Graph Courtesy of Dallas Masters

Graph Courtesy of Dallas Masters

• 
• 

NEDERLAND — Over the past several weeks, I built the Eldora Record (eldorarecord.org), a transparent website that gathers the Town’s own documents on the purchase of Eldora Mountain Resort. These are the questions I think residents should have had answered all along, in the order I worked through them with the help of Anthropic’s Claude Code (without which the task would likely have taken months and been prone to error).

I note where an answer is my opinion or the site’s math. The full sources are on the site.

WHY AND HOW

1. Why look into this at all?

On September 30, the Mayor and Board of Trustees told residents that if the purchase doesn’t close, the Town would owe about $2.5 million in transaction costs, which “would be paid through our CSAFE investments.”

Like many residents, my views on the purchase have changed over time. From the start, though, I worried about what pursuing it was costing, because those costs would be repaid only if the sale closed.

2. Where does the record come from, and how can I check it?

From the Town’s own records: about 6,700 Board agendas, packets, minutes, warrant lists, ordinances, resolutions, audits, budgets, and FAQs, from January 2023 on. Records requests, described below, filled in what the documents didn’t show.

Every number on the site links to its source document. When the site does its own math, it says so, and when it can’t find something, it says “not in the records searched.” I also used the meeting videos to find when the acquisition came up. Corrections to the site are welcome and have been used to update it.

WHO DECIDED, AND WHAT THEY KNEW

3. Who makes the acquisition decisions, and did the Town seek advice from its advisory boards or a citizen task force?

The Board of Trustees, which includes the Mayor, approved the purchase agreement, the bond ordinance, and the resolutions behind the effort. Every vote was unanimous among the trustees present. Much of the work happened in more than 30 closed executive sessions since September 2024, which is expected in a negotiation. Five resolutions in 2025 let the Town Manager hire lawyers and consultants without a dollar limit.

No advisory board review or citizen task force appears in the records found. The Board adopted a public review process for Town projects in 2012, with advisory boards and residents weighing in before a decision, but no record shows it was used for Eldora.

4. How much has the Town paid, and is the accounting unusual?

The warrant lists (the bill-payment lists the Board approves at each meeting) show $1,195,949 paid through October 20, nearly all to lawyers and financial consultants (see Chart 1). All of it is charged to the General Fund, which pays for day-to-day Town services.

The costs haven’t gone through the normal budget. The payments are booked to a “Due From” account as money the Town expects to get back from bond proceeds, so the General Fund’s balance on paper barely moves even though the cash is gone. In 2026, through July, the account grew by $772,243 while the fund’s balance fell only $159,439.

The costs were left out of the 2025 and 2026 budgets. The Board created a separate Mountain Recreation Fund for the acquisition in January 2025, but the records searched don’t show it being used. An enterprise fund keeps the resort’s money separate from the Town’s, but it has no money of its own, so it couldn’t pay these costs if the deal fails. And repayment of the expenses depends on bonds the Town currently has no authority to sell (that authority lapsed July 19).

My view

I think this raises serious questions, which is why my draft resolution to the Board asks for an independent accounting review.

5. Did the trustees, the Mayor, and the Town Manager know about the mounting costs and the risk?

The running totals were in the packets the Board approved. Each warrant list showed the Eldora payments with the account’s running balance, which passed $900,000 by July 2026. The minutes and meeting videos record no Board discussion of those entries. Each list was approved with the consent agenda.

The risk came up once in the open meetings I reviewed. On January 7, 2025, a trustee asked how counsel would be paid “if we don’t end up moving forward and issuing bonds.” The Town Administrator answered, “We have that obligation,” and the Town Attorney said bond counsel “would need to be paid by the Town.”

The Board was told it would get updates on cost estimates. In response to a records request, the Town said no written updates exist. Its first estimate of what it would owe came on September 30, 2026. What was said in closed session isn’t public. Residents raised the costs and the risk in public comment, at the July 2025 town hall and at Board meetings on July 7, October 6, and October 20, 2026.

WHAT THE TOWN WOULD OWE

6. If the deal fails, how much would be owed?

The warrant lists alone couldn’t answer this because some firms bill only at the end. Records requests under the Colorado Open Records Act, which anyone can make, filled the gap. Resident Melody Baumhover obtained the Eldora ledger and the firms’ engagement agreements. My request about the $2.5 million estimate produced the firms’ own confirmations of what they’re owed.

The confirmations are dated October 19, after my request, and the Town released no worksheet behind its September 30 estimate. Another produced the May 2026 draft bond documents. All are posted on the site.

The total is more than the Town’s estimate and doesn’t include firms that sent no confirmation. Of what is owed, $296,239 was already invoiced and unpaid, some of it more than a year old. Each figure has been higher than the last: about $830,000 in the Town’s July FAQ, $2.5 million in September, $2.9 million by mid-October.

COULD THE TOWN PAY?

7. Does the General Fund have enough cash, and can it borrow from the Water and Sewer Funds? Is that a TABOR violation?

The General Fund doesn’t have the cash. The Town pools its cash, including CSAFE, and that money belongs to all its funds. The 2025 audit reports the General Fund with negative cash of $757,482, covered by the pool. By the site’s calculation, its own share at the end of 2025 was about $700,000, less than the $825,108 it has paid for Eldora this year.

So the Water and Sewer Funds’ cash would likely pay the bills, since they hold most of the pool, and the General Fund would owe it back. That would leave the Water and Sewer Funds with only roughly $100,000 to $450,000 above their required reserves. Their cash is already planned for about $7.9 million in fire-flow improvements in 2030–2031 and for repaying $3.1 million in state water-authority loans (the loan agreements, which could limit such a loan, aren’t public).

By the site’s reading of the draft utility plans, the Water Fund could lend about $1.7 million only for a few years, and repaying it by 2030 would take about $418,000 a year, which is more than twice the General Fund’s best average yearly gain since 2017.

Whether such a loan needs a vote isn’t settled in the records. The Board has approved loans between funds before, but never to the General Fund. TABOR requires voter approval for “multiple-fiscal year” obligations, and the records don’t say whether a multi-year loan between the Town’s own funds counts. That’s a question for the Town Attorney or independent municipal counsel. I’m not drawing a legal conclusion.

8. Will the Town go bankrupt, or could it dissolve? How would it pay off the deficit, and will residents bear the cost?

By the site’s calculation, if the sale fails this year, the General Fund would end 2026 with a $2.3 million deficit, for a fund that spends about $3.2 million a year (see Chart 2).

Bankruptcy isn’t an option: Colorado law doesn’t authorize it for towns. Neither is dissolving to escape the costs: a town can dissolve only after providing for all its debts, levying taxes if needed. This is a serious budget problem, not a threat to the Town’s existence.

State law doesn’t allow a budget that spends more than the money available, so the Board would have to close the gap over later budgets. Its options include cutting or delaying spending (which could mean fewer staff or services), negotiating payment terms, selling Town property, or asking voters for a tax or multi-year borrowing. At the General Fund’s past rate of gains, rebuilding $2.3 million would take roughly 11 to 18 years. So yes, residents would bear the cost, through fewer services, staff, and projects, or through taxes voters approve.

9. How could this come to a head in the 2027 budget, with no treasurer and an interim manager?

The Board begins 2027 budget discussions on November 9, when staff plan to review Eldora-related spending, and must adopt the budget by mid-December. No budget yet includes the Eldora costs, so paying the $1.7 million still owed would need a Board appropriation. The General Fund was already projected to fall to $583,730 by the end of 2026 before any write-off, and the real estate counsel’s roughly $1.2 million comes due when the effort ends.

The Town is also in transition. The Town Manager resigned in August. The previous Town Manager returned as interim on September 25, under a contract through February 28, and is leading the budget with Plante Moran, which has signed the Town’s treasurer reports since July while the treasurer job is open. The Eldora work “is primarily being performed by the Mayor,” according to an October 20 staff memo.

My view

That’s a lot to ask of a small staff in transition at the moment the costs may come due.

CAN THE DEAL WORK?

10. Is the deal financially viable, and what revenue would it take?

My rough review, not a Town finding

Not at a $120 million price, based on the public numbers. A ski-industry trade report puts Eldora’s revenue at about $50 million, or about $10.5 million a year in earnings after upkeep. Bonds for the full price at the 8.5% rate the Town now models would cost about $10.6 million a year. A normal year would barely cover the payments, and a winter with visits down about 10% would be a default under the draft bond documents, even if reserves paid the bondholders. The numbers support a cash price of about $70 million or less.

The trustees may know something the public doesn’t. The Board expected to borrow $180 million in total, and the Town’s consultant saw “sufficient NOI to serve the planned debt.” For a $120 million sale price to work, Eldora would need revenue of roughly $56 million to $70 million a year. Even then, by my rough math, the bonds’ required cushion would absorb only about a 10% to 19% drop in visits before a bond default. Statewide, visits fell 24% last winter.

11. Where does the deal stand? Is the sale-leaseback real, and is POWDR obligated to the Town?

The purchase agreement expired after its April 30 closing deadline, and nothing in the records searched keeps POWDR from selling to someone else. The Town says talks “remain active.” Its new plan, a sale-leaseback in which a bond trustee would hold title and lease the resort back to the Town, was “at the beginning stages” on September 30. On October 22 the Town told me, in response to my records request, that the lease “has not been drafted.” A closing would also need a new purchase agreement and a new bond ordinance.

My opinion

Modeling three revenue scenarios, I estimate about a 25% chance it closes. That’s about three times as likely to fail as to close.

MY VIEW AND MY PROPOSAL

12. Are you against the deal?

No. The idea of owning Eldora is attractive if the Town has an industry partner, favorable financing, and a good plan. What I’m against is the Town continuing to spend money it may not get back on a deal that, on the public numbers, doesn’t work at its current price. Any future attempt should start from what the resort’s verified earnings support and include an independent review. That’s why I keep my opinions on a separate page from the record, which is meant to stand on its own.

13. What is your resolution, and what would it do?

It’s a draft I sent the Board in October. It would halt further acquisition spending unless the Board approves it, require a final accounting from every firm and a Board vote on any new engagement, and end the effort if it misses deadlines of January 31 and April 30, 2027.

It would also require independent reviews of any new deal and of the accounting methods, monthly public reports, and planning for the potential General Fund costs in the 2027 budget. It’s a resident’s draft, not reviewed by the Town Attorney, and the full text is linked on the site.

14. What happens next, and what can I do?

The Board meets Monday, November 9, at 7 p.m., at the Community Center and online. The Town says it will consider “a resolution related to the future of Eldora Mountain Resort” and begin 2027 budget discussions.

Whatever you think about owning a ski area, the cost of trying is already real, and it falls on the same funds that pay for roads, water, and Town staff. Check the numbers against the Town’s own documents and tell the Board what you think, in person, online, or in writing. Corrections to the site: corrections@eldorarecord.org.

Dallas Masters is a Nederland resident. The Eldora Record is independent and isn’t affiliated with the Town of Nederland, Eldora Mountain Resort, or POWDR.