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Show I The Plaintiff: Elwood Nielson j I . j j by C,assie (iovoni ! "All I'm trying to do is to : find some way to get . rea- i sonable and sensible actions j to some of the things that go on up there (Park City). To know what the law is and to i comply with it; not to have j the law changed every time i they: don't like the looks of I what you're doing, whenthey really! don't like the competition," compe-tition," was the comment Elwood Nielsen made regarding re-garding his lawsuit against Greater Park City Company, Warren King, John Price and Jan Wilking. Nielsen stated that he has been seeking City approval for three years to develop his property on Masonic Hill, behind Utah Coal and Lumber. Lum-ber. ! When he initially approached ap-proached the Planning Commission Com-mission he was denied ac cess on the proposed site. Nielsen alleges the land ad-. ad-. jacent to his was recommended recom-mended as being better suited for a right of way. Nielsen claims he then spent $60,000 to acquire the 240 acres the recommended area encompassed. Nielsen hired the surveying survey-ing firm of Bush and Gud-gell Gud-gell to stake out the route of his proposed road. He claims that the City engineer said the road was unsafe. Nielsen states that he made an appointment with the City Council to discuss his proposed development, but "somehow we never got together." to-gether." Nielsen claims that he was advised to meet with the Greater Park City Company (GPCC) to discuss joint land use of the GPCC land that was adjacent to his property. He states that he had two separate meetings with GPCC officials, one each with Jack Johnson and Warren War-ren King.' Nielsen quotes Johnson as saying that the joint land use was not. feasible. He further states that King remarked that GPCC had no use for a road in that area and that if Nielsen wanted to build one, GPCC would have .to receive some "Compensation." A meeting between Nielsen, Niel-sen, his attorney, Lowell Sommerhays, and Jan Wilking, Wilk-ing, chairman of the Master-plan Master-plan committee was arranged ar-ranged following a session with the Masterplan Committee. Com-mittee. Both Nielsen andSummer-hays andSummer-hays state that "some pretty strong remarks" were made during that meeting. According to Summer-hays, Summer-hays, Wilking wanted to "effectuate "ef-fectuate a change in the zoning laws that would zone the area conservational". Summerhays went on to charge that Wilking wanted to restrict the property without with-out condemning it so the City would not be required to pay compensation taxes. Regarding this meeting, Nielsen states that Wilking was "changing the rules of the game," and that he (Nielsen) (Niel-sen) "didn't think it made sense." The City Council considered con-sidered the meeting again this past September. Nielsen alleges that he was granted access to his property, but told that he could not improve the road. N Nielsen had begun bulldozing bull-dozing a path down the side of his property onSeptember 24 when Mayor John Price and Marshal Merrill Street arrived on the site to give the order to cease and dissist. "I expected to see him," Nielsen remarked. Nielsen claims that what Price referred to as a "rash of grief" that occurred on that occasion, centered a- round Nielsens comment, "it's amazing what you have to do to get attention around here." Regarding Nielsens telephone tele-phone conversation with the Mayor later that evening, Nielsen denies making the statement "I was only testing test-ing you." Nielsen claims he requested re-quested the access road to facilitate studies to determine deter-mine the feasibility of future development of the property . He states that there were no plans bther than for a private pri-vate road at this time. Nielsen stated the City continuously "put up road blocks- with no cooperation for a sensible study." The lawsuit was not anything any-thing he intended to get into, Nielsen commented. He claims he was "brought into it by the City's suit" against him. He has filed a counterclaim counter-claim against the city, cit- ing that he was developing the landforagriculturalpur-poses, landforagriculturalpur-poses, therefore exempt from the building permit requirement. re-quirement. GREATER PARK CITY COMPANY By Elwood Nielsen's observations, ob-servations, the Greater Park City Company is able to obtain buildingpermits, business bus-iness licenses and sign permits per-mits with far greater ease than most; individuals and companies. "This bothered me very badly," he remarked. When asked if he felt Jan Wilking's involvement on the City Council and Masterplan Committee effected this, J Nielsen replied 'Wilking doesn't do much of anything without their (GPCC) approval ap-proval or unless under their instructions." ' Nielsen also added "I have a great deal of respect for Warren King, but I think he tends to get overzealous in his efforts." |