KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
The timber company that was logging in Chiniak until a legal dispute halted operations six months ago, could be back to work by the end of next week.
On Friday, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason sided with A-1 Timber Consultants and granted a temporary injunction, allowing them back on Leisnoi Native Corporation land to resume logging. A-1 has a four-year contract with Leisnoi to harvest 100-million board feet of timber from the Native Corporation’s land in Chiniak.
In December, Leisnoi ordered A-1 off the land, claiming the company was not complying with certain insurance and escrow requirements. But A-1’s Anchorage attorney, Matt Claman, disputes those claims.
When contacted for this story, Leisnoi CEO Carole Pagano declined to comment. In a written statement posted on the company’s web site, Pagano accuses unnamed people associated with A-1 of computer hacking and eavesdropping on private communications; conduct, she says, that the FBI has been informed of.
Pagano could be alluding to conversations recorded in November, which became a local hit on YouTube when posted there. In the recordings, Pagano and her husband Leonard Zaiser discuss a plan to force A-1 out and take over the Kodiak logging operation themselves.
Claman said that is what his client thinks was the real reason behind the logging shutdown.
No court date has been set in the underlying lawsuit brought by A-1. The company is seeking $75,000 in damages from Leisnoi.
Meanwhile, Claman says A-1 could be logging again by next Thursday. He says about 90-million board feet under the contract remain to be harvested.
