Laserfiche WebLink
• 8 <br /> .l Mr. Van DeNorth said both the Army' s and New Brighton' s attorneys had <br /> 2 been "very closed mouthed" but he agreed with Councilmember Ranallo that <br /> 3 the Army would be settling with New Brighton before it would even <br /> 4 consider St. Anthony' s claims. Mr. McDonald said he hoped the class <br /> 5 action suit might speed the Army up. He said the Army really wanted to <br /> 6 put off everything until they had finished their investigation next <br /> 7 summer and hadn' t wanted to have the class action until then. He said <br /> 8 he perceived the Army wouldn' t deal with St. Anthony until next July. <br /> 9 Mr. Van DeNorth said his firm might have almost agreed with that but <br /> 10 they knew there would always be more slippage and July would come and go <br /> 11 and there would still be no action, delaying everything into 1990 . He <br /> 12 said part of Briggs and Morgan' s role has been to keep applying pressure <br /> 13 and the State as well as New Brighton has also been doing that. He <br /> 14 concluded it would take everybody' s efforts to get ,the Army to do <br /> 15 anything. <br /> 16 A determination in favor of St. Anthony in the class action suit would <br /> 17 force them to face the plume issue sooner, Mr. McDonald said. Mr. <br /> 18 Childs said, even if the City should lose that issue, the Army' s study <br /> 19 would continue anyway and the City would have six to eight months to <br /> 20 prepare a refutation of that study. Mr. Van DeNorth said the Army might <br /> 21 even come in and tell the judge they thought it was premature to even <br /> 022 make a decision about where the plume went before they had finished <br /> 23 their investigation next summer. <br /> 24 He indicated the City was risking that the judge would accept the Army' s <br />_ 25 contention that the City' s study had not been good enough but said his <br /> 26 firm had been fully convinced by the data Leisch had come up with at <br /> 27 this time. Mr. Van DeNorth said the only evidence which would be <br /> 28 really conclusive would be to dig up a lot more wells between St. <br /> 29 Anthony and New Brighton, which would be very expensive and which the <br /> 3.0 State has been unwilling to do. The next quality evidence, short of <br /> 31 hard data, is the Leisch firm' s comparison of chemicals in the St. <br /> 32 Anthony wells with the contaminants found in the New Brighton wells <br /> 33 which are matching up identically. The Attorney continued by saying by <br /> 34 computer modeling it has been determined that the contaminants have <br /> 35 already reached St. Anthony. Mr. McDonald doubted the Army would have- <br /> 36 <br /> ave36 even accepted hard data, but would have only demanded more. <br /> 37 Councilmember Makowske asked the attorneys what they estimated it would <br /> 38 cost the City to answer questions the defendants raised about the expert <br /> 39 discovery information the City had submitted. Mr. McDonald said the way <br /> 40 he understood it was that the defendants have to pay for the time they <br /> 41 interview the City' s experts and vice versa. He said Briggs and Morgan <br /> 42 might argue for a different breakdown of those charges because the <br /> 43 defendants would probably have a lot more people than the City to be <br /> 44 interviewed. The problem is that if the defendants depose some of the <br /> 45 City' s experts, the City would probably be forced to depose some of the <br /> •46 defendant' s key people as well. The costs would be based on the hourly <br /> 47 charges and Mr. Van DeNorth estimated the City would probably be looking <br /> 48 <br />