Sunday, September 30, 2007

Talk about it...

Wow, isn’t this interesting. Mary Kay Sigaty has asked that her own bills be tabled to allow additional time for WCI and the four legal challengers to hammer out a compromise on the Tower.

I am taking this as a better sign for WCI than for the four appellants. It seems likely to me that Mary Kay’s bills were going to pass. Whether or not they would have any impact on the Tower is another matter. WCI clearly thinks these bills would have no impact on them, otherwise they would never have begun construction. By entering into further compromise talks, WCI might be able to work out a deal where they could receive something of value in exchange for building a shorter Tower. If they could broker such a deal, they would probably be indifferent between the compromise and actually building the Tower as currently planned.

On the other hand, if compromise talks fall apart with no agreement reached, that is also good for WCI because they were able to continue construction during the talks and they are further vested in the final project as a result. The more vested they can be, the more they increase the chances that the bills will have no effect on the Tower anyway.

From the point of view of the four appellants, I think their best shot would be to let Mary Kay’s legislation pass and hope that it works to block the Tower. If they are giving up this shot to enter into compromise talks which will not make WCI worse off, that is a sign of weakness, IMO.

If a compromise is reached, I will be darn curious to see if Mary Kay reintroduces her legislation. If not, that just proves that her bills were targeted to the Tower, and only the Tower, all along.

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