10/15 Killington Board of Selectmen Meeting

[Bubba]

That being said, who said that they were going to be there? The board told you they had invited them, once you had gotten to the meeting? And they told you that they were coming? An then they didn't? If any of these then they had no obligation to be there. If people were told the previous meeting that they would definetly be there, and then they didn't show, then that would be skipping the meeting.

Uh, no. Meeting agendas, including inivtaions, are not necessarily "set" at a previous meeting.

Exactly! So no one should of had the expectation that they were going to be there! Thats what I was trying to say. . . These people have lives too, and because they didn't take hours out of their lives, to spend listening to people in the middle of the night, doesn't mean they dont care, or were avoiding anything, maybe they were avoiding it, but no one should have thought they were obligated to be there, unless they had said they would be there, at the last meeting, or the board told people before yesterdays meeting that Chris and Steve had specifically told the board they would be there.

Huh? Could you try that again in English?

What's with you? You can't possibly defend EVERYTHING these guys do or don't do, can you?

[laseranimal]

hey dimwit,

ever think that it might be a good idea to have a representative at a meeting where things that relate to your company are being discussed? Even without being "invited" SOMEONE should show up.

[skiingsnow]

hey dimwit,

ever think that it might be a good idea to have a representative at a meeting where things that relate to your company are being discussed? Even without being "invited" SOMEONE should show up.

Um where did I say they shouldn't go? And it was a good idea they didn't? I fully agree that they should have been there, but they weren't, Its only going to leed to a quicker demise of powdr! Isn't that what most of US want? Yes, thats what I want to happen too!

And Bubba: I do not defend everything they do, and have made numourous complaints about them on here... I am just as concerned about what is going to happen to our mountain as anyone...

[SkiDork]

I guarantee they're scared to show up. Really.

[rogman]

I guarantee they're scared to show up. Really.

Nah, Nyberg's busy studying for the AZ ski area challenge. No one told him it's a take home.

[ncholcomb]

Patience folks...

Good things take time, and a little pain.

Do you think Chris Nyberg left a nice job and decided he could come to Killington and lie to a bunch of people and leave with his wallet stuffed with cash?

Do you think that Steve Selbo thinks he can finesse the Town residents, Selctboard and Planning Commission, and send a few billion to his partners in Texas, without working closely with the community? This development will take twenty years!!!! He (and we) would be stupid to think short term!!

The Town of Killington has a lot of knowlegable, sophisticated residents and elected/appointed officials. They will do the right thing.

If you have something meaningful to contribute, call Chris Nyberg 422-3333. He will talk.

Prejudging the motives of Powdr, SP land, or their local representatives is not useful.

To this point, they have not done a very good job of communicating what they are doing. But talk is cheap- we got a lot of promises from ASC, and, after they built KI, the Grand and a few other lifts, they went to sleep.

Nyberg is trying to wake the resort up...give him a chance. Work with him, try to find workable solutions to the problems they are facing.
Communicate, by telephone and in person, with him and Steve Selbo, even if they do not communicate well with us.

[millerm277]

Do you think Chris Nyberg left a nice job and decided he could come to Killington and lie to a bunch of people and leave with his wallet stuffed with cash?

Yes.

Do you think that Steve Selbo thinks he can finesse the Town residents, Selctboard and Planning Commission, and send a few billion to his partners in Texas, without working closely with the community? This development will take twenty years!!!! He (and we) would be stupid to think short term!!

Possibly, it'd only take a couple years IF they were to have the support of the community, which they don't....so instead it will either end in the resort being sold, or an incredibly drawn out battle, which will result in no one getting much of what they wanted.

If you have something meaningful to contribute, call Chris Nyberg 422-3333. He will talk.

That was probably a bad thing to tell this forum.

Prejudging the motives of Powdr, SP land, or their local representatives is not useful.

I wouldn't call judging them based on their actions so far "prejudging them".

To this point, they have not done a very good job of communicating what they are doing. But talk is cheap- we got a lot of promises from ASC, and, after they built KI, the Grand and a few other lifts, they went to sleep.

ASC tried to follow through with their promises, and was following through with them, until their other disasterous adventures result in them having ridiculous amounts of debt. (Not what they did at K, the way they wasted money at some of the other areas).

Nyberg is trying to wake the resort up...give him a chance. Work with him, try to find workable solutions to the problems they are facing.

Exactly what problems are they facing? It's not like the resort is in dire financial straits, it makes money.

It needs an overhaul of the snowmaking system, and it could use a lift or two replaced, but other than that, they aren't facing many other problems....except for them possibly alienating their customers through dumb actions, and then not being allowed to build whatever they want because of said actions.

[rogman]

Patience folks...

Good things take time, and a little pain.

Do you think Chris Nyberg left a nice job and decided he could come to Killington and lie to a bunch of people and leave with his wallet stuffed with cash?

Do you think that Steve Selbo thinks he can finesse the Town residents, Selctboard and Planning Commission, and send a few billion to his partners in Texas, without working closely with the community? This development will take twenty years!!!! He (and we) would be stupid to think short term!!

The Town of Killington has a lot of knowlegable, sophisticated residents and elected/appointed officials. They will do the right thing.

If you have something meaningful to contribute, call Chris Nyberg 422-3333. He will talk.

Prejudging the motives of Powdr, SP land, or their local representatives is not useful.

To this point, they have not done a very good job of communicating what they are doing. But talk is cheap- we got a lot of promises from ASC, and, after they built KI, the Grand and a few other lifts, they went to sleep.

Nyberg is trying to wake the resort up...give him a chance. Work with him, try to find workable solutions to the problems they are facing.
Communicate, by telephone and in person, with him and Steve Selbo, even if they do not communicate well with us.

I think everyone here was excited by the prospect of new ownership. A flat broke owner hamstrung by bankers that limited the amount of money that could be spent on maintenance and capital improvements was no way to run a resort. What have we got now? an owner that is also limiting the amount of money to be spent. Promises of future improvements mean little unless you trust the people making the promises. POWDR's now has a track record, and that has become more than a "PR" problem, it is the record they have to run on.

POWDR may have been well within their rights to cancel the lifetime passes, but it doesn't inspire trust moving forward. The changes in the children's programs after most adults have bought their passes, again legal, again, doesn't inspire trust. Pico closings, Skyeship, the list goes on and on. Most recently, if a women gets pregnant, tough luck? In order to be trusted, you have to be trustworthy.

POWDR has dug themselves a massive hole. I'm sure you believe once the lifts start turning, all will be forgiven. Maybe, but not forgotten, people have very long memories around here. I want POWDR to succeed, but before you ask me to trust, I'm going to need more evidence than what I've seen so far.

POWDR bought the left side of the balance sheet. They can depreciate the assets, but not the good will. Too bad, because that is already used up.

[subdude]

I went to this highly entertaining meeting last night.
Nyberg and Selbo were supposed to show up, but didn't.

Instead the meeting was packed to overflowing by the proverbial angry villagers.
Complaints ranged from trailside property owners angry that they're still paying higher taxes for property that's less ski-on/ski-off than it was to pass purchasers angry that they paid only to have the level of service lowered.

Another woman flipped out because she had her home sale fall through. Why? The buyer pulled out because the home is no longer 100% ski-on/ski-off. The spurned owner wants to sue EVERYONE from the town and KPSPL down to Selbo personally.

Board members then discussed overhearing Nyberg saying that the "we'll eat what we kill" spending won't happen and that any profits are going to Utah.

One of my best friends is the owner of SkionSkioff.com (the biggest trailside rental company in town) and spoke at length regarding POWDR's apparent attempt to destroy a competing trailside village while applying to build a new one of their own.

The board (as well as the planning board) seems ready to fight that one through the act 250 process when the time comes.

One revelation was that the selectboard, like everyone else, is being treated like mushrooms; kept in the dark and fed a bunch of s...

The board seems to feel that the flock of emails sent to various FirstInitialLastname@killington.com seems to be having an effect.

Several times both Mike Miller and Jim Blackman referenced Killingtonzone as the definitive source of information about POWDR's actions. Too funny.
Maybe we should send them a sticker.

At the end of the evening the consensus seems to be that POWDR, not the town of Killington, is the parasite. Their conduct will reflect on future permitting decisions.
I wouldn't want to be them applying for a dog house right now.

Good Times.

[Bubba]

Patience folks...

Good things take time, and a little pain.

Do you think Chris Nyberg left a nice job and decided he could come to Killington and lie to a bunch of people and leave with his wallet stuffed with cash?

Do you think that Steve Selbo thinks he can finesse the Town residents, Selctboard and Planning Commission, and send a few billion to his partners in Texas, without working closely with the community? This development will take twenty years!!!! He (and we) would be stupid to think short term!!

The Town of Killington has a lot of knowlegable, sophisticated residents and elected/appointed officials. They will do the right thing.

If you have something meaningful to contribute, call Chris Nyberg 422-3333. He will talk.

Prejudging the motives of Powdr, SP land, or their local representatives is not useful.

To this point, they have not done a very good job of communicating what they are doing. But talk is cheap- we got a lot of promises from ASC, and, after they built KI, the Grand and a few other lifts, they went to sleep.

Nyberg is trying to wake the resort up...give him a chance. Work with him, try to find workable solutions to the problems they are facing.
Communicate, by telephone and in person, with him and Steve Selbo, even if they do not communicate well with us.

Welcome to the forum. Nice to have a member of the Killington Selectboard openly posting.

[RENO]

Welcome to KZone ncholcomb. I hope the K selectboard keeps pressure on POWDR. They've done a great job of alienating everybody.

Goes to show you that this message board does have a voice...

[ncholcomb]

Powdr's mission is to provide the general public with a challenging and entertaining alpine mountain experience.

It's not their mission to "exceed expectations", though some of their folks have stated that.

It's not their "mission" to make $x, or X % margins(although that is what businesses do). Even if a business is able to achieve its mission, there's no gurantee they will make money at it. It's up to the manage ment team to find ways to make their Company financially successful.

Powdr was and still is faced with an asset that has suffered from 5 years or more years of neglect. They are doing their best, with the resources they have, to fix some of those problems. I think we'll see some of those improvements.

They are also faced with a business that has lost over 250,000-400,000 or more customers in the last 5 years!

They have apparently decided that, in the short term, they cannot recover all of those customers, and that they need to focus on making their existing operations more profitable, while, at the same time, spending money to make sure the ski area is clean , well maintained and safe. They have been quoted out of context as saying that they want fewer customers. Powdr wants to operate the ski area in a profitable manner, and if the people that came here, when it was not profitable, decide to go someplace else, Powdr is willing to accept that. It was not profitable for them to have to make snow on the same trails three times in the Thanksgiving time period to allow a few skiers to ski on lousy snow. They have also figured out that it makes no sense to keep certain lodges open, on a full service basis, for a handful of skiers.

They have figured out that some lifts are operating inefficiently, providing full time servcie to a small contingent of skiers.

They have made decisions to change how they are running the business so that they can have more money left over to invest for the future.

But they have not done a good job of communicating with people that are affected, outside of their own company.

But we have to accept the fact that they are making good faith efforts to achieve their mission AND to become more profitable.

At the same time, the Town(the Chamber, the businesses, and the Town government )needs to work with Killington to find ways to sustain and improve the profitablity of all the businesses here, and to safeguard the investments that people have made.

That effort is ongoing....and will involve some negotiation... stay tuned, stay involved.

[KBL Ed]

I hope this doesn't add to the circle jerk, but I really think the gondola closing brouhaha is much ado about nothing.

C'mon people! Stage 1 was closed half the time anyway because there was no snow on the bottom half of the mountain!!

If Powdr made no advance announcement, probably no one would have even noticed the closures! Of course, then that was the dumb move: making the closing schedule known in advance.

[Highway Star]

They have apparently decided that, in the short term, they cannot recover all of those customers, and that they need to focus on making their existing operations more profitable, while, at the same time, spending money to make sure the ski area is clean , well maintained and safe. They have been quoted out of context as saying that they want fewer customers. Powdr wants to operate the ski area in a profitable manner, and if the people that came here, when it was not profitable, decide to go someplace else, Powdr is willing to accept that. It was not profitable for them to have to make snow on the same trails three times in the Thanksgiving time period to allow a few skiers to ski on lousy snow. They have also figured out that it makes no sense to keep certain lodges open, on a full service basis, for a handful of skiers.

That's BS. ASC was making money with Killington in the last few years, to the tune of $8-14 Million per year.

Thanksgiving? Yeah......there were probably 20,000 skier visits that weekend last year. They had the most terrain open in the east, and it was pretty good even though it was mobbed. So are you now saying that Thanksgiving weekend isn't worth opening for??? I'm sure there are thousands of potential customers that would disagree with you and will happily ski elsewhere this Thanksgiving if Killington isn't open.....that's ALOT of money not being spent in the Killington region.....

[skiingsnow]

I hope this doesn't add to the circle jerk, but I really think the gondola closing brouhaha is much ado about nothing.

C'mon people! Stage 1 was closed half the time anyway because there was no snow on the bottom half of the mountain!!

If Powdr made no advance announcement, probably no one would have even noticed the closures! Of course, then that was the dumb move: making the closing schedule known in advance.

Closed half the time? Where have you been skiing? Surely not lower skyship, if Killington at all. once Skyship opens (usually around Christmas, except last year) it stays open until it closes, which is usually around the end of march, but has often been opened right through mid April, passed the expected closing date of all of Killington, this coming season.