Spread the pain around

Now that the judgment regarding the Hot Creek litigation has been accepted, the next step is to formulate a plan for when and where the money owed is going to be paid.

Mayor Skip Harvey and Council member Rick Wood took a trip to Santa Monica, Calif. recently to meet with Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisitions, LLC (aka Hot Creek) developers to start working out the payment plan.

“Settling a complex litigation like this one will not come easy,” Wood explained during his Council report Wednesday night. “Right now we are negotiating how much the community can pay. We haven’t settled the lawsuit and we won’t anytime soon.”

Wood went on to explain that while the dispute is over, the consequences must now be faced.

“I still don’t know who’s right, but we’ve been told we’re wrong,” Wood said. “The results will be potentially devastating to this town. The pain is going to have to be spread around.”

Harvey’s take on the meeting was that it hadn’t been horrible.

“The lawsuit was a business transaction that went sideways,” Harvey said. “When we met with [MLLA] I didn’t see any demons or evil people sitting across the table. They are business people. They have their opinions and we have ours, but it is simply business and we have to deal with it and we will.”

Wood concluded the topic by saying “Never again can we find ourselves in this position where we don’t explore all options before we get to litigation. The community expects more.”

The Hot Creek litigation judgment was fnally put to rest when the California Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Town in March.