The Binkleys did not consider $1 per person to be a “reasonable rental rate for blocking the easement.”

He sought details of internal Binkley operations so he could confirm the customer count and plans for the easement. He also asked for “a dollar per person for every customer who crosses the easement starting in 2019 and going forward,” for a minimum of $25,000 a year.

In a settlement offer last year, Reeves asked for $500,000 from the Binkleys for having blocked the easement from 2012-2018-his estimate of the number of customers who rode the tourist railroad during those years. Reeves, whose daughters operate the Gold Daughters mining operation for tourists, still owns other property near the dredge that could be accessed through the easement. Through their lawyer, Mike Kramer, the Binkleys have told the court that Reeves is mainly interested in damaging their business and “has only spoken vaguely of starting a competing tourist attraction or moving his daughters’ gold panning attraction from its current prime location off the Steese Highway.” One of the family-owned companies named in the lawsuit is Gold Dredge 8 LLC, which is managed by Ryan Binkley, who is also president and CEO of the Anchorage Daily News. The outcome could determine how much the Binkley family has to pay to continue to run the tourist railroad at Gold Dredge 8, which carries thousands of passengers on summer days, but crosses an easement owned by Reeves that he wants to be paid for. The long and costly feud between John Reeves and John Binkley, whose family owns a major Fairbanks tourist operation and the Anchorage Daily News, enters a new phase this week with another court trial in Fairbanks.

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