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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andy Thomas who wrote (9054)	7/9/1998 7:51:00 AM
From: Bill Fischofer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

"Playing the Olympic Card, Ski Resort Obtains U.S. Land" Gee, that tireless champion of the public interest, Orrin Hatch, may have some of his own troubles to attend to. See interactive.wsj.com for details on a possible shady land deal the Senator may also wish to investigate while taking time out from his busy schedule of probing MSFT. Excerpt: CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, Utah -- Cruise these quiet alpine hills today and you are as likely to share the road with an ambling skunk as with another car. But not for long. Within a few years, a modest day-trip ski area here called Snowbasin will be transformed into a mammoth four-season resort, offering tennis, golf and swimming. Gondolas and chairlifts will crisscross the ridges of the Wasatch Range, bringing skiers to steep runs newly carved out of the mountains. To shelter the expected throngs, more than 800 condominiums, 600 upscale houses and several hotels will rise on wooded valley slopes. And if all goes as planned, people from around the globe will be here in 2002 to watch the downhill and super giant slalom events of the Olympic Winter Games. Much of this will be on federal forest land that long was off-limits to any large-scale development. Yet the deal is already done, with the U.S. Forest Service exchanging 1,320 acres to the ski area in return for other land, and with numerous environmental laws waived. How did it happen? Credit the relentless efforts of 71-year-old Earl Holding, a gas-station magnate who took over the ski area 14 years ago and has sought ever since to make it into a world-class adult playground. The problem he always faced was that Snowbasin uses federal land for its runs and is surrounded by federal land, but Mr. Holding needed to own a large tract to build his resort. The formula he has found to overcome that obstacle includes political generosity, a creative financial deal with Utah's Olympic Games boosters, and the aid of a Utah senator who may benefit from a bill he pushed through Congress forcing the Forest Service to relent. The senator is Orrin Hatch, who lobbied the Forest Service for years on behalf of Mr. Holding, a frequent contributor to Hatch campaign coffers. As it happens, Sen. Hatch also owns part of a 118-acre tract close to the ski area -- a property now much increased in value. Asked about this, the senator says he has paid so little attention to the land investment over the years that he thought he didn't even own it anymore, and he states firmly that it doesn't present a conflict of interest. "I don't consider that even close," he says. Yeah, right.