A sheriff’s sale was held Tuesday morning to receive bids on several scattered pieces of land held by United Park City Mines.
No one showed up for the sale, held at the Silver Creek Courthouse. In the end, only the creditors put in a bid themselves on half-a-dozen parcels.
The items up for sale included a property interest at Richardson Flat; and another related to the Spiro Mine Tunnel. A Park City Municipal attorney tells KPCW that the sale doesn’t impact the city’s use of water, at the Spiro, or its satellite parking, at Richardson Flat.
Attorney Timothy Dance, the agent conducting the foreclosure sale for the lending company Midtown Acquisitions and Wells Fargo Bank, put in a so-called “credit bid” of $365,000. That means it is counted against the amount they’re owed by ten companies affiliated with Talisker, and ultimately headed up by Canadian businessman Jack Bistricer.
This sale came nearly four years after the lenders conducted foreclosure sales against the Talisker companies, for 2,100 acres they held in Summit and Wasatch Counties.
Attorney Dance said those sales were on properties that were secured collateral on funding to Talisker. The sale this week, he said, was based on a writ of execution to collect on a judgment.
The sale Tuesday included a property right in the Spiro Tunnel. Deputy Park City Attorney Tom Daley said that is a “right of first refusal” that a holder could exercise, if and when certain water rights are sold. Daley said the city doesn’t anticipate its use of Spiro water will be affected.
The sale also included a deed restriction that applies to 20 acres in Richardson Flat, held by the Jordanelle Special Service District. Daley said that covenant just mandates that the 20 acres have to be used for the disposal of sludge. Again, Daley said that doesn’t impact the city’s Park n Ride at Richardson, or any other land right they have there.
The sale also included four other fragments of land held by United Park—the Marsac Bowtie, a parcel held near Marsac Avenue above the Main Street area, Hidden Meadows, a piece of land in the Fox Tail Trail area of Solamere; and two other pieces in the Empire Pass area, called Red Cloud Access and Paintbrush Ski.
Afterward, we asked the attorney how all this impacts United Park Mines.
“We’re doing our best to find everything that they own,” Attorney Timothy Dance said.
This comes just a couple of months after a new lawsuit filed by Midtown in Third District Court, which asserts that Jack Bistricer has defaulted on a $150 million loan—that he has shifted his assets around a network of companies to avoid liability—and that he is personally responsible for the loan.