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Show . sr4 SnniMinniSi it Sunmniinniiit !"' Is Tahoe agency full of hot air? TAHOE WORLD Tahoe The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) has shut down a hot-air balloon operation, as part of its program to protect the environment environ-ment around Lake Tahoe. Pilot Jay Kimball ran a business called Gone With the Wind, starting last August. He filled his balloon near a mall in Tahoe City and would float soundlessly sound-lessly onto the lake, charging a fee to take two passengers. However, the agency shut him down early this year explaining a commercial use permit is required if a business generates even one vehicle trip around the lake. Such trips are generally understood to he a source of air pollution. Kimball, however, said he obtained ob-tained a business licence from Placer County and was never told he needed a permit from TRPA. In the meantime, he is stuck with a year's lease for his office, has sunk money into advertising and has several reservations set for trips. "I've got to do something," he said. The Placer County animal shelter had an unusual visitor a 10-month-old timber wolf named Kona. The animal's owner, living in the Granite Chief subdivision of Squaw Valley, said he could no longer control the animal, and the wolf had aroused complaints from neighbors. Yugoslavian ski manufacturer. (Phoenix bid $83 per pair of skis, while Elan bid $43.06. The skis will be used for U.S. mountain troops. ) But Phoenix general manager Sheri Heedum argued Elan's bid is only possible because of artificially low wages in a Communist economy. , Besides, the loss of U.S. employment employ-ment and channeling of American money to another country could raise the price of the Elan bid. . Phoenix is appealing the decision to the International Trade Commission, Commis-sion, while Colorado representatives Mike Strang and Pat Shroeder are pleading their case to the Pentagon. .-rtoonwn CXPW55 KetchumSun Valley The three members of the Ketchum City Council who opposed the proposed Greyhawk resort found themselves rebuked by a packed citizen's meeting and by the Mountain Express newspaper itself. More than 90 people appeared at a council meeting, most supporting Greyhawk. But after 45 minutes, the anti-Greyhawk council members-Tim members-Tim Crawford, Jack Corrock and Sue Wolford walked out of the meeting, protesting the Greyhawk discussion was added at the last minute to the council agenda. The Express editorial said that at a time when Greyhawk's negotiations seemed to be progressing, a recent 3-1 council vote rejected the resort on "murky" grounds that it was too big. While the city cannot save the economy, it said, it must allow new blood in to help the weak Ketchum economy. The editorial was also accompanied accompan-ied by a cartoon of a haw k becoming exhausted in a holding pattern over the town. At the meeting, nine citizens said the hotel is needed to help the town's economy and relieve it from the dominance of nearby Sun Valley. One citizen said that while Sun Valley had 430,000 skier days. Park City had 895,000 and Vail had 1.4 million. Only two citizens spoke against the resort. But the three dissenting council members said they knew more about Greyhawk, after years of dealing with it, than did citizens. Tim Crawford said, "We're trying to be Deer Valley and we ain't Deer Valley." Mayor Jerry Seiffert pointed out the recent 3-1 vote was not a final legal decision by the city. Meanwhile, the news for the Sun Valley area was not encouraging either. A study by Dick Fenton and Co. said Sun Valley's share of the regional market fell from 8.7 percent (in 1977-78) to 6.6 percent in 1983-84. Fenton said Sun Valley, unlike other Utah-Colorado resorts, is not close to international airports. In addition, he said, it has not upgraded facilities for several years. , In a related development, the Sun ValleyKetchum Chamber of Commerce Com-merce said it will request $103,000 from the Idaho Travel Council as part of a $400,000 marketing effort. Technically, the grant would apply to an eight-county region, but Chamber president Karl Bick said they would emphasize Sun Valley and Bald Mountain THEkl TRAIL Vail A Vail resident is charging that four recent major appointments in town government are invalid because be-cause the selections were partly made in private. Al Weiss is circulating a petition to invalidate the choices of Mayor Paul Johnston, Town Manager Ron Phillips and two replacement coun-cilmen, coun-cilmen, Dan Corcoran and Gordon Pierce. Weiss said he has no complaint against the men personally. personal-ly. If the council doesn't act on his petition, Weiss said he may take the matter to court. Meanwhile, Town Attorney Larry Eskwith said he reviewed open-meetings open-meetings law Weiss and said the appointments are legal. Animal Control Officer Hal Jordan said, "He's got a different odor. He even walks different he glides." Jordan said a new owner has been found for the wolf. A local resort, the Cal Neva Lodge at Crystal Bay, faced a dismal future after its new owner (of one week!) was hit with two separate charges of bank fraud. When Jon R. Perroton bought the Lodge this January he signed his name as "J.R. Perroton." That monicker now may come back to haunt him. Perroton was arrested by the FBI for alleged fraud in obtaining a $1.2 million line of credit from the Crocker National Bank to buy 49 Mercedes Benz for a leasing business. The government says much of the documentation he used to get the loan is false, and some of the vehicles "purchased" don't even exist. In a second action, the Hibernia Bank of San Francisco sued Perroton and his Cobalt Capital Corporation. They alleged he obtained a $20 million loan from the bank by saying the Sheraton Corporation was going to operate or lease most of the Cal Neva resort. However, a spokesman for the hotel chain said Sheraton has no connection with Cal Neva. Perroton's attorney told the Tahoe World the FBI used entrapment against his client. As for Hibernia, it mishandled the loan from the outset, he indicated. THE ASPEN TIMES Aspen Snowboards will be allowed on a trial basis by the Aspen Skiing Company. They will be permitted in the Buttermilk area, but only with adequate retention devices, meaning any binding or. safety strap that secures the board to at least one leg at all times. .A federal drug prosecution against six Aspen men may be weakened by charges investigators abused a wiretap operation on the suspects. The Times said a law officer on the case resigned because the other agents were tapping conversations that had nothing to do with drugs. The Times said a U.S. District judge told agents to stop the abuses, but he did not halt the wiretaps. The dissenting officer made his complaint in a memo now sealed by the court. Attorneys for the six men are now probing the possibility that when agents first requested the taps, the affidavits used to justify the request were in part erroneous. For instance, one affidavit said wiretaps were needed because other techniques, such as undercover and surveillance, were opposed by Pitkin County Sheriff Dick Kienast. In fact, the document said, Kienast vowed to expose any undercover operation by autside agencies. But Kienast said, While he opposed undercover, he never said he would expose undercover work. The Times also said they could find no record of such a statement. The six Aspen men were charged in a 23-count indictment by a grand jury last November. An Aspen ski-manufacturing firm is trying to get a defense contract to manufacture 11,600 pairs of skiis. Phoenix Skis, ostensibly lost a bid competition to Elan, a |
