By Jason Blevins | Colorado Sun
Minturn, a village of about 1,100 people along a defunct railroad near Vail, has bested a $25 billion real estate company, securing a transformative $48 million settlement that ends a long legal battle.
“I don’t think they ever thought that a small town like Minturn would be strong enough to stand up to them. But we did,” said Lynn Feiger, a Minturn councilwoman and nationally acclaimed lawyer who helped the former railroad town win the settlement from real estate giant Lubert Adler. “I always thought Minturn could win if we stayed the course.”
It’s been a long course for Minturn, where a Florida golf resort developer named Bobby Ginn dreamed big on the slopes of Battle Mountain above the town. With visions of a private ski hill, golf course, village and as many as 1,700 homes on 5,300 acres above the Eagle River, Ginn in 2007 promised Minturn about $160 million in perks if residents annexed most of his mountaintop property.