[47WeeWind]

Originally Posted by Forrest

Still, it looks to me like everyone is giving up too early. Just because the provisional charter was not approved does not mean that a Four Corners Unit can not get a charter.

Good observation, Forrest. If the ITB asks the new unit applicants why they did not first obtain a provisional charter, the answer is that they tried but the Region 11 officers found no compelling reasons to give the applicants any opportunity to demonstrate feasibilty. Therefore, any Regon 11 officer objections before the IBT to granting a permanent unit charter would be unsupported by any credible evidence based on actual performance. Instead, Region 11 officer objectons would be based wholly on speculation as to what might have occured, not on evidentary facts. Seems to me that absence of facts supporting Region 11 officer's objections, coupled with Region 11 disapproval of giving the applicants any opportunity to establish facts favorable to their application, would strengthen the hand of the applicants before the ITB. However, the above analysis assumes a rational world as opposed to a political world.