Yakima hearing: live

This is Parker Live’s report on today’s La Paz Superior Court hearing in the Yakima / La Paz County case. See recent stories for recent history on the case.

2:02– After a delay, the proceeding continues electronically, with Judge Weiss presiding. Yakima does not appear to be ready to accept the settlement offer; Yakima’s attorney says “But we’ll look at it.”

2:06– Arguments over the original performance bond established to cover operations at the site several years ago.

2:06– Judge grants Yakima’s motion forcing the extinguishing of the performance bond.

2:09– Judge is going to wait on the motion to intervene until July 7th in Parker.

2:13– Yakima restates it’s case, claiming that the County is deficient in its duty to pay the judgment, and has not made any meaningful progress in that regard. The attorney claims the County has $20m in cash. The Supervisors claim these funds are restricted by statute or to Special Districts. Yakima says these funds and assets such as the golf course has been used for collateral for other funding before.

2:19– Yakima says there is nothing providing for payment of Yakima in the 2011/2012 fiscal budget which begins in four week’s time.

2:25– The golf course argument: it was used to procure financing before in the amount of $1.7m; if the County had failed to pay then the financer would have foreclosed and become the owner of the golf course; therefore why can’t Yakima become the owner?

2:29– Yakima says the County has not made any effort to pay, apart from today’s letter, “If you want to dignify that [the County’s settlement offer of $9.2m…] as evidence.”

2:34– “I would suspect that my client will ask why he should take a $5 million cut….” – reference to the offer of $9.2m rather than $14m.

2:36– Yakima urges the Judge to enforce the half-cent sales tax hike (without the settlement discount in place) and to force the County to provide for payment in its budget.

2:37– The County is disagreeing, saying it has enacted a piece of legislation paving the way for a solution, it has moved toward a settlement, it has sought underwriting, and a credit rating, and a forecast of future economics; in approximately 3 weeks S&P will be able to review the credit worthiness of the County in preparation for a bond.

2:42– County says it is also attempting to balance next years budget even without Yakima, and tough decisions are needing to be made about personnel needs and operations.

2:45– The offer is very reasonable, says the County. If Yakima accepts the offer, things will go much more smoothly than if Yakima proceeds with various other methods of collection, for both the County and Yakima.

2:47– County urges the judge to continue the practice of not micromanaging the process.

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Our coverage ends here. The case continues… thank you for reading.