Today Wolfeboro, with assent of WP’s attorneys, has filed a motion to extend deadlines for a 5 month delay of everything.  Citing that this trial involves “complex engineering issues” and the claim that there are over 100,000 documents to review.  I guess they got a sample of the kind of defense they are up against and realized they need to step up their game.

So the end of discovery would be moved from June 1 to November 1, the deadline for arbitration from June 1 to November 1, and the trial moved from September 17 to sometime in February 2014.

Naturally the attorneys from both sides have agreed to this extension, after all, they’ll be on the clock for five more months.  At hundreds of dollars per hour, per attorney, I have to wonder how far that half-million bucks is going to go.  We were already budgeted for a total $.7 million for this action.   The deeper in we get, the harder it is to get out.  Maybe our attorneys, realizing that they have a weak case, have decided to try to bleed us till we back out or settle for peanuts.

Our Selectmen should obtain from them an accurate estimate of the total cost of this extension, then either renew to the public their optimism for a productive outcome or cut our loses.  Because right now, it sure looks as if they’ve been blowing smoke.

IMHO, from the beginning this was throwing good money after bad.