offroadracer99
October 4th, 2005, 07:16 PM
Here is an email I got from KY
The Judge Executive of Lewis County, Steve Applegate has rendered his decision on the offroad park. He has turned down KY Outback Adventure Park's application for an Entertainment License.
His response reads," I, as The Lewis County Judge Executive, believe it is my duty to protect the health, welfare, and safety of the people of Lewis County....Throughout the course of the public hearing, people voiced their concerns about safety for their children, trespassing on other landowners property, enforcement of the park's rules and regulations, quality of water, and the blocking of the roadway, I believe that it is the best interest of Lewis County to deny the request for an entertainment license."
Before we share our feelings about the hearing and the Judge/Executive's decision we want to thank everyone for their support. The offroad community was very supportive and did their best to share information with the Judge/Executive so he could make an informed decision understanding the benefits of the offroad park and the causes of some of the problems that did actually occur. We appreciate your efforts very much! Thank you!
We also want to apologize for not sending this newsletter out to you sooner. Our father has been in the hospital for the past 6 weeks and Al's mother-in-law has also been severely ill. Situations dictated that we pay attention to these serious family concerns above business issues for the past 2 weeks. With things having stabilized, we are now back to work full time.
There have been a number of people that have asked why we did not address the Entertainment License issue before we opened the park. For the record, we did not know about the Entertainment License before we opened the park. Our attorney never considered it as it is not a commonly applied law in a number of counties and it seemingly does not apply to our park. Further, we attempted to address any issues concerning unknown types of licenses or permits before we purchased the property. We personally met with the Judge/Executive on at least two occasions where we asked him if we needed any type of license or permit to operate the park. His reply on both occasions was a No. Later when the Entertainment License issue came up, he backpedaled and said that he did tell us that we didn't need any licenses or permits but that he never considered the Entertainment License. He's the Judge/Executive of the County, he told us that we didn't need any license or permit to operate the park, and he seemed happy that we were putting the offroad park in his county. What else can we say?
Onto our response of the hearing and decision. First and foremost, we feel that we answered and addressed all of the real issues brought forth at the hearing. It just didn't seem to matter what we said or what we provided. It is our opinion that the decision was already made before the hearing took place. I was prepared to go down the entire list and give our replies and answers to show that we addressed them in a reasonable and well thought out manner, but for what purpose? All I will say is that we operated the park for 10 months and to the best of my knowledge there were never any safety or road blockage issues! We stayed in contact with the Sheriff to make sure that if there were problems reported that we would be made aware of them and could address them. You may have concerns, but when you have 10 months of actual practicing hard data, which one should rule the day?! Isn't the proof in the results? There were some trespassing issues that actually occurred during the 10 months and we made some changes to fix the problem. Also, there were a number of trespassing problems reportedly caused by people intent on causing the park problems and giving it a bad name. When you have individuals directing people to ride on private property by telling them that it is public land how can you blame the park for that? We had a number of people come forward and tell us that this happened.
One example of how we addressed the issues was the Water Quality concern. This is a real important matter and we viewed it as such. But, we had already addressed this with the Kentucky Division of Water in the Spring. We received a plan from the Division of Water for making the park more environmentally friendly. We implemented all of their recommendations and requirements and we stated this during the hearing so it could be verified. We actually were in the process of making the improvements when this whole Entertainment License nonsense started! The changes were completed some time in July. If we were meeting the standards of the Division of Water, why wasn't it good enough for Lewis County?
To put it simply, there is no way that I could look someone straight in the eye and tell them that this was a fair hearing! It is our opinion that this whole ridiculous scenario was pretty much orchestrated by one individual and a few of his buddies who did not like the fact that we told them they could not trespass on the park property. Unfortunately for us, these folks had some very good connections in the county and we did not. Can you believe people hell-bent on causing problems and seeking revenge, and the thing that got them all upset is having to respect other people's property?
Enough of the negative stuff. We are now focusing on our next step in the process. As far as we're concerned KY Outback Adventure Park is not dead, merely shelved temporarily. We are considering appealing this decision with the Circuit Court, but we could lose there. Our next step after that would be to appeal to the State Court, and our attorney feels that we would win there. Our attorney feels that this entire law could be thrown out due to its numerous flaws. Naturally, this course of events would take a considerable amount of money and time, and we haven't decided if we want to pursue this route. Another option we are seriously considering would be to relocate the park to a more forward thinking county that would understand, realize, and actually appreciate the economic and public relation benefits of the park. Do you know of such a county? Because we will probably be looking! Hope to see you on the trails.
Thank you for your support,
KY Outback Adventure Park
The Judge Executive of Lewis County, Steve Applegate has rendered his decision on the offroad park. He has turned down KY Outback Adventure Park's application for an Entertainment License.
His response reads," I, as The Lewis County Judge Executive, believe it is my duty to protect the health, welfare, and safety of the people of Lewis County....Throughout the course of the public hearing, people voiced their concerns about safety for their children, trespassing on other landowners property, enforcement of the park's rules and regulations, quality of water, and the blocking of the roadway, I believe that it is the best interest of Lewis County to deny the request for an entertainment license."
Before we share our feelings about the hearing and the Judge/Executive's decision we want to thank everyone for their support. The offroad community was very supportive and did their best to share information with the Judge/Executive so he could make an informed decision understanding the benefits of the offroad park and the causes of some of the problems that did actually occur. We appreciate your efforts very much! Thank you!
We also want to apologize for not sending this newsletter out to you sooner. Our father has been in the hospital for the past 6 weeks and Al's mother-in-law has also been severely ill. Situations dictated that we pay attention to these serious family concerns above business issues for the past 2 weeks. With things having stabilized, we are now back to work full time.
There have been a number of people that have asked why we did not address the Entertainment License issue before we opened the park. For the record, we did not know about the Entertainment License before we opened the park. Our attorney never considered it as it is not a commonly applied law in a number of counties and it seemingly does not apply to our park. Further, we attempted to address any issues concerning unknown types of licenses or permits before we purchased the property. We personally met with the Judge/Executive on at least two occasions where we asked him if we needed any type of license or permit to operate the park. His reply on both occasions was a No. Later when the Entertainment License issue came up, he backpedaled and said that he did tell us that we didn't need any licenses or permits but that he never considered the Entertainment License. He's the Judge/Executive of the County, he told us that we didn't need any license or permit to operate the park, and he seemed happy that we were putting the offroad park in his county. What else can we say?
Onto our response of the hearing and decision. First and foremost, we feel that we answered and addressed all of the real issues brought forth at the hearing. It just didn't seem to matter what we said or what we provided. It is our opinion that the decision was already made before the hearing took place. I was prepared to go down the entire list and give our replies and answers to show that we addressed them in a reasonable and well thought out manner, but for what purpose? All I will say is that we operated the park for 10 months and to the best of my knowledge there were never any safety or road blockage issues! We stayed in contact with the Sheriff to make sure that if there were problems reported that we would be made aware of them and could address them. You may have concerns, but when you have 10 months of actual practicing hard data, which one should rule the day?! Isn't the proof in the results? There were some trespassing issues that actually occurred during the 10 months and we made some changes to fix the problem. Also, there were a number of trespassing problems reportedly caused by people intent on causing the park problems and giving it a bad name. When you have individuals directing people to ride on private property by telling them that it is public land how can you blame the park for that? We had a number of people come forward and tell us that this happened.
One example of how we addressed the issues was the Water Quality concern. This is a real important matter and we viewed it as such. But, we had already addressed this with the Kentucky Division of Water in the Spring. We received a plan from the Division of Water for making the park more environmentally friendly. We implemented all of their recommendations and requirements and we stated this during the hearing so it could be verified. We actually were in the process of making the improvements when this whole Entertainment License nonsense started! The changes were completed some time in July. If we were meeting the standards of the Division of Water, why wasn't it good enough for Lewis County?
To put it simply, there is no way that I could look someone straight in the eye and tell them that this was a fair hearing! It is our opinion that this whole ridiculous scenario was pretty much orchestrated by one individual and a few of his buddies who did not like the fact that we told them they could not trespass on the park property. Unfortunately for us, these folks had some very good connections in the county and we did not. Can you believe people hell-bent on causing problems and seeking revenge, and the thing that got them all upset is having to respect other people's property?
Enough of the negative stuff. We are now focusing on our next step in the process. As far as we're concerned KY Outback Adventure Park is not dead, merely shelved temporarily. We are considering appealing this decision with the Circuit Court, but we could lose there. Our next step after that would be to appeal to the State Court, and our attorney feels that we would win there. Our attorney feels that this entire law could be thrown out due to its numerous flaws. Naturally, this course of events would take a considerable amount of money and time, and we haven't decided if we want to pursue this route. Another option we are seriously considering would be to relocate the park to a more forward thinking county that would understand, realize, and actually appreciate the economic and public relation benefits of the park. Do you know of such a county? Because we will probably be looking! Hope to see you on the trails.
Thank you for your support,
KY Outback Adventure Park