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(Editor’s Note: Grant Parsons responds to an opinion piece by Marty Lagina, published on Nov. 3, 2024, noting that they will still be neighbors when the dust settles. Read on for Grant’s thoughts. -jb)
It’s been pretty tough on all of us, these last three years. You can hardly blame a person for being fed up with a lot, a whole lot.
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Marty Lagina had a lot to get off his chest. I’m okay absorbing the brunt of his feelings. Way better that I should take some flack than let the Peninsula Township staff deal with it. Our Township staff should get combat pay for the last three years – the WOMP lawsuit, the tough election campaign, all the grief they face in addition to their official duties.
Let me briefly respond to Marty’s article. Marty is upset at something I wrote to the Old Mission Gazette: “WOMP wineries are either lying to the United States District Court by filing false claims for mega-millions, or lying to Ms. Jerman in her ‘private discussions’ with wineries.”
The reason I wrote that was because of two publicly-reported, impossible-to-reconcile statements. The first statement: “The [WOMP] plaintiffs already reduced that amount once to $135 million, following an amendment to an expert’s first estimate of $203 million.” (Reported by Jordan Travis in the Record-Eagle, March 17, 2024).
The second statement: “Please provide documentation that WOMP is looking to seek damages from OMP residents. I have not seen this documented, and personal discussions with wineries in this lawsuit do not support this claim.” (Ms. Jerman’s answer to an Old Mission Gazette’s election question)
It’s impossible to reconcile those two statements. One of those two WOMP positions must be false, right? In federal court, WOMP wineries are demanding millions in damages, but in personal conversations with supporters like Ms. Jerman, WOMP says it’s not asking for money damages.
Certainly, one of the WOMP owners or their downstate lawyer could tell us which of those statements is true. But they haven’t. Instead of clearing up the issue – is WOMP asking for millions or not? – Marty takes my comment about the impossible-to-reconcile statements, criticizes me, and throws in some personal grievances about other topics.
This WOMP dispute reminds me of another winery dispute. Twenty-plus years ago, a neighbor who started a winery on Old Mission Peninsula banged heads with me over winery zoning. WOMP didn’t exist back then, but that fellow and I banged heads over pretty much the same issues WOMP put in its new lawsuit.
That fellow and I appeared on a League of Women Voters panel discussion together, and when it came my turn to speak, I said something close to this: “We’re not getting along right now, but when this ends and the smoke clears, we’ll still be neighbors.”
It ended, he lost, and we never mentioned it again. Occasionally we’d talk in the produce department at Prevo’s. I’d wish him well, and he seemed to have the same attitude toward me.
Now, I hate like hell to compliment someone who’s kicking dirt my way, and I certainly don’t want to give the impression that Marty’s snit is fair, because it’s not.
But for the same reason I said what I did to that wine grower 20-plus years ago, I say this to Marty: You’re a neighbor, a valuable member of our Peninsula Township community, we live only a mile apart, we rub elbows at Township meetings, we each think we have the better argument over commercial winery events.
How this all turns out only time will tell, but one thing abides: we are neighbors.
It really has been a tough few years, but we’re headed for better times.
-Grant Parsons
(Read all Peninsula Township Election 2024 News, Opinions and Candidate Questionnaires here. Read all winery lawsuit news and opinions here. -jb)
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SUPPORT YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL NEWSPAPER: I started Old Mission Gazette in 2015 because I felt a calling to provide the Old Mission Peninsula community with local news. After decades of writing for newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Family Circle and Ladies' Home Journal, I really just wanted to write about my own community where I grew up on a cherry farm and raised my own family. So I started my own newspaper.
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Ok … so after numerous attempts to decipher this lawyer double talk , I arrived at the following:
You smugly think you are magnanimous because in a previous encounter where you WON and some poor unfortunate victim LOST you were still “ a neighbor “
WOW … What a great guy you are !!! But… I don’t need to tell you : you already know that Bravo !
And : Despite your lawyer gobbledygook, let me set it out so you can’t run around it again:
You said : EITHER 1) I lied under oath
OR 2) I lied to Kate Jerman
Well … I DIDN’T lie to Kate Jerman ( hadn’t spoken to her at all about this topic)
So … that leaves : you have accused me of perjury
That’s libel per se
And .. as best I could make out from your circuitous response … you haven’t even come close to apologizing
Is that clear enough ?? Even for you ??