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Highlands concerns raised

WHEELING — The developer who announced plans to build a “Wild Escape” theme park at The Highlands more than a decade ago expressed concerns in a court filing this week that the Ohio County Development Authority’s attorneys are too busy to defend his $25 million lawsuit against the agency over the failed project.

Steve Minard and his company, Crystal Mountain West Virginia LLC, filed the lawsuit in Ohio County Circuit Court in July, seeking to recoup the amount the company claims it spent toward the project which never materialized. It alleges that the development authority used the 2006 announcement that Wild Escape was coming to The Highlands to attract other businesses to what was at the time a new development — while taking actions that made it impossible for the theme park to be built.

A motion filed Monday states the schedules of the development authority’s attorneys prevent any depositions — with the exception of two scheduled in June and July — from being scheduled in the case before mid-September.

“That is unreasonable. The authority and its counsel have a duty to make sure the authority has counsel whose schedules allow them to reasonably handle this case,” Florida attorney Manuel Socias wrote in a document filed on behalf of Minard and Crystal Mountain.

The motion asks Circuit Judge Ronald Wilson to step in and schedule a “case management conference” to hasten the pace of depositions.

Two depositions are currently scheduled in the case. One is for Ronald Shane, a principal of Associated Leasing International Corp., which supposedly was involved in financing for the proposed park, on June 28. The other is for Ohio County Administrator Greg Stewart, on July 27-28.

“At the pace demanded by the authority of approximately one deposition per month, discovery will take years and potential witnesses, some of whom are already elderly, may become infirm or die,” Socias’ motion states. “Some witnesses that worked on Wild Escape have already died.”

The motion suggests a conference be schedule for June 9, when the parties are already scheduled to be in court for a hearing. Wilson has not ruled on the motion.

According to the lawsuit, Minard and Ohio County officials began discussing the proposed theme park in December 2005 and signed a development agreement several months later, on July 26, 2006.

The complaint alleges the authority staged a press conference to announce the theme park without the developers’ knowledge or consent. It also accuses the development authority of issuing bonds to finance The Highlands which made the issuance of “subordinate” bonds needed for Wild Escape impossible.

“For almost a decade after execution of the development agreement, the authority used Wild Escape and Crystal Mountain’s work product for the authority’s own benefit, for the political and personal benefit of authority officials and to alleviate its financial shortfall while knowing that its own actions were making the Wild Escape development impossible,” the lawsuit states.

Other allegations in the lawsuit are that the development authority failed to complete site preparation for the park by an agreed-upon date, and that the authority sold 15 acres of land for a future Menards store that was supposed to be set aside for Wild Escape.

The lawsuit also cites alleged failure by county and state officials to coordinate on a proposed second Interstate 70 interchange at The Highlands to accommodate the planned theme park.

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