a lift ticket tax.
Council member Michael Buccino voted against pursuing a lift ticket tax. He said he was concerned about starting a fight with the resort at the ballot box.
“I want to see our community not be divided,” he said. “I look at our sales tax budget between January and March, and we get like, 60 some percent of our money because there's a ski mountain in Steamboat Springs.”
There’s already been fallout from Tuesday’s vote.
In the wake of Steamboat’s lift tax idea being resurrected, the ski area quickly increased its proposed funding commitment to the proposed regional transportation authority to $3 million over three years.
The new pledge would have initially terminated if Steamboat asked voters to approve a lift ticket tax. But the resort edited the offer live on Zoom at a Thursday RTA meeting. The new version says the commitment will only be nullified if a lift ticket tax is both referred to voters and passes at the ballot box.
The city council will consider the updated offer at a meeting on Sept. 2.
Meanwhile, the last-minute wrangling over the ski area’s funding commitment, and the potential for a lift ticket tax, is creating some angst for elected officials facing a looming deadline on whether to refer the regional transportation authority to voters.
Randy Looper, a city council member from Craig, said Thursday his city has to decide whether to proceed with the RTA by Tuesday.
“I'm tired of us continually changing and adding things at the last second,” he said. “Throwing the lift ticket tax in this, I think, confuses the issue and causes more problems. I don't know what to say at this point. It's just things keep changing with no time left to make a decision.”
Yampa Mayor Stacey Geilert floated the idea of postponing a vote to a special election.
"I feel like we are at the end of our rope, and everybody's not agreeing on everything, and maybe it's time to take a step back just for a little bit, and say, Okay, well, maybe we need to hold a special election to do all this so that everybody's on board with all the the right terminology and everything," she said.
Each local government that has been collaborating on the potential formation of the RTA, from Yampa to Steamboat to Craig, is expected to vote on whether to proceed by Sept. 5.
