Pave Paridise and put in a parking lot

Part of the land occupied by off-road vehicle park is eyed for $1.6 million cargo airport.

By STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com

WILKES-BARRE – The owner of Paragon Adventure Park near Hazleton lost another appeal on Thursday but vowed to take the issue to a higher court.

Lycoming County Senior Judge Clinton Smith granted a motion from Gladstone Partners L.P. to dismiss Kyle Knosp’s appeal of an August judgment and eviction issued by District Judge Thomas Sharkey in Hazle Township. Gladstone wants to have Knosp’s off-road vehicle park evicted from the property so it may build a $1.6 million cargo airport on part of the land.

Gladstone is eyeing a 4,800-acre parcel in Luzerne and Schuylkill counties for the facility that would be run by an authority created by the Luzerne County Board of Commissioners.

Gladstone claims that Knosp breached his 25-year lease with landowner PCA Corp., and wants Knosp evicted so the land could be used for the airport and related development.

Knosp denies breaching the contract and said he’s being bullied into giving up the lease.

Jonathan Lang, representing Gladstone, argued that the method of appeal that Knosp was trying to use should not be allowed because the issues in the appeal were already addressed by another county judge.

After Sharkey ruled against Knosp and granted Gladstone a $36,000 judgment, Knosp’s attorney, James Scallion, filed a petition for relief asking a county judge to lower the judgment. At the same time, he filed an appeal that asks a judge to review legal defects of the district court ruling.

Judge Hugh Mundy in October lowered the judgment to about $7,000, and Scallion in November filed an overall appeal of Sharkey’s ruling in county court.

Smith dismissed the November appeal last week because it wasn’t filed within 30 days of Sharkey’s decision. Scallion then had the writ reinstated, saying Mundy never ruled on the issues raised in the writ.

The writ alleged that Sharkey had no jurisdiction to hear the case because Paragon’s business offices are in Schuylkill County and Sharkey’s jurisdiction is Hazle Township. It also alleged that Sharkey is prohibited from granting judgments more than $8,000, and that Gladstone never proved it had standing in the case.

Because the petition for special relief couldn’t be filed without the writ, Lang said the writ also had to be decided before Mundy.

Smith agreed and struck down the writ, which was Knosp’s last hope for appeal in county court.

Smith also dismissed Knosp’s motion to quash Sharkey’s order granting possession of the park land to Gladstone.

Scallion said that an order issued Wednesday by Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Ann Lokuta will allow Knosp to continue operating the approximately 4,300-acre park as Knosp appeals the case to state Superior Court.

Scallion said Knosp would be amenable to relocating the park to other available land owned by PCA Corp., but PCA has offered no acceptable terms.

Jill Moran, the county prothonotary and Gladstone’s attorney of record, said she was pleased with Smith’s ruling.

Moran said she was “having a hard time deciphering” Lokuta’s order because she couldn’t find any case law referencing Lokuta’s terminology that her order would remain in effect until “a final and unappealable order” was made in the case.

Moran said she is considering asking Lokuta to reconsider her order in light of Smith’s rulings on Thursday, as well as appealing the order to a higher court.

Moran said she thinks the only issue that could be appealed to Superior Court is whether Smith was correct in dismissing the appeal to county court. “I think we would win on the merits,” she said.

Knosp said he will continue operating the park on the land for as long as the courts will allow. As of Thursday, he was still unsure if the park would be open this weekend.