OCR Text |
Show The Defendenfs: Price, Wi Iking, -.: ', U f ' V ' I I " i ' s 1 Price: 'No, Mary's got way too much brains. If El-wood El-wood would get a lawyer like Mary, he'd be much better off. This lawyer's just out of his head." In a telephone conversation conversa-tion with the Record soon after this interview was completed, Mayor Price stated "since I have been in office, he (Nielsen) has never formally submitted a plan to the City." Price stated that Nielsen was present during an input meeting of the Masterplan Committee during which Nielsen discussed a proposal for a subdivision plan. Price states that Nielsen never formally submitted the subdivision sub-division plan. Price went on to say the city denied Nielsen's request re-quest for a right of way in order for the City to study the land, "I have no animosity towards to-wards Elwood. He just has to learn not to do planning with . a bulldozer, but on paper first," Price concluded. John Price during an interview with The Record on Friday evening. John Price: It's. A Laughing Matter' and 12 million. I should run for Congress. I'm really glad that the suits out, I think it'll clear the air of the allegations that fly around town." Record: (referring to the complaint) "How can he (Nielsen) say that simply submitting sub-mitting a proposed plan to the Council is an illegal trade practice?" Price: "I don't think that there's anything intherethat shows any criminal intent by Jan, myself, Warren King, Greater Park City Company Com-pany ..." Record: "Is he saying that things that are proposed to the Council are done in a biased way because'like Jan has does he have any holdings hold-ings or land in Greater Park City Company?" Price: (he shook his head negatively). Record: "So anything the Company did, anything that was passed by the Company would not benefit you or Mr. Wilking?" Price: "I have no interest inter-est in the Company whatsoever. whatso-ever. None. Jan is merely an employee of the Company. Half the people in town are. Jan's ... the allegations against Jan are just incredible. incred-ible. I mean, the man has really stuck his neck out, the things he said about Jan. The things he said about me, I mean, it's a laughing matter." matt-er." "I can't believe . . personally per-sonally on behalf of the City, I could see him suing us be-causing be-causing he can't build something some-thing on that hill because of laws of the City. The only possible way I can see he can allege any conspi racy in there, connect me with Greater Park City Company I asked him-he made the statement Greater Park City Company wants lOTc of his project. So I go ask Greater Park City Company if that was true. I told Elwood what you said was untrue, because I talked to Warren King, and you better go talk to Warren, War-ren, because he said it was untrue. And that's the only communication I've even had on this stuff." "You'll read the front page . (of the complaint) it says Greater Park City-this is really sloppystuff It's got Greater Park City, it should be Greater Park City Com-" Com-" pany, Warren King, they've got Jan Wilkington, and John Price. So it's really been a sloppy job." "However, there's a great deal, especially on Jan's be-half-I can laugh this thing off, but what he said about Jan Jan really has to defend himself. Those are really gross charges. If he didn't if he had anything to prove to me, I would have to indict Jan of the things that are on there. And, I would also, if I had any belief of the things, he said about me that are in there, I'd resign inone-tenth of a second." Record: "Do you know any thing that WarrenKingasked for a percentage of Nielsen's project, providing Warren King would sell some land to Mr. Nielsen, supposedly for this road. Price: I asked Warren when Elwood first said that in front of the City Council. I said, that doesn't sound right. I asked is there any other access you have to that hill and he said it's all across Greater Park City land. And I said, why don't you people get together and work out something using joint lands and he said, "well I did and they said they wanted want-ed 10 of this project." Now, Warren says he NEVERdis-cussed NEVERdis-cussed price with Elwood Nielsen. I don't know what's gone on between Elwood Nielsen and Warren. Warren War-ren says none of this. The only thing I can answer about is what I've alleged to have done in there and I don't see how he can prove it. First of all, the only campaign funds I got were something like-Clem like-Clem says $22 from the Republican Re-publican Party, I'd say $16-were $16-were the total campaign contributions con-tributions that I got. I mean there were no campaign contributions con-tributions from Greater Park City Company. I have never received any money or anything else from Greater Park City Company. In fact, :hey spend a hell of a lot of noney down there." Record: "Have you had any irior knowledge of this?" Price: 'I'je had some pretty strong telephone threats from Elwood Nielsen." Niel-sen." Record: "Because we have had some comments mentioned men-tioned to us from some pretty reputable people that you've had your hand in the pocket of Greater Park City Company, and further hinting around that we should do some investigative work on it." Price: "I wish people would. I really rish they would. It's fine with me. I'm really happy this has come out, frankly. It would be very interesting you know, if there was any possible way of doing it, you know, there's just no way. I'd be very happy to show all my assets and all the people I do business with. I'd be very happy to show anyone in any paper all the people I do business with. I think it's something this town really deserves and I think it's going to be at El-wood's El-wood's expense. But I think this is something a lot of people think. They think Greater Park City Company is running the town and they've got to learn otherwise." other-wise." "Another allegation I have, even if it was true, I don't know how the hell he could prove it. You know if you look at Watergate and what's going go-ing on there, they've had half the country investigating the stuff and if I'm going to be bribed I'm going to do a hell of a better job than any thing that can be proved. They can prove I got first tracks on Crescent three times this year and that was a payoff or something." "The work is really sloppy. There's a lot of mistakes. mis-takes. I'm not going to tell you all of them, those are the obvious ones. When you're talking $7 12 million, mil-lion, you better get someone some-one who knows." "Have you ever been around when Elwood has? Incredible. When he wanted to build a road on his property, prop-erty, I said Elwood, come up, I'll meet with you. He wanted want-ed us to let him go across Marsac. We said, "Fine, go across Marsac." But he wanted to build a road on Marsac and so he had the City Engineer go over it with him and staked it out. My God, it was like this (Price made a perpendicular perpendicul-ar motion with his hands) where he cut, so any standard stand-ard for roads is a 1 12:1 cut. John startedfiguringthe run-off problems and stuff and he said he couldn't build a road. There's just no way. And so we said to Elwood, you can't do this. The next day I look out here and he's got a caterpillar cater-pillar on the side of the hill 'where we told him he couldn't do it. He came in and said "the last thing I heard was I could do it!" I said "Elwood I don't know how it's totally beyond me how you feel you could do this. The City Engineer En-gineer said you couldn't, the City lawyer said you ' couldn't" and he said "Well, I'm doing it for agricultural purposes." Under the City laws for agricultural purposes you can do certain things. He submitted a subdivision plan to us who's kidding who, you know. So I go up there with Merrill (Street) and say, "Look Elwood, I'm asking you to stop. And he gives me this rash of grief. And he calls me up later on the phone and says, "Hey, I'm just testing to see if you would carry through with this. " And I said, "Okay, you're testing me, but I have to put a restraining order on you, Elwood. And I have to do it legally." I gave him verbal notice to cease and dessist and then I filed with the district dis-trict court." Record: "Apparently, he's accusing Wilking primarily saying Wilking is stopping developing the road and saying say-ing he's going to condemn it." Price: "Well, if you read in there, it looks like there are two members of the City Council, Jan and myself the two "dominant" figures on the City Council. And I think, definitely, we're dominant dom-inant figures on the City Council, but that doesn't mean that we get what we want every time." Record: "Have you-heard anything from Mary Leh-mer Leh-mer at all?" by Cassie Govoni and Melissa Jenkins Price: -"If you read the lawsuit, he's (Elwood Nielsen) Niel-sen) accusing me of conspiracy con-spiracy with Greater Park City Company." Record: "We heard that it was bribery." Price: "Yeah, bribery is mentioned in there. Not directly, but you could get that impression." Record; "You had your "hand in GPCC's pocket" was the quote we heard." Price: "I don't know exactly ex-actly what he calls what I've done. I can only see that I'm involved in a conspiracy to keep him from selling condominiums. con-dominiums. Other than that, he says that Greater Park City Company CAUSED me to be elected. He's made some allegations against Jan (Wilking) that are really, really strong. He really hasn't come down too hard on me. But the charges against me are so absurd. You know, I'm probably one of the town's greatest critics of Greater Park City Company. I can't even believe be-lieve he alleged that I was a co -conspirator. And see, there's a lot of malice involved in-volved in there because I filed a restraining order on behalf of the City against Elwood El-wood Nielsen after a meeting Elwood had with the City. We told him he couldn't build a road, and he started a road, and I went up with the Sheriff and stopped him from building a road." Record: "Well, did it cut across Greater Park City's land the access road, is that what the wtiole thing was about'" Price: "No, the whole thing was about the road that he had proposed; a road in a area that was too steep to meet City standards. The scar would have been 280 feet long on the top and would have had to been cribbed crib-bed up on the bottom and the City Engineer : said that it would cause severe hazards like the Malibu Hills type of thing, giant landslides. We would have had unbelievable water problems, really." Record: "So it was filed on behalf of the City." Price: "Sure, I signed, as the Mayor of the City, I'm the executor of the restraining restrain-ing order, so I think there's sufficient malice there. You know, I think he's gone way beyond anything he can prove. There's nothing in here ..." Record: "Do you think basically bas-ically that's why he's filing this against you ? Do you know any other reason why he would have done it?" Price: "That's the only contact I've had with Elwood Nielsen in my life." Record: "Do you know of anything that he might know to make an accusation like bribery?" Price: "There's no possible pos-sible way. In fact, there-'s nothing in here. I've read over that thing , and there are some things that are true like Greater Park City Company owns all the lifts on the mountain, well, of course, it's true. As far as violating Sherman Anti-Trust Anti-Trust Acts, I have no idea. The parts that are mentioned mention-ed about me in there, I was just on the phone to Carl (Nemelka) right now to see what I could say to you. I didn't even know about it until today. Jan called me up and said, "The Marshall's looking look-ing for you." And I went looking look-ing for the Marshall I wanted want-ed to get this thing out I feel it's important, you know, I've been sued for $100,000, but never for $7 |