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February 25, 2005Manistee vs. Tondu: Heading to federal courtNo time set for ruling on review costsByRecord-Eagle staff writer MANISTEE - Arguments in an $810 million lawsuit over Manistee's refusal to grant a permit for the Northern Lights power plant have focused recently on whether Tondu Corp. should have to pay Manistee $111,000 for the cost of reviewing its application. The case, called Manistee Salt Works Development Corp. vs. the City of Manistee, is scheduled for a settlement conference Wednesday in federal court in Grand Rapids, but there has been no date set for a judge to decide whether Tondu owes Manistee the review costs. In 2003, Tondu sought to construct a coal-fired power plant on the shore of Manistee Lake but after an extensive application process Manistee refused to grant a special-use permit for the project. That prompted Tondu to sue Manistee and seek damages of $810 million - the company's estimate of what the plant would have been worth over time - and to seek a judgment that Tondu doesn't owe Manistee $111,518, which is what city officials said was the cost of processing the special use permit application. The parties have filed dozens of pages of legal briefs over whether Manistee should collect its for processing costs. Cara J. Edwards Heflin, an attorney for Tondu, argued that the language of Manistee's ordinance requiring reimbursement for the cost of processing a special-use permit application means that no money is owed if an application is denied. Heflin quotes the language: "Any additional costs incurred in the processing of the application, beyond that covered by the fee, shall be paid by the applicant before the permit is issued." Heflin argues that Manistee later changed the language in the permit application as a response to the dispute with Tondu. Attorneys for Manistee looked at the same language and came to the opposite conclusion. "While this is one possible reading of the ordinance, it is not the correct one," attorney Michael S. Bogren wrote of Heflin's analysis. "The correct way to read the sentence in issue is that the phrase 'before the permit is issued' is a description of time, rather than a condition."
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