A Lake County judge has told Stinger Welding Montana Inc. that it must stay away from the Kootenai Business Park in Libby after the company removed a 25-ton crane valued at $183,000. The removal of the crane in October is just the latest in a yearlong dispute between the embattled welding company and Lincoln County.
After the crane was moved, Lincoln County filed a restraining order against Stinger because it believes the port authority owns the equipment that was purchased with government grants.
In October, a judge in Virginia City said he could not determine who owned the seven cranes once used by Stinger and lifted the initial restraining order. But on Nov. 14, Lake County Judge James Manley reinstated the order that prevents the company from entering the Libby business park. According to attorney Allan Payne, who represents the Lincoln County Port Authority that oversees the business park, the order will remain in effect until the judge says otherwise.
“They would have to violate the restraining order to get the cranes and I don’t think they are going to do that,” he said.
In early October, Stinger employees drove two flatbed trucks into the massive and now unused bridge beam factory in Libby. Over the next few days they slowly dismantled a 25-ton crane and loaded it onto the trucks. On Oct. 16, under the cover of darkness, the two trucks slipped out of the business park and headed for Coolidge, Ariz., Stinger Welding’s headquarters. Later that day, Lincoln County Sherriff Roby Bowe talked to Stinger employees who said they planned on moving the other cranes to Arizona. On Nov. 1, Payne filed a temporary restraining order to keep the cranes in Lincoln County.
“We intend to seek the return of the crane, but right now isn’t the time,” he said.
Legal disputes are nothing new between Stinger and Lincoln County. In 2009, the two signed a development agreement to bring a bridge beam building facility to Libby that would eventually employ more than 200 people. But problems arose almost immediately.
Part of the agreement stated that Stinger would construct a large welding facility on the old Stimson Lumber Co. site and, once complete, the port authority would purchase it at the cost of construction and lease it back. However, Stinger failed to obtain the funding for the facility’s construction and in July 2009, the county provided a $3.4 million grant to the company to start the project. Payne said at that point, the port authority still planned on purchasing the facility from Stinger, minus the $3.4 million.
Stinger completed the building in May 2011. In hopes of repaying loans, Stinger sought funding through the New Market Tax Credits program. During that process, according to the lawsuit, Stinger allegedly misled the port authority by claiming it needed the title to the property it occupied. On July 18, 2011, the port authority conveyed the title to Stinger for $186,000.
A year later, in October 2012, the Lincoln County Port Authority filed a lawsuit alleging that Stinger failed to comply with the 2009 development agreement and that the building belonged to the county. Then on Dec. 18, 2012, Stinger Welding CEO Carl Douglas died in a plane crash near Libby. The company went into bankruptcy soon after and it closed its Libby bridge building facility earlier this year. The building and cranes are now at the center of a legal dispute that some say has no immediate end in sight.