Sugar Loaf Resort owner Kate Wickstrom said this week she wasn't aware that Cleveland Township officials have been ready and are waiting for her to submit formal plans to redevelop and reopen the defunct ski resort.

Wickstrom said Tuesday that she also wasn’t aware that Sugar Loaf Service Company – which is responsible for providing sewer service to the resort – last week filed a lien against the resort for some $94,851 plus interest that the company claims she owes.

Later Tuesday, Wickstrom’s lawyer, Joe Quandt of Traverse City, said that “unless the Sugar Loaf Service Company discharges its lien immediately, we will file suit.”

Quandt added that neither he nor his client have received “official word” from Cleveland Township that a zoning ordinance amendment affecting Sugar Loaf Resort was officially enacted last month, or that the township’s planning commission has been waiting for Wickstrom to submit Planned Unit Development (PUD) plans for the resort.

Last week marked the second anniversary of Wickstrom’s acquisition of Sugar Loaf Resort from a corporate entity known as S.L. 2002 – a corporation that was apparently formed by many of the same people who controlled another corporation that owned the resort, Pacific XIX, headed by convicted felon Remo Polselli.

Polselli stepped away from the Sugar Loaf property after he was convicted of felony tax evasion in connection with one of his downstate properties and subsequently served a sentence in federal prison. According to documents available at the Leelanau County Register of Deeds office in Leland, S.L. 2002 loaned Wickstrom some $5,776,000 to purchase the resort in 2005, although publicly available mortgage documents do not specify how Wickstrom is expected to pay off the loan.

In May 2006, more than a year after she acquired Sugar Loaf Resort, Wickstrom unveiled preliminary, conceptual plans to turn the resort into a year-round “board sports” mecca including skiing, snowboarding and skateboarding. Her preliminary plans included several new housing developments on the 352-acre property.

At the time, Wickstrom asked that the Cleveland Township zoning ordinance be amended to accommodate her plans. The Cleveland Township Planning Commission then spent the next six months drafting new zoning ordinance language that would allow Wickstrom to submit plans for a Planned Unit Development at Sugar Loaf in phases rather than all at once.

The Cleveland Township Board adopted the zoning ordinance amendment in January. However, township activist Charles J. Ryant Jr. began circulating a petition calling for a township-wide vote on whether the zoning ordinance amendment should be adopted. However, Ryant failed to secure the required 88 signatures on his petition within 30 days and did not file for an extension.

As a result, the zoning ordinance amendment automatically went into effect last month. Ryant died March 23 at the age of 86.

Cleveland Township supervisor Tim Stein said he contacted Wickstrom immediately after Ryant indicated he planned to circulate a petition, and that the zoning ordinance amendment would go into effect within 30 days if Ryant failed to obtain the required signatures.

Stein said that Wickstrom thanked him for the information, and asked him to inform Quandt as well.

“I left Ms. Wickstrom’s attorney a voice mail message explaining how this process works,” Stein said. “How this process works is a matter of state law. We’ve publicly announced a couple of times that the text amendment had gone into effect, and it’s no secret that Charlie Ryant died. I just don’t understand what Kate Wickstrom and her lawyer can be thinking,” Stein said.

“The last word I got from the township regarding the zoning ordinance amendment sometime in January was, ‘We’ll keep you posted,’” Quandt said. “I haven’t heard anything since,” he said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Sugar Loaf Service Company on March 26 filed a $94,851 lien against Sugar Loaf Resort for “unpaid user fees” for sewage treatment. According to documents on file at the courthouse in Leland, the fees cover the period March 1, 2005 through Feb. 1, 2006 when sewer service to the resort was terminated.

Mike Waugh, the president of Sugar Loaf Service Company, told the Enterprise this week that his company “didn’t have a choice” but to file the lien.

“Development plans at Sugar Loaf have clearly been at a standstill,” Waugh said. “The service company has 97 other users of the sewer system. We have some serious cash flow problems if the resort doesn’t pay.”

Wickstrom and her attorney, however, have long asserted that Sugar Loaf Resort does not owe Sugar Loaf Service Company any money.

Sugar Loaf Resort has been closed for skiing since March 2000.