Ferry denied making the comment, although she stood by her concerns about the potential parking, traffic and skier-safety impacts of Vail Resorts’ new $579 Epic Pass. The story was picked up by mainstream media such as the Denver Post and caused a flurry of negative comments on Web sites around the state. Colorado Confidential stands by the accuracy of Ferry’s quotes.

The Vail Town Council late last week collectively sent a letter to board members of the Vail Chamber suggesting Ferry be asked to resign. On Saturday, Susie Tjossem, executive director of the Vail-based Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum and Hall of Fame and also a Vail Chamber board member, sent a letter to town council members announcing Ferry’s resignation.

“Today, the Vail Chamber and Business Association accepted the resignation of our Executive Director, Kaye Ferry,” Tjossem wrote. “For now, as we reorganize and redefine our mission and business plan the Vail Chamber Board of Directors has asked me to fill in as their interim Executive Director, which I will do on a part-time basis …”

Ferry and Tjossem did not immediately return phone calls requesting comment.

Vail Mayor Dick Cleveland said he was the only one who signed the letter to the Vail Chamber board members but added that it was a unanimous decision by the seven town council members. Cleveland declined further comment.

“It’s over, and I’m not going to beat a dead horse,” Cleveland said.

Ferry told the Denver Post and Vail Daily she was not resigning as a result of the “riff-raff” comments but instead was stepping down for personal reasons after the death of several friends in recent months.

Steven Kaufman, one of the owners of the Tap Room bar and restaurant in Vail Village, said the new Epic Pass is a good thing if it results in more people coming to town, no matter where they’re from, and he’s glad the negative publicity will subside with Ferry’s resignation.

“With (Ferry) stepping down, the story should disappear,” Kaufman said. “Half the time she has great ideas but she doesn’t know how to articulate them in a way that the two parties can move forward in a positive way … anything out of Kaye’s mouth, people just roll their eyes.”

Ski resorts need a large volume of visitors in order to sustain the number of businesses in town, Kaufman said, and the discounted season passes accomplish that goal. Stores and restaurants need to adjust their business plans according to the changing market.

“I’ve been really frustrated with the merchant association,” Kaufman said of the Vail Chamber, which the Tap Room does not belong to. “The goal should be at all times to get as many people to this town as possible.”

“They’re paying $2,500 a night for a room, and then they’re fearing for the lives of their grandkids when they go skiing over Christmas,” Ferry said of Vail’s traditionally upscale, destination clientele.

“Throughout the history of (Vail) we have appealed to exclusivity. The only people we let up there during Christmas are the ones with the big homes and their ski instructors. We had eliminated the Front Range riff-raff, and all of a sudden we’re selling a pass that’s to the masses.”

In a follow-up story in the Denver Post Thursday, Ferry denied making the statement to Colorado Confidential: “Where those comments came from will remain a mystery,” she told the Post. But in two separate conversations with Colorado Confidential on Wednesday, Ferry never denied making the statement about “Front Range riff-raff.”

Ferry did say she thought the comments may have been taken out of context or perhaps been off the record. However, Colorado Confidential clearly informed Ferry she was being interviewed for a story on the Epic Pass. Ferry did not return a phone call Thursday morning requesting further comment.

Ferry instead sent a written statement via e-mail, saying in part: “To get first things first, riff raff is not a term I use,” Ferry wrote. “Where it came from will remain a mystery to me and part of the never ending circle of he said, she said. But it saddens me to think that there has been any ill will generating towards our guests.”

She went on to explain her chamber has supported numerous programs aimed at attracting Front Range guests, but she did admit that the Epic Pass and its potential impacts are a source of concern for her and her members.

“The launch of the Epic Pass has dominated the conversation in Vail,” Ferry wrote. “Make no mistake, parking is an acknowledged problem in Vail. Having our customer park on the Frontage Road and walk for great distances while carrying their gear is not an experience that we want them to have. The lack of parking has also discouraged some of our guests and caused them not to frequent our businesses as often as they would like. As head of the chamber, I will admit that I have voiced this concern repeatedly for years as a result of the feedback from the community.”

Vail Town Councilman Mark Gordon said there is a small, elitist faction of Vail’s population that he’s been trying to combat since winning his seat as a populist candidate who wants to subsidize more workforce and middle-class housing in town.

“It’s very believable that this statement was made because there is a very small segment of our population that feels this way and is elitist, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination the majority of Vail,” Gordon said Thursday. “As more knowledge of this statement spreads throughout the community the outrage will grow.”

Gordon embraces Front Range skiers and feels the new passes will be good for Vail.

“As a resident of the town and an elected official, it burns me up when anybody says things that sound elitist, and I truly believe that the business owners and the business associations that stress this elitism are missing the big picture and the market will take care of them,” Gordon said.

Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz issued this written statement in the wake of the controversy: “The comments of Kaye Ferry, as reported by Colorado Confidential, do not in any way represent the views of our company or, in our opinion, of the Vail Valley community. Vail Mountain is one of the treasured places in Colorado and is visited by so many in the state.

“Ultimately, mountain resorts are one of the key reasons people live in Colorado. It’s why our company has offered the Colorado Pass for over a decade and was certainly a driving force behind introducing the Epic Pass. We are also completely committed to working with the Vail Valley community to ensure what makes this place so special stays that way next season and for years to come.”

This is not the first time Ferry has created controversy with statements about the parking and economic impacts of Front Range skiers, who typically spend less in town than out-of-state guests.

In a June 29, 2003, Denver Post article, Ferry said: “The best thing we can do is bite the bullet and say, ‘They (Front Range skiers) are coming; now what are we going to do with them? It’s not the existence of the day skiers that troubles us; it’s what to do with them once they are here.”

That statement in a larger story quoting several Vail business owners lamenting the influx of day skiers resulting from discount season ski passes sold on the Front Range prompted a heated exchange between Ferry and then Vail Resorts CEO Adam Aron and resulted in the chamber’s “Vail Loves You” coupon-book campaign.

“This week, day-tripping skiers will get a love letter from 44 Vail businesses,” the Post wrote in a Dec. 15, 2003, story. “The doting missive in the form of a coupon book is a $65,000 effort to rebuild a relationship damaged by merchants griping about a lack of parking for the rush of Front Range skiers …”

Ferry is an outspoken critic of Vail Resorts and local government, for years stirring controversy with her opinionated takes in her regular column in the Vail Daily. And in a 2006 story in Westword, Ferry had this to say when asked about New York transplant Peter Knobel’s difficulty in getting his Solaris development approved by the entrenched Vail power structure:

“No matter what anyone wants to think, this is not a sleepy little town anymore,” Ferry told Westword. “This is a town that has a lot of money in it and a lot of power in it, a lot of people with egos and a lot of people with goals. And up until now, it’s only been them. And (Knobel’s) come in and he’s said, `I’ve got a legitimate property that I can do legitimate things with. And I’ve worked my way through the system, and you guys just can’t fuck me anymore, and I’m going to win.’ And they (the old guard) don’t like that.”

The Ferry story on Colorado Confidential has been picked up by mainstream media around the state, including Denver Post business columnist Al Lewis: “If you don’t have $2,500 a night for a room, stay the hell out of Vail,” he wrote in his blog Wednesday. “That’s the message from Kaye Ferry … as quoted by longtime Vail reporter David O. Williams in a recent article on website Colorado Confidential.”

The Fort Collins Coloradan wrote this in a blog Wednesday: “A great article on Colorado Confidential today outlines comments from Kaye Ferry … who said the poor and middle-class have no right to ski at Vail.”

And comments have been pouring in fast and furiously on Web sites around the state, including this on the Post story:

“I used to not care that the Vail use on the Keystone, A Basin, etc. pass was limited to 10 days. Now, however, I’m really excited! Why? Because I’m going to have oversized, bright orange shirts made for the entire family that proudly proclaim FRONT RANGE RIFFRAFF — maybe SPAWN OF FRONT RANGE RIFFRAFF for the kids. We’ll wear them over our coats. And we’re going to ski at Vail ALL SEASON LONG.”

On the independent website realvail.com, a reader posted this:

“I too fear for my life when skiing at Vail, not because of the all the Front Range riff-raff, but because of the all the fur-clad jackasses who feel, because they have paid $2,500 a night for a room, can do whatever they feel like on the mountain, and normally can’t ski worth a damn anyway.

“Maybe Vail should expand a couple more thousand acres, and then they could create a fenced in part of the mountain where they keep the riff-raff, and the fur clad visitors could watch them like they are zoo animals, yet remain at a safe distance so as to not be in harm’s way of the ever dangerous Front Range skier.”

But Kaye Ferry, executive director of the Vail Chamber and Business Association, has been blasting Vail’s new $579 “Epic Pass” to anyone who will listen, not because she thinks it’s a bad business decision to bring more skiers to town, but because of the increased traffic, parking shortages and dangerous crowds on the mountain those additional skiers may cause.

She also argues that a severe lack of workforce housing in Eagle County — home to Vail and Beaver Creek — exacerbated an already critical labor shortage this past ski season, forcing many of her member businesses to operate short-staffed and, in some cases, cut back drastically on hours of operation.

All of this comes in the midst of Vail’s billion-dollar-plus redevelopment, with high-end Ritz-Carlton condo projects and Four Seasons hotels springing up like mushrooms. Catering to the fur-clad jet set with swank new real estate and lodging while attracting the brown-bagging masses on the ski hill sends a mixed message, Ferry says.

“They’re paying $2,500 a night for a room, and then they’re fearing for the lives of their grandkids when they going skiing over Christmas,” said Ferry, who also works as a ski instructor at Vail and was struck and injured by a snowboarder last ski season. There have been a record 17 skier deaths at Colorado resorts this season following a skier death at Vail over the weekend.

“Throughout the history of (Vail) we have appealed to exclusivity. The only people we let up there during Christmas are the ones with the big homes and their ski instructors. We had eliminated the Front Range riff-raff, and all of a sudden we’re selling a pass that’s to the masses.”

Chris Jarnot, chief operating officer of Vail Mountain, counters that the new pass is aimed at out-of-state, destination guests who don’t typically drive to Vail anyway but instead fly in and use public transportation or private shuttle services. He acknowledges there may be some increase in drive-market traffic as a result of the new pass but feels it will be negligible, and the parking crunch is something the company is focused on fixing anyway.

“It’s a bad experience, it’s a dangerous experience, and it’s not what Vail expects to deliver to its guests,” he said of the 40-plus days so far this season that hundreds of cars have spilled out of Vail’s two main parking garages onto the town’s frontage roads. “I think it’s the weakest part of our experience, but relative to everywhere else, which might be a low bar to get over, I think we’re doing all right.”

Town councilman Andy Daly, a former president of Vail Resorts who was forced out in a downsizing several years ago, says the new pass will likely increase traffic and negatively impact parking, and he was not happy that the town government was not consulted about the decision. He is fearful a skier walking along the frontage road will be struck by a car.

“There are too many people on the streets, and the risk of somebody being hurt is extraordinarily high, the skier drop-off (temporary parking where drivers can unload passengers) is an absolute nightmare, and there’s no definitive plan to deal with it,” said Daly, who wants to see a new parking garage built in the next three years. “We need a really substantive plan to deal with the potential parking impacts.”

Economically, Ferry says Front Range skiers tend to jump back in their cars as quickly as possible when the ski day is done, fleeing back over the passes before Interstate 70 turns into its usual weekend parking lot.

“If you talk to the merchants in town, they notice a different customer here and they notice a different spending habit,” said Ferry, whose biggest concern is skier safety if the Epic Pass results in more skiers and snowboarders at Vail. Ferry had several ribs broken by a snowboarder who hit her last season, when a number of other instructors began reporting more collisions, unsafe skiing and incidents of “slope rage” at Vail.

Jarnot says the Epic Pass will bring destination skiers to Vail from the company’s top markets such as New York, Chicago and Dallas at times of the year when lodging is available, not necessarily during peak holiday periods when lodging is limited and prices are high.

“[Skier safety] is another thing we’ll have to pay attention to and address, should our volume increase on peak days,” Jarnot said. “We can’t grow our business in our destination markets on peak days, the limiting factor being the number of hotel beds, so if we’re going to grow our skier visits as a result of this decision, they’re going to grow at times when all the beds are not full at the moment and the mountain can handle it.”

Vail Resorts does not disclose the number of Front Range skiers versus destination skiers at Vail, but in its financial reporting does indicate it sells about 130,000 Colorado Passes each season, mostly to Front Range skiers. Since the company began offering the discounted season passes more than a decade ago, Vail’s skier days have increased from 1,334,939 during the 1998-99 season to 1,608,204 last ski season.

The 2007-08 ski season has already surpassed the record for the most skier deaths in a single season with 17, and more than half of those have occurred at Vail Resorts ski areas. There have been four deaths at Keystone, two at Breckenridge and two at Arapahoe Basin, which Vail Resorts does not own but includes on its $439 Colorado Pass as part of a marketing deal. Over the weekend there was a skier death at Vail to set a new state mark for fatalities in a season.

Vail Resorts’ Colorado Pass offers unlimited skiing at the three Summit County ski areas — Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapahoe Basin — which are closer to Denver and other Front Range cities. It then includes 10 days at either Vail or Beaver Creek. The Colorado Pass is “blacked out” during busy holidays such as Christmas week and President’s Day weekend.

The $579 Epic Pass will have no such restrictions next season, and in addition to Vail Resorts’ five Colorado ski areas, will also include its Heavenly ski area in the Lake Tahoe area of California. By contrast, an unrestricted Vail season pass sold for $1,849 this season.

Jarnot say the company’s studies and focus groups show Denver and Front Range skiers will likely stick with the Colorado Pass next season and are unlikely to pay another $140 for the Epic Pass, which they say will be more attractive to out-of-state skiers who will come during the holidays and then be more inclined to return for a second ski trip at some other point during the season. So-called “destination” skiers do tend to spend more money when they’re in town, company officials contend.

The five Colorado resorts included on Vail Resorts’ Colorado Pass were already the busiest ski areas in the state last season with about 5.7 million skier days. That’s 45 percent of all the skier days that occurred in the state, which was a new record at nearly 12.6 million skier days statewide. Vail Resorts’ share also represents more than 10 percent of all the skier days nationwide (55 million in 2006-07).