Legal fate of proposed sports complex site still at issue

WASILLA -- When the steering committee for Wasilla's proposed sports complex chose a site on South Church Road, it chose a property that has been at the center of a three-party lawsuit that began in August 1999, when the city filed a suit against the Nature Conservancy and out-of-state developer Gary Lundgren.

The city claimed victory in the suit back in July 2000, when U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick ruled in Wasilla's favor. Lundgren and the Nature Conservancy have since signed the property in question over to the city of Wasilla for the original price negotiated between the city and the Nature Conservancy.

According to Wasilla Deputy Administrator John Cramer, the federal court is keeping $145,000 in escrow to complete the land deal when the case is finalized.

Lundgren's attorney, Jim Gorski, has filed an appeal in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

"There is a cloud in the title of the property," Gorski said this week.

Gorski said the judge was being asked to look into factors that weren't considered previously. "The case is not over by a long shot," he said.

Cramer said he couldn't discuss specific details of the case, but said in general terms a lawsuit shouldn't automatically stop government from doing anything. "But someone could bring litigation on anything we do, it doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't go forward -- that's always the case with anything we do," Cramer said. As an example, Cramer cited the state's Parks Highway project just east of Wasilla, in which the Department of Transportation faced a lawsuit over right-of-way acquisition. Work continued even as DOT was in court.

The flap over the site started in spring 1998, when the city was dealing with the Anchorage-based state office of the Nature Conservancy.

The city was trying to buy two parcels of land from the nonprofit and negotiating with its Alaska office. The city alleged in the lawsuit that while this was going on, Kevin Baker, a Wasilla-based real estate agent who then served on Wasilla's planning commission, made an offer to buy that same land from the Nature Conservancy's national office on Lundgren's behalf.

Baker, who was not named as a party in the lawsuit, declined comment for this story.

One city project -- the extension of Church Road south to Mack Road -- was halted when the real estate deals went sour. The city's attorney in the case, Kenneth Jacobus of Anchorage, believes the current ruling would hold up despite Lundgren's appeal.

"We're confident we will hang on to the victory, and we don't understand why Lundgren doesn't just go away," he said ". . . my advice would be just go ahead as if there is no problem. If I were voting on the sports center, I would vote for it solely on its merits and I wouldn't consider the lawsuit as a factor."