Sunday, June 3, 2018

While these Issues do not Generally Impact Guest Saftey...


New news this week: two more charges (according to a local ABC affiliate). Also some interesting developments from the Schlitterbahn Family of Resorts as they've been gearing up for the 2018 operating season. Their South Texas property was forced into a bankruptcy sale. And their deadly Kansas Waterpark failed to live up to the new safety standards imposed by the State since the change in the State's attitude toward safety regulation

The whole idea that a water-park needs minimal state intervention is based on the idea that a guest safety is so central to the operating of amusement attractions that no operator would ever allow such safety standards to dip. Yet according to Steve Vockrodt of the Kansas City Star while "Much of the Kansas Department of Labor audit identified missing operator manuals.... [i]t also found that parts on the Soaring Eagle Zipline, which were meant to operate for five years before replacement, were entering in their sixth year of operation."

So much for self-interested self-regulation. How a company facing criminal charges related to the maintenance of its attractions could make such an obvious blunder is mind-boggling. Are they so broke they can't afford proper maintenance? Are they so calloused that they feel that replacement schedules are a needless waste of time? Do they feel so besieged that they can not even see the plain writing on the wall? Are they just incompetent? Is the media sensationalizing the per-operation audit to imply that they were going to operate an attraction they never planned on opening this year? Who knows?

What we do know is that the new charges in the case are against the maintenance workers mentioned in the prior indictments. Not a shocking development as the original indictments indicate that these two individuals lied to investigators (and as the Muller probe reminds us: lying to the police is a crime). Now what will be interesting is that these are just employees. The other defendants are 'family members' of a 'family run' Amusement Resort Company. Perhaps these two will plead out and flip. Perhaps the charges are the pressure point to force the testimony.

Regardless, all of the above are just more bad omens for Schlitterbahn and the other defendants in the upcoming trials. Meanwhile the public face of the resorts ensures us that the fact that the State of Kansas could not find any maintenance logs for any of the park's attractions "... do not generally impact guest safety" while their lender, per the local business journal, has filed a report with the SEC to warn their investors that the likelihood of default on loans has increased because of all these pesky criminal charges (more on that soon).

(incompetence abounds on this case; according to this report the AG's office goofed and charged a non-existent business entity. That, at least, explains Schlitterbahn KC's acting at first as if they weren't charged with anything. Per Mr. Vockrodt's reporting in the KC Star look for a corrected indictment soon)