It's been almost six months since Governor Fallin announced the PROPOSED "Pointe Vista Settlement Agreement." They must be having a real problem agreeing to "throw this fight" for the benefit of Pointe Vista Development, and at our public expense.
The CLO abandoned their suit against Pointe Vista because they had no intention of winning in the court. They could not afford to expose all of the violations of state and federal laws which preceded the developer's ongoing lack of Good Faith and Breach of Contract.
Pointe Vista announced in a court filing last May that the Oklahoma Tourism Department would be joining them as "Defendant" in the law suit. Several weeks later, Tourism attorney Claudia Connor announced that they would NOT be joining Pointe Vista in the Court.
Oddly enough, Tourism holds a key seat at the Mediation Table. Why is this? Tourism claims Pointe Vista's 2008 contract for an additional 1,022 acres of federal land (Area C) is still binding. The CLO seems to agree.
Pointe Vista refused to pay for the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) required by the Corps of Engineers before Area C park land could be sold to the State.
Tourism officials know this, and they are standing by Pointe Vista's claim for Area C federal lands and siding with Pointe Vista during the mediation process. Tourism is not even a party to the lawsuit and they are mediating terms favorable to the failed developer. What is wrong with this picture?
There is a major conflict of interest here. The two original sponsors of the Lake Texoma Redevelopment appear to be cooperating on a settlement which undermines the state's legal arguments for taking back Lake Texoma State Park land. They have obviously hit a snag along the way, or they wouldn't be taking so long to hammer out the final Pointe Vista Settlement Agreement.
Tourism also succeeded in breaking up the federal land transfers to allow for three different land sales to take place - Areas A, B and C. This is called "segmenting." Segmenting violates federal environmental laws because it is aimed at avoiding a comprehensive study of the economic and environmental impacts of the entire 3,000 acre mega-development.
I attended the September, 2009 EIS Scoping Hearing in Kingston for the "Pointe Vista Resort." It was sponsored by the Corps of Engineers. I asked for the physical map of the project, along with some of the other graphics. I photographed and posted this color coded "Pointe Vista Resort" to my website for your reference. It is still hanging on the wall in my office.
This shows the different Areas sold, or which are hoped to be sold (like Area C), or included in the whole project, as in the case of Oak Ridge Subdivision (Area D), etc...
The problems with segmenting the project would have been addressed in the first Legal Discovery phase of the lawsuit, had the suit not been abandoned.