One counter-claim in case dismissed.

A small dent may have been made this week in a legal logjam believed to be holding up the sale of Sugar Loaf Resort to a new owner.

Attorneys for resort owner Kate Wickstrom and the owners of a company that provides sewer service to the resort, Sugar Loaf Service Company, met before Circuit Court Chief Judge Thomas G. Power in Leland on Monday morning to discuss a case in which Wickstrom and owners of the service company differ over how much money she owes for sewer service.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise has confirmed that Brad Lutz of Omena is a potential buyer of the resort.

At issue in Monday’s hearing was whether Wickstrom owes the service company $24,000 for sewer service and whether the service company has a right to file a lien against the property. The complex case stemmed from a July 2005 complaint filed by Wickstrom against the service company just a few months after she acquired the resort from the Pacific XIX Corporation, headed by convicted felon Remo Polselli – now out of prison but with continuing ties to the bank that financed Wickstrom’s purchase of the resort.

Wickstrom’s July 2005 complaint expired, but new complaints were filed both by Wickstrom and the service company after it filed a lien against Sugar Loaf. Wickstrom subsequently sued the service company for “slandering” her title to the resort and the lien was discharged. However, Wickstrom and the service company are now named as defendants/counter-defendants and plaintiffs/counterplaintiffs in the complex case.

“Disputes involving Sugar Loaf resort and the sewer system have been the source of a lot of litigation during my career,” Power noted during Monday’s hearing. The judge was apparently referring to decades of cases surrounding the resort, including several lawsuits involving the resort, its former owners and neighboring property owners who are also served by the sewage treatment plant.

“My client has barely flushed a toilet at Sugar Loaf,” Wickstrom’s attorney Joe Quandt told the during Monday’s hearing. “This is not a case in which my client has ever really used the system.”

Sugar Loaf Service Company attorney Tom Pezzetti noted, however, that wastewater from Sugar Loaf Resort has entered the sewage treatment plant continuously through the stormwater drain system since Wickstrom acquired the resort.

Although the case was far from being resolved at Monday’s hearing, the judge dismissed one of the counter-claims in the case and affirmed that Sugar Loaf Service Company has a legal right to file a lien against the resort.

Although attorneys in the case provided no on-the-record comments to the Enterprise, it was believed that the judge’s determinations on Monday might put the parties in a better position to settle their issues out of court.