Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / The historic Leap the Dips roller coaster is at the center of the latest lawsuit between the Lakemont Partnership and the Blair County commissioners.

Blair County has filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction that would prevent the organization that operates county-owned Lakemont Park from selling the historic Leap the Dips roller coaster.

Under a 2006 agreement, the Lakemont Partnership owns the Leap the Dips and is responsible for maintaining and preserving it, but if that maintenance and preservation proved financially unfeasible, the responsibility would end Oct. 8 — upon which the partnership could give the county 60 days to take the coaster back — or failing that, sell the roller coaster to a third party.

In a letter dated Oct. 13, the partnership declared that it planned to execute that “out” provision, and if the county doesn’t exercise its takeback option, to sell a sequence of actions the county claims the partnership has forfeited the right to take, due to alleged lease violations.

Those violations include “failing to properly preserve and maintain Leap the Dips through Oct. 8” and failing to pay “requisite percentage rent” for the recreational (non-amusement) area of the park.

The partnership also allegedly failed to “open their books and records to the county” when the county wanted to determine the income the partnership was earning; and failing to operate the area within the fence line at Lakemont as a “public park” during the summers of 2024 and 2025 (although there were recreational options, including basketball and volleyball courts, mini-golf and picnic pavilions).

The Leap the Dips has not been architecturally sound since it ceased being operated after the 2023 season, the lawsuit alleges.

The partnership took no steps to preserve or maintain the roller coaster during 2024 and this year, according to the lawsuit.

The partnership didn’t pay the proper percentage of income generated from its use of the non-amusement/recreational area of the premises, according to the lawsuit.

The injunction is justified based on the “irreparable” harm that could be done if the roller coaster — “of immense historical significance” — is lost to Blair County, given the only countervailing harm to the partnership would be a slight delay in the sale, if the court should rule in the partnership’s favor, according to the lawsuit.

Having been made aware of the lawsuit complaint Tuesday evening, the Mirror reached out to partnership president Andrea Cohen, who is named individually as a defendant alongside the partnership, and alongside her brother, Philip Devorris, who isn’t an officer in the partnership, but didn’t hear back from her.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.