Cautious optimism. That phrase was used — repeatedly — by Nederland area residents in their first opportunity to address town officials about the potential purchase of the Eldora ski resort on Thursday.

The cozy, dimly lit Backdoor Theater hosted a pseudo town hall in which Nedheads and longtime Eldora powder hounds fed questions, comments and concerns to Nederland town officials, leaders of current owner PWDR and leaders from 303 Ski, the company that will maintain operations on Eldora if the sale is finalized. The town’s mayor, administrator, members of the Board of Trustees and other town officials, were only there to listen. Answers to those questions will be in a future FAQ post on the town’s website.

That cautious optimism ranged from perhaps the truest sense of the phrase to those who think the move is “freaking awesome,” as resident Deb D’Andrea said. But none of the questions were directly answered on Thursday.

“I’m not necessarily against this, I’m just not like, ‘Hey, I’m stoked,’” Nederland resident Rich Orman told the Daily Camera. “I really want to see what’s under the hood, and the town’s not necessarily telling us that. Maybe there’s reasons for that.”

Nederland announced Tuesday that it had signed a letter of intent to purchase the ski resort from the Utah company PWDR. Town administrator Jonathan Cain told the crowd Thursday that Nederland began exploring the purchase when it heard rumblings of Eldora going up for sale last summer. Talks between PWDR and Nederland have been brewing since last fall and picked up steam in the new year.

To pay for the purchase, the town said it’s issuing municipal revenue bonds that are backed only by the resort’s earnings and not taxpayer dollars. Nederland says Eldora is profitable enough to service the debt. Nederland also said that Eldora’s nearly 700-person staff will become municipal staff.

Nederland plans to annex the mountain, which would allow it to control land use and collect sales tax, which could bring in as much as $2 million in annual revenue for the town’s general fund, according to the town. Nederland projects that, once the debt is paid off, free cash flow could exceed $5 million. The town said it envisions opening Eldora for summer activities, as well.

That’s a lot of information, and that leaves a lot of questions for the nearly 1,500 residents of the town nestled next to Barker Reservoir.

“Even if the town’s not running it on a day-to-day basis, 303 (Ski) or PWDR, whoever in the future (is). The town, you think, would want to look over their shoulder,” Orman said. “If I owned a ski resort, I wouldn’t just say, ‘Hey, you go run it. I’m never going to look at it again.’ That hasn’t really been talked about.”

Orman has lived in Nederland for a little more than three years and, before retirement, was the senior deputy district attorney in the 18th Judicial District in Aurora.

Sticking points for Orman center around the nitty gritty of the deal. Nederland has reiterated that the deal won’t come at a cost to taxpayers, but Orman isn’t so sure.

For one, he thinks the man hours and lawyer fees for Nederland to cover all of its bases in this process have brought a tab to the town. Orman also has lingering questions about whether Nederland can take on hundreds of municipal staff that he assumes are necessary for Eldora to function. For example, Orman questioned if there’s going to be a personnel department to oversee Eldora staff.

“For a lot of them, I think you have to do background checks. I would think a ski instructor, ski patrol, they need a background check because you certainly don’t want, like, a sex offender or something getting those jobs. You can imagine where that would go,” Orman said. “So, to me, there’s got to be a town employee, in some degree, for that. That is part of the town budget.”

Orman also worries about the liability Nederland assumes should the purchase and annexation go through.

“What if there’s a huge catastrophe that happens at the ski resort?” he questioned. “I don’t know, it’s a concern I have.”

Kayla Evans’ family owns the Arapaho Ranch in town and is a longtime resident. She sees this potential purchase as a Rubik’s Cube in which each square is a stakeholder in this deal. She wonders if there’s a way for each square to be in the right place, or if someone will be left out.

“It’s a good idea if, and a lot of the ifs are important,” Evans told the Camera. “Housing, traffic, wildlife, quality of life for the people that live up here, the actualization of the ski area itself. How do the local people who have lived here for 40, 50, 60 years and worked up there and feel a sense of, not entitlement, but attachment for the ski area, what kind of part do they get to play in this soup we’re creating?”

She and Matt Phillips, who is an Eldora resident, worry about the impact the purchase could have on the wildlife near the resort. The wildlife reclaim the ski area in the offseason, Phillips said, so the possibility of using Eldora in the summer worries him and Evans.

The town’s Board of Trustees will vote on a bond resolution in “the coming weeks,” according to the town’s website. The Board of Trustees meets at 7 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday of each month at the Nederland Community Center. The town anticipates that, if all goes smoothly, the sale will be finalized in October.

“Yes, I’m in favor of it,” Evans said. “If.”