State sues owner of Greenville ski area

The state has filed a lawsuit against the owner of Big Squaw Mountain ski resort in Greenville, claiming that the owner, Moosehead Mountain Resort Inc., illegally harvested timber on Moose Mountain and failed to maintain the ski area as required under terms of the sale two decades ago.

The complaint was filed July 28 in Kennebec County Superior Court by the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

After having run the ski area since 1974, the state sold it and 1,216 acres in 1986 at “below market price,” the complaints says, “with the explicit understanding that the purchaser would invest in and improve the ski area and resort, and maintain and operate it as an attractive and safe resort for the benefit of the people of Maine and the Greenville community.”

After a series of owners, James Confalone of Florida, who owns Moosehead Mountain Resort Inc., purchased the mountain and ski area in 1995 for the below-market price of $550,000, the complaint says. All the terms of the 1986 Trustee’s Deed remained, requiring that the sale “was conditioned upon continued public use as a ski area.”

Read more: http://www.pressherald.com/2016/09/09/state-sues-owner-of-greenville-ski-area/