Vail Resorts and the town of Breckenridge have reached an agreement on a November ballot measure that will ask the town’s voters to approve long-term funding for parking projects through a tax on winter-only lift tickets, but not season passes.
The deal drops Vail Resorts’ wildly successful Epic Pass from the tax plan to impose a 4.5 percent tax on lift tickets to raise money to support the town’s parking and transit projects.
Vail Resorts is guaranteeing the tax will raise at least $3.5 million a year for the town.
That’s less than what the town hoped to raise for a transit plan that town leaders projected to cost $4 million to $6 million a year.
“In the spirit of compromise, the council felt this amount would be adequate to begin to work on the much-needed improvements for this vital issue for our community,” said Breckenridge Mayor John Warner in a statement Wednesday. “The community has been telling us that parking and transit are an extremely important issue for the future of Breckenridge.”
A 4.5 percent tax would add about $6.70 to a $149 lift ticket.
The town and resort operator clashed this year as they worked through a plan for parking and road improvements to ease congestion during peak times at the second-most-trafficked ski area in the country. Vail Mountain is the busiest.
Town leaders asked the resort operator to support a plan that included a large new parking garage, pedestrian bridges, road improvements and employee parking lots.
Vail said it would cover most of the cost of a smaller parking structure. The company balked at taxing its guests to support a transit plan that went beyond parking.
“It’s kind of like Bill Gates coming to a community saying ‘You know what, I want to build you a school’ and them saying ‘No, you have to build seven,’ ” said Vail Resorts chief Rob Katz to The Denver Post this month.
When neither side budged, the town in late July announced a November ballot measure asking voters to approve an “admissions tax” on lift tickets, similar to the 4 percent parking tax the town of Vail charges on lift ticket sales.
Vail Resorts launched a campaign telling its more than 300,000 Epic Pass buyers that Breckenridge planned to tax their purchase, even if they didn’t ski there.
Katz said 90 percent of the tax would be paid by people who didn’t ski Breckenridge. He questioned the town’s ability to charge an entrance fee for federal land. He noted that Breckenridge’s booming traffic in recent years had created a huge surplus of revenues from sales taxes.
He told The Denver Post that his company had received more than 800 e-mails in the first two weeks of August, almost all opposing the Breckenridge tax plan.
Vail agreed to drop its opposition to the ballot measure after the agreement to take out the Epic Pass.
“Parking and transit are real issues for the Breckenridge community, and we are pleased to have an agreement that provides the town the funding required to address these needs,” said John Buhler, chief operating officer of Breckenridge Ski Resort, in a statement early Wednesday. “We have concerns regarding any tax increase, but reaching these terms protects the greatest number of Breckenridge guests.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
