Port Authority attorney gets restraining order reinstated

For the second time in three weeks, an attorney for the Lincoln County Port Authority has filed paperwork obtaining a temporary restraining order to keep Stinger Welding, Inc., employees away from the building where the company built steel and bridge spans.

Helena Attorney Allan Payne, a Libby native, filed paperwork in Lincoln County’s 19th Judicial District Court on Friday afternoon seeking to reinstate a temporary restraining order and requesting a hearing as to why a preliminary injunction should not be issued to ban Stinger employees from the building until ownership of as many as seven overhead cranes is determined.

Three weeks ago, after Stinger Welding employees removed a 25-ton overhead crane Oct. 16, Payne sought and obtained a restraining order to prevent subsequent removal of as many as six of the remaining cranes. Last week, in Virginia City, Judge Loren Tucker lifted the temporary restraining order and denied a longer-lasting preliminary injunction. However, Tucker warned Stinger and Steel Girder, Inc., attorneys that lifting the order was not a green light to continue removing cranes.

The 25-ton crane is valued at $183,000.

“We knew they had trucks on the way,” Payne said. “The cranes are all detached from the building and laying on the floor. As far as I know, no additional cranes have been removed.”

Since, however, semi tractor-trailer trucks bearing the Fisher Industries logos on their doors have been sighted near the former Stinger building and parked overnight at the Venture Inn.

The latest filing, in Judge James B. Wheelis courtroom, not only seeks a restoration of the restraining order, it seeks a hearing at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 14 in Lincoln County as to why a preliminary injunction should not be granted.

Payne’s request states, through an affidavit by Kootenai River Development Council Executive Director Paul Rumelhart, a restraining order “should immediately issue to restrain defendant Stinger Welding Montana, Inc., from trespassing on Port’s property.”

Payne also asserts in the request that a delay by the court in granting the application will cause immediate and irreparable injury to the Port’s interests, as any further trespass will likely result in an inability on the part of the Port to obtain the relief it seeks.

Simply, the overhead cranes, which were purchased with state-funded economic development grants through Lincoln County are assets as the Port attempts to attract another tenant to the building.

Messages left for Rumelhart, and his assistant Brigid Burke, were not returned.

Tommy Fisher, the CEO of Fisher Sand & Gravel of Dickinson, N.D., and the parent company of Steel Girder, Inc., did not return calls for comment.