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Park City suit recast, abandoned pups and harmony in Sochi

Compiled by Lauren Glendenning
lglendenning@cmnm.org

Park City resort files recast suit

PARK CITY, Utah — Park City Mountain Resort filed a recast lawsuit in District Court last week in its case against Talisker Land Holdings LLC, submitting the document under seal.

The court would not release the identities of the plaintiffs or the defendants in the case since it was filed under seal.



The judge in the case, Ryan Harris, last week ruled that PCMR could expand the lawsuit to include a claim that the resort was denied the right of first refusal on the Talisker land underlying much of the PCMR terrain.

Harris last week also allowed PCMR to add a point claiming that there might have been a violation of the lease agreements between the Talisker side, which is the landowner, and PCMR when Talisker reached a deal with Vail Resorts to operate Canyons Resort. The Talisker-Vail Resorts agreement could be expanded to include the Talisker land underlying much of PCMR depending on the outcome of the lawsuit.



Alan Sullivan, who is PCMR’s lead attorney, said in an interview last week the recast lawsuit would also request an injunction prohibiting further transactions involving the land where PCMR operates. He said in the interview PCMR would likely add a party tied to Vail Resorts as a defendant as well as a firm known as Flera, LLC, which controls the development rights at Canyons Resort.

Talisker Land Holdings, LLC claims PCMR did not properly renew the lease of much of the resort’s terrain, prompting the PCMR lawsuit.

Representatives from both sides did not immediately return phone messages to the Park Record seeking comment.

— Park Record

Gunnison County says no to pot

GUNNISON COUNTY — The Gunnison County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance last week prohibiting the operation of marijuana cultivation facilities, marijuana product manufacturing facilities, marijuana testing facilities and retail marijuana stores within the unincorporated boundaries of Gunnison County. One member of the public attended the meeting in which the decision was made.

Though it may sound like the board is saying no to marijuana in the county, the commissioners said this was not the case. Rather, the ruling is part of a strategy to maintain local control over marijuana while the board and county staff work to determine how regulations of the above activities might be devised and implemented.

Under Amendment 64, which was adopted in November 2012 and legalized the personal use of marijuana within Colorado, counties and municipalities have until Oct. 1, 2013 to decide if they will self-regulate the drug and its associated issues or if they will leave those decisions to the state.

“This is the opportunity for local government to regulate grow operations, production and manufacturing facilities, marijuana testing facilities and retail stores. If the County [chooses] not to act, that is to be silent, then by default all four would be allowed in unincorporated Gunnison County and be under the regulation of the state,” said county attorney David Baumgarten.

By making a decision to adopt the ordinance, the board announced that they would rather have the power of regulation locally.

Last week, the town of Crested Butte approved an ordinance regulating the retail sale, testing and production of recreational approval in town, but failed to approve grow operations.

— Crested Butte News

Abondoned Tahoe puppies ready for adoption

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Their names are Reggie, Dobbs, Diva, Maisie, Otter and Bandit. They’re 65 days old as of today and are looking for some dedicated, puppy-loving locals to give them a home.

It’s OK. You can take a moment to gush over how adorable they are. Everyone else at the Pet Network Humane Society is doing the same.

“Honestly, I just love them,” said Incline resident Melissa Shaw. “These puppies, you can’t walk into a room without smiling; they are just as happy as can be, right when they wake up until they go to sleep.”

Shaw is a boarding attendant at Pet Network, Incline Village’s nonprofit animal shelter. She was among several employees, volunteers and residents who got the call on July 23: Someone — unbelievably, inexplicably, frustratingly, maddeningly — had left a box of 10 barely born puppies in a trash bin near a South Lake Tahoe gas station.

Thanks to an unnamed Good Samaritan, the hours-old animals were rushed to the Pet Network, where residents worked around the clock to nurse them.

Four eventually died, too frail to be saved. But Reggie, Dobbs, Diva, Maisie, Otter and Bandit survived, thanks to around-the-clock care from roughly 20 locals who stepped up as foster parents.

One of those parents was Crystal Bay resident Steven Kroll, who described the person who left the animals for dead as a “horrible human being.”

“In this world of violence and mayhem, I can no longer say that this act of cruelty is unbelievable, only that it is unfathomable,” he said.

Kroll spent a couple weeks caring for Diva and Reggie, who’ve blossomed into healthy, beautiful and “extremely intelligent puppies.”

“If anybody has been wanting and able to get a new dog or dogs, you’ll want to consider these kids,” he said. “With a coat soft as plush velvet … these puppies are not just adorable …. they seem particularly smart and ready and willing to be trained.

“I don’t remember in my long years with animals any puppy who came to their name at age seven weeks, but Diva and Reggie do.”

Now, more than nine weeks after someone left them for dead, the next phase in the puppies’ lives nears: adoption. They were returned a week ago to the Pet Network to be spayed and neutered and to get their final shots.

All six animals are “as healthy as can be,” Goodman said.

— Sierra Sun

IOC believes discrimination won’t happen in Sochi

SOCHI, Russia — The International Olympic Committee doesn’t have the authority to intervene in Russia’s law banning gay propaganda and is convinced there will be no discrimination against athletes or spectators at the Winter Games in Sochi, a top Olympic official said Thursday.

Jean-Claude Killy, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission, gave his stamp of approval of Russian preparations for the games during a news conference at the conclusion of the commission’s 10th and final visit to Sochi before the Olympics, which begin on Feb. 7.

Russia has come under scrutiny as the next host of the Olympics because of the law passed this summer outlawing “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors,” which many worry may apply to gay athletes and visitors to the games.

Killy said the commission considered the issue carefully and in the end was fully convinced that Russia will respect the Olympic charter, which prohibits discrimination of any kind. He said the IOC had received written assurances from Russian officials there would be no discrimination.

“The Olympic Charter states that all segregation is completely prohibited, whether it be on the grounds of race, religion, color or other, on the Olympic territory,” he said in French.

“That will be the case, we are convinced. Another thing I must add: the IOC doesn’t really have the right to discuss the laws in the country where the Olympic Games are organized. As long as the Olympic Charter is respected, we are satisfied, and that is the case.”

Russian officials insist the law is designed to protect children and doesn’t infringe on the rights of gays.

President Vladimir Putin signed the ban on propaganda into law in late June. In August, he signed an additional decree banning all demonstrations and rallies in Sochi for two and a half months around the time of the games, a measure seen as intended to thwart protests by gay rights activists.

Killy said the IOC commission was pleased with the ongoing construction ahead of the games, which with a total cost of $51 billion will be the most expensive Olympics in history.

Much of the city still looks like an enormous building site, with unfinished hotels and debris from construction scattered across the Black Sea coast, but the Olympic venues are impressive.

The coastal venues, where the skating events will take place, are sprawled like beached metallic whales across what used to be a residential coastline. The structures themselves are both sleekly elegant and intimate, providing for a close proximity between athletes and spectators.

The mountain venues, about an hour by car or train from the coast, are similarly spectacular. A network of gondolas, like pulsing veins up the mountainside, whisk visitors up to 2,320 meters (7,650 feet), while the smooth wood of the bobsleigh track zigzags across the lush forest. A blizzard on Wednesday coated the mountain peaks in snow, helping to ease worries of a repeat of last year’s warm winter.

The IOC visit coincided with major storms, unusual for Sochi in September. Down the mountain, heavy rain caused flooding and mudslides, leading authorities to introduce a state of emergency.

Killy said that despite the rainfall there had been “no damage anywhere whatsoever” and he was confident that any weather problems “would not stop the games.”

He recalled the IOC commission’s first visit in September 2011 and the “unprecedented challenge” Russia faced to put in the necessary infrastructure and build most of the venues from scratch.

“In Europe you would probably spend 15 years on that, and here they did it in seven,” Killy said. Russia was awarded the 2014 Olympics in 2007.

Kozak asserted that only $7 billion had been spent on the venues themselves, whereas the remaining sum went toward “developing the city and the region” along the Black Sea.

— The Associated Press


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