|
Judge delays Airport suit ruling until Sept. 4
By Justin Goble
Local plaintiffs suing Jackson County and the Jackson County Airport Authority will have to wait two more weeks to see if they will have access to county records.
Superior Court Judge Marlene Hyatt Monday (Aug. 20) decided to wait until Tuesday, Sept. 4, to determine whether plaintiffs R.L. Ammons and Dewayne Pruett and their lawyer, Eric Ridenour, will be granted access to documents Ridenour has requested from the county.
Hyatt will rule on that after determining whether the county will remain as a co-defendant in the lawsuits. She will hear arguments on that matter Sept. 4 as well.
Ridenour argued Monday that the records in question, which include files from prior lawsuits as well as minutes and airport construction documents, are essential to his clients’ case. Some should be available under North Carolina’s Public Records Law, he said.
“We need those documents to argue against (the county’s request for) summary judgement,” he said. “I believe all of them are in (county attorney) Paul Holt’s office. My client has sued the county before over the airport, and Paul Holt served as their attorney.”
If his clients can’t get records from a trial held in federal court from Jackson County, they would have to pay 50 cents per page to retrieve them from a federal archives in Atlanta, Ridenour said.
(The county) wants us to pay 50 cents a page, but they have this stuff. I just want to look at it. I don’t want to charge my clients for something that could be thousands of pages when they have it.”
Hendersonville attorney Sharon Alexander, who is representing the county in the suit, said many of the documents were more than 30 years old and did not pertain to the current suit.
“It looks like none of the information will be needed for a summary judgement,” she said.
Alexander is also arguing that the county is not liable because county officials deeded the airport to the JCAA in 1997 when they created the authority and so the county should be removed as a defendant, she said.
The Pruetts’ and Ammons’ current litigation, which was filed last November, contends that potential slope failure at the airport that sits atop Berry Ridge near Cullowhee is threatening their homes and property. The complaints hinge on a landslide that occurred Aug. 22, 2005, when an isolated storm dumped massive rainfall on the Little Savannah watershed sending large amounts of mud onto the Ammons property. The same rain event triggered movement at an earlier slide on the Pruett property.
The lawsuits contend that county officials and the Authority share responsibility for addressing these concerns and ask for fair market value for their property, damages and interest.
In the aftermath of the 2005 slide, the Airport Authority engaged Sylva contractor Paul Lewis to clean out a neglected drainage ditch above the Ammons’ property in an effort to channel the water away from the driveway and to repair the damage to the driveway.
|
