---

After four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills it's time that the city of Dodgeville and Lands' End find some resolution in their ongoing dispute over the value of the company's property. As I wrote this week (front page), the company filed another lawsuit over their assessment.

In case you are keeping score it's 1-1. Lands' End won their case over the 2005 & 2006 assessment and the city won the 2008 case. The 2007 case is currently in limbo and a complaint was filed last week over the 2009 assessment.

In a nutshell, Judge Edward Leineweber, ruling in favor of the company in the 2005 & 2006 case, discredited the firm, Midwest Valuations, who assessed the Lands' End property for the city. In the 2008 case, Judge Bill Dyke pretty much destroyed the creditability of the firm who Lands' End hired to do their assessment.

Judge Leineweber believes the Lands' End property is worth $25 million, Judge Dyke believes it's worth $54 million. In all probability the 2009 case will probably be heard by a different judge. At the rate this is going at some point court system is going to run out of judges to hear these cases.

I know for a fact that the city of Dodgeville has reached out to Lands' End to come to some type of settlement, only to be rebuffed by Lands' End. The company has even accused the city of attempting to try the case through the media.

Just for the record all news articles on this case have been written right from the court records and documents from the city. Any reference to this case by the city council has been made at public meetings.

This is my third opinion column on this case. The first was back in 2006 and I wrote that the city and Lands' End should try to work a solution to the issue. The second column was last year when I criticized Judge Leineweber for not recusing himself from the 2007 case. Judge Leineweber accused the city of "judge shopping" which to me showed bias.

Talking to people on the "street" about his case brings varying opinions. Some people believe the city should give Lands' End what they want or they might move. Others think valuing the Lands' End complex at $25 million is a joke.

The bottom line is without some type of settlement this dispute is affecting the taxpayers of this county. The payback from the 2005 & 2006 case forced the city to borrow money, the Dodgeville School District to dig into their fund equity and the county to cut from other areas of their budget. Many of the taxpayers who are paying this money back are Lands' End employees themselves.

As I wrote before, I knew Lands' End Founder Gary Comer. If he would have had a problem with the property tax assessment there would have been about two meetings with the city and it would have been resolved. However, it's a different world now and corporate life isn't what it used to be.

On the flip side Lands' End and the city and this entire county have a long history together. Lands' End has done a lot for the community and it doesn't go unnoticed. Even with this tax dispute going on, the city council, at various times, has commented that this is strictly a business dispute and will not affect the long relationship the company and city have.

I do have a novel idea though. Maybe this case should be tried in the media. Lands' End thinks their property is worth $25 million, the city thinks it's worth $54 million. This judge will split the difference and value the company at $40 million. Does that sound like a deal guys?