Dear Editor,
While I appreciate the clarity of Steve Hubrecht’s article on Jumbo in the Valley Echo on Wednesday, February 19th, new communications from Glacier Resorts Ltd. (GRL) president Oberto Oberti to the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality mayor Greg Deck can enlarge our understanding.
I am referring to a publicly available letter, dated February 12th, 2014, which the un-elected mayor had apparently not yet seen when your reporter obtained the mayor’s speculative “It’s not going to happen” response.
The mayor (of an unreasonably large municipality that has no residents) was referring to the enormous “if” of Glacier Resorts Ltd.’s Environmental Assessment Certificate (EAC) being terminated if the company doesn’t perform certain actions by October 2014, while adhering to 195 conditions.
For the last three weeks, I have been inquiring about a possible extension for Glacier Resorts Ltd. A written reply from an Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) official, who is in a superior position to spokesperson David Karn, supports Mr. Karn’s comments by replying:
“No, EAO has not received, nor do I anticipate receiving, a request to extend the deadline of the EA Certificate for the Jumbo Glacier Resort. The EA Certificate condition 14 allows for the Certificate Holder to request an extension which can be granted one time only.
In 2009, the one time only extension was granted. Based on that extension, the Jumbo Glacier Resort project must be substantially started by October 12th, 2014 or the EA Certificate would expire.”
I also have a letter dated July 28th, 2004 from Glacier Resorts Ltd.’s president to the EAO where — because he wants to get the approval — he agrees to the contents of the EAC, including it’s 195 conditions.
In Mr. Oberti’s recent letter (go to http://goo.gl/dyXEca and view the last three pages) dated February 12th, 2014, he lists the reasons why his company is going to succeed. In point number four, in regard to Glacier Resorts Ltd.’s summer 2014 plans, he wrote the following:
“In the most unlikely event that physical and legal disruptions do not permit the start of construction, the government will have an obligation to extend or remove the deadline… Glacier will seek legal advice and legal routes.”
Note that by using the phrase “will seek,” he means that they may do the seeking some time in the future. That they have not done so yet and have not yet contacted the EAO regarding a possible extension means that their proposed actions could easily be futile. Dreamers often cause their own troubles when they think they don’t have to follow the rules.
In Mr. Oberti’s point five, he wrote “many of the conditions in the Certificate… were put in with the expectation that having met the conditions of the opponents, opposition would cease. The appeasement did not work and continues to be one of the causes of the additional trouble and costs.”
That Glacier Resorts Ltd.’s president should think that signing a document agreeing to 195 conditions would turn away the opponents and thus he could fly forward without “the additional trouble and costs” of actually meeting the conditions, shows another high in Glacier Resorts Ltd. duplicity.
Arnor Larson
Wilmer
