PORT ANGELES — In a surprise move, the latest legal challenge against the proposed Oak Street hotel and conference center has been dropped by Best Western Olympic Lodge owner Tod McClaskey Jr.
“We were wanting to put our money into something maybe more fruitful,” McClaskey said Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview from his offices in Vancouver, Wash.
McClaskey said he is now convinced that the project will never get financing — and because of that, there is no reason to spend more money pursuing legal avenues to stop it.
“Nobody in their right mind is going to do this project — we don’t feel it makes sense,” McClaskey said in the interview.
Disagreeing with McClaskey is the project’s developer, Randal Jay Ehm.
Ehm says he will now redouble his efforts to nail down financing.
Also withdrawing their legal objections were three Port Angeles residents who feared the project would block their territorial views from the Second Street bluff, Chris and Carolyn Muir and Paul Hoque.
Port Angeles City Attorney Craig Knutson confirmed Tuesday he was the last of several attorneys to sign the dismissal notice, which now must be filed with a Clallam County Superior Court judge.
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