Yesterday, meeting in Yerington, the Lyon County Planning Commission (PC) heard Comstock Mining’s (CMI) application for changes in land use and change in zoning on property in south Silver City where the Dayton Consolidated Mill is located.  If approved, these changes would allow mining on the property under a special use permit. The PC voted 5 to 1 (one commissioner absent) against the master plan change and unanimously against the change in zoning.

This issue was to be heard at the  November 12 PC meeting to which SC brought about 40 residents, only to find that CMI asked for (and got) a continuance to December. CMI and Silver City didn’t receive the staff report until the Friday before the meeting but CMI said they had not had enough time to review it. I suspect it was more that they were reacting to the strong negative recommendations of the report (more about the CMI’s reaction to this in a subsequent blog). The continuance disappointed the 40 SC folks attending the meeting, but as we vowed to do, we turned out more (50+) people for the December meeting.

At yesterday’s hearing, CMI tried to introduce new supporting material that neither the PC members or SC had seen. This didn’t go over very well (the PC essentially ignored it), and CMI’s Mr. De Gasperis’ meandering presentation was not his usual glib performance. In contrast, testimony by Silver’s attorney John Marshal and our experts was brief and to the point.  A video (http://youtu.be/S6jiRu9JM1o) of interviews with SC residents that Thomas Honesco, Canyon Cassidy and I made helped to emphasize what impacts and burdens mining in town would impose on people living here.

I said “would allow mining,” in the first paragraph because the PC automatically goes to the five member Lyon County Board of Commissioners (BOC) in January. The BOC is problematic because one of the sitting Commissioners won his seat in part with the aid of contributions totaling about $17k from John V. Winfield, the major investor in CMI, and another commissioner seems hostile to us (despite numerous invitations, has never met with SC residents, but frequently meets with CMI).

I’ll try to keep you posted on this and will also talk more about CMI’s reactions to the Lyon County Staff report.