Happy tourists splash as water park battle rages

By Nate Giarnese

A weeks-long showdown drenched in water and drama rolled into the weekend between the town and one of its largest, most famous resorts. Yet carefree tourists, unaware of mounting local tensions over a permitting fiasco, were still flocking to the Red Jacket for the inaugural week of its Kahuna Laguna water park. Despite a town edict and a court order to shut down, guests frolicking in the newly built tropics-themed tangle of jungle gyms and water slides said the water park added to the allure of the already iconic hilltop resort. Some non-skiers said it provided a thrilling indoor alternative to frosty ski hills. Kahuna Laguna opened vacation week, ignoring a refusal by town officials to issue an occupancy permit after they discovered a 1,500-square-foot ventilation unit that wasn't on approved blueprints. Then, on Feb. 13, a judge issued a court order to lock the doors to the water park until a permit was issued.Red Jacket Resort management said Thursday that Kahuna Laguna staff, decked out in shorts, Hawaiian shirts and rubber clogs, were too swamped with tourists to talk with a reporter. Meanwhile, Massachusetts moms and dads said the big colorful indoor slides, wading pool and showering jungle gym left kids giggling and parents pleased.Jen Gariepa said it was everything she expected and more. We will come back every year, she said. This is our favorite hotel. Sometimes you get up somewhere and it's not what you expected. Not here. The kids love it. Other parents streaming into the lobby said they had heard nothing of the budding war of words between town officials and the hotel that earlier in the week appeared destined for another court hearing Monday. (The water park) is why we came, said Massachusetts mom Ileen Montecalro, who brought four kids who were dying to to get wet.I can't wait to get in the water. I've never been in a water park, one small son said.While town officials Thursday were reportedly considering a deal out of court, they earlier in the week had threatened to pursue contempt-of-court charges that could result in fines or even arrests.After admitting to an oversight in the planning stages, the Red Jacket was barred by a judge from keeping the park open before another round of town reviews. Town officials had stumbled on an unapproved heating recovery unit and cracked down as neighbors complained about the noise.The $1 million mechanical ventilation unit looks like an air conditioner the size of a small building parked on a concrete slab. But one project official said the custom-made piece is fine-tuned to the 40,000-square-foot park and its unique humidity levels and that they never considered it a building. The hotel would have come to the town had it known, the official insisted.We weren't hiding anything. It's right there. We didn't realize a concrete pad was a building under the building code, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the pending legal case. Guests can't go in there. It's not like you can sit down inside and have a cup of coffee.Building crews had sped up work in time to open while schools were out. The shut-down order threatened to disappoint droves of guests with reservations and dampen a lucrative vacation week.One hundred and seventy five to 225 workers toiling long days cut the potentially year-long project down to six months, said the project official, who was perplexed by fierceness of the reactions of town planning and selectmen's boards to what he described as an innocent misunderstanding.I just don't understand, he said. There was no malice (on the part of the hotel). There must be some other reason. The owners of the Red Jacket for four decades have chosen not to sell off plots of their sprawling lawns on the high-traffic strip to fast food chains, he said. The Davenport family has not subdivided. You drive down 16, the only two pieces of green grass you see is at the hotels, he said. The other is the nearby Fox Ridge Resort. Meanwhile, another avenue of dialog was making noise outside of the courtroom.The official said the hotel at the request of the town is hiring a sound engineer to measure decibel levels at the property line and is aiming to build a fence after neighbors complained. One hired a lawyer.The unit is a serious nuisance because it emits loud and obnoxious noise that interferes with the quiet enjoyment of the abutting property owned by Ms. Reddington and other neighbors, wrote Jim Kelly, the lawyer representing Duprey Road landlord, Catherine Reddington, in a letter to the town.Had the unit been caught in early plans, the town could then have dealt with sound mitigation and other issues before it was built. It could also have given the neighbors a chance to speak to the noise factor at a public hearing.The park official said the hotel was attempting to comply, but was frustrated because, he said, local ordinances are unclear on sound. So we go get a sound engineer, pay him $2,500, for what? he said. They need a bylaw. They don't have anything to go by.Not wanting to annoy guests, he said hotels consider noise a high priority. I've got the comfort of my guests to think about, he said.But all the buzz was lost on Anne Foye, of Hamilton Mass., as she marched from her mini-van across the parking lot to drop bags in the room then her kids into the water. She hadn't been in the park yet, but it's why her family, which doesn't ski, made the trek up. We can do something, anything besides ski, she said, adding that her family also planned to ice skate at Nestlenook in Jackson.