FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The trial date in the lawsuit against the city of Fairhope and Mayor Tim Kant by the local Charles Dyas family involving the so-called “Triangle” property owned by them was rescheduled this week.

On Monday, a federal district court in Mobile granted a joint motion of the parties to extend discovery and trial deadlines in the case by 90 days. Jury selection is now scheduled for Nov. 3, with the trial to occur later that month, according to court documents.

The court ordered all discovery in the case to be completed by July 30 and set a final pretrial conference for Oct. 20.

“As this court is aware, this lawsuit is a discovery-intensive case that requires numerous document requests, third-party subpoenas, as well as depositions,” stated the motion filed Jan. 30 by attorneys for plaintiffs and defendants in the case. “The parties engaged in extensive document production prior to scheduling depositions, as the documents were needed in order to conduct the depositions. Many of the needed depositions are of public officials with somewhat limited time and availability. Thus, it has been more difficult that usual to schedule depositions, although the parties have diligently worked together to do so, and Mayor Kant has recently been deposed. Also, the Dyases simply need to take many depositions to present their case, and this need for more than the usual number of depositions necessitates this request for an extension.”

The lawsuit was filed April 4, 2008, in Baldwin County Circuit Court against the city of Fairhope and Kant, in an individual capacity, by Charles Dyas, Arthur Dyas, Drew Dyas, Eric Dyas and Pamela Vautier. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Daniel Blackburn, Matthew McDonald and Kirkland Reid.

The case was removed to federal district court in May 2008 by the defendants. Both the city and Kant are represented by attorneys Caine O’Rear, Katherine Bonnici and Lisa Cooper.

U.S. District Judge William H. Steele is presiding over the lawsuit, which involves five causes of action against the city and two against Kant individually.

In August, the court dismissed some aspects of the lawsuit, but left several claims intact against the city and Kant.

The initial claims against the city alleged breach of contract, equal protection and due process violations, inverse condemnation and negligence; and, against Kant, misrepresentation and conspiracy.

The plaintiffs claim the city’s official actions regarding the Triangle property differed from that taken regarding the so-called “Corte rectangle” where a Publix Super Market is under construction, and harmed the Dyases as a result. The lawsuit also alleges that the city’s proposed changes in traffic flows around the Triangle property, that had not yet taken place at the time the lawsuit was filed, also damaged the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs also claim Kant made representations to the Dyases that the city would approve a 54,000-square-foot grocery store at the Triangle like that at the Corte property, but then voted against it as a member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

In addition to Kant, three other non-party individuals have also been deposed, and a fifth deposition is scheduled for Feb. 10, according to court documents.

In October, the court held that certain records that Kant had objected to producing during discovery were “public writings” under the “Alabama Open Records Act.” It ordered Kant to produce all land line, cellular phone and electronic mail billing records for any telephone or account used by Kant and paid for by the city during the past couple years, as requested by the plaintiffs.

“Certainly, to the extent the City of Fairhope pays Kant’s land and cellular phone bills, and e-mail account bills, it is reasonable to assume that it does so because the mayor is carrying on the city’s business activities,” the court order stated. “Accordingly, the (court) finds that such billing records are ‘public writings’ and because the defendants have not shown that same fall within an exception recognized (by the appropriate legal standard) warranting non-disclosure, such records are to be produced to plaintiffs not later than Oct. 22.”

The court said records paid for by Kant need not be produced.

Disputes between the city and the Dyases over development of the Triangle property date back to the administration of former Mayor James Nix. A prior lawsuit filed by the Dyases in 1998 against the city and local officials also involved similar development efforts. That lawsuit was dismissed after the city agreed to rezone the property as a planned unit development district, according to court records.

The current lawsuit claims that the city breached its contract with the Dyases by taking official actions more favorable to the Corte planned unit development across U.S. 98 from the Triangle property.

On Jan. 12, Kant presented and read aloud a letter to the City Council at a work session that addressed three areas he wanted addressed in 2009, seeking the council’s help with them.

The last item concerns the current litigation.

“The ‘Triangle’ property needs to be addressed once and for all,” Kant’s letter stated. “I am going to form a committee to look at purchasing the land and make a report to this council on how to pay for the land. The issue has been looked at by the (city) Planning (and Zoning) Commission for the past 30 (plus) years with no end to the litigation, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with no end in sight; it would be better to preserve the entrance to Fairhope and stop this madness.”

Kant said after the meeting that he had asked George Roberds to help him “select a committee that can present options to the city.”

Roberds serves as chairman of the Baldwin County Planning Commission on which Arthur Dyas, a plaintiff in the current litigation serves as vice-chairman.

Kant said one of the options for raising money to fund the purchase of the land would include a sales tax.

“I did not raise the issue (to purchase the property) because of the current litigation,” he said.