Incessant Complaints and Legal Attacks Result In Serious Fees and Judgement Against NIMBYs

Kimberly Gibbs and her acolytes hate Colorado-based Mile-Hi Skydiving... that's the only reasonable assumption one might make after reviewing the hundreds of complaints, attacks, falsehoods, and accusations made by her small band of "Citizens for Quiet Skies' in their years-long effort to shut the business down.

In their zeal to accuse MHS of every NIMBY crime under the sun, Gibbs and her cohorts instigated a number of legal actions, as well as complaints and outright interference in the Skydiving company's business dealings with the airport, and the city of Longmont CO, among others. Calling themselves "Citizens for Quiet Skies", the group has fallen on hard times as their attempts to sue the company out of business have failed, again and again, leaving CQS and Gibbs, in particular, on the hook for fees and legal expenses for amounts well in excess of $100K... with potentially greater damages in the offing... not to mention the fact that the costs of trying to use the legal system to curtail MHS's operations has to be have been considerable... even though Gibbs herself, reportedly doesn't even live in Longmont and is closer to the Boulder Airport than the MHS home airport in Longmont.

CQS' harassment of the skydiving center was incessant... going way beyond their noise complaints, extending to the business operations they conducted on the airport, the fees they paid, the contracts they worked under, and all manner of ways that they could conjure to create trouble for the aviation business. One complainant reportedly logged 850 solo complaints, in 2014, alone. Some complaints were even lodged against the skydiving center on days that the jumpers weren't even flying. Worse; the amount of misinformation put forth by CQS and their allies was astounding, confounding and simply unsupportable by fact.

In the most recent skirmishing, an appeal by Citizens for Quiet Skies (which seemed to be nothing more than a fund-raising structure for Gibbs to maintain her attacks on Mile-Hi) was defeated by an appeals court. After a bit more than a week of deliberations, the Colorado Court of Appeals took the side of Mile-Hi Skydiving against CQS on almost every contention raided in the appeal of a judgement awarded last year. The appeal concerned the 2015 decision by Boulder District Court Judge Judith LaBuda -- who denied each and every claim brought by CQS, whereupon the Judge added a 'special appeal' in her statements requesting all parties to 'move on' from there on out.

Unfortunately; despite the continual attacks on Mile-Hi Skydiving, and the huge losses experienced by Gibbs and Citizens for Quiet Skies, the fight may not be over as Gibbs and her counsel have signaled that they continue to fight these decisions, despite their inability to win their cases. According to recent media reports, Gibbs was quoted as stating, "We're definitely going to keep going. We already have some great ideas and some very encouraging ideas we'll be discussing in the coming weeks with our supporters and legal team... We're going to continue to advocate on behalf of Boulder County citizens and residents to support reasonable regulations."

Of course, her mandate for advocating for the citizens of Boulder County is questionable... as commentary on a number of news blogs and comment sites seems to indicate that Gibbs support is very much in the minority among the locals... and by quite a bit.

ANN, as always, will keep you informed.

FMI: www.mile-hi-skydiving.com, www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/County/Contact.cfm?County_ID=62, www.facebook.com/pages/Citizens-For-Quiet-Skies/213188222077598?fref=ts, http://longmontcolorado.gov/Home/Components/News/News/766/3?backlist=%2f, www.facebook.com/pages/Citizens-Against-Citizens-for-Quiet-Skies/400414700081888?sk=timeline, http://citizensforquietskies.org, https://cojudicial.ompnetwork.org/shows/15ca1159-15ca1840-16ca0208?iframe_mode=true