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Gold/Mining/Energy : Stillwater Mining , SWC (former PGMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob Howarth who wrote (1039)	12/8/1999 9:38:00 PM
From: RWILL	Respond to of 1336

More info on SWC from the local newspaper. From this site, billingsgazette.com click on the region section. Scroll down to find this article. If looking after 12/8/99, look in the archives Mining opponents dealt blow; zoning decision rescinded By DAN BURKHART Of The Gazette Staff COLUMBUS - A zoning district in Stillwater County that was created to stop a major mining development collapsed Tuesday when the Stillwater County Commission rescinded a decision it made in May 1998 to create the district. "We're doing the right thing," commission chairman Harold Blattie said. "The presumption we made in 1998 was based on incomplete information. When we got accurate information, we could make the right determination. We're certain now there were not enough signatures to justify creating the district. We felt all along it was a jurisdictional issue and based on the findings we did not have jurisdiction." The district, called the Stillwater River Corridor, was adopted by the county after receiving petitions purportedly signed by 60 percent of the freeholders within a specified area. The landowners signing the petition wanted an area roughly eight miles along the Stillwater River zoned to prohibit commercial and industrial development. They targeted an area where Stillwater Mining Co. was building a 163-acre tailings impoundment for its platinum group metals mine at Nye. "We're pleased," SMC president Harry Smith said. "We're happy the issue was resolved." SMC never stopped its development as the zoning issue was entangled in legal issues. The company stated it did not believe it could be legally stopped from developing the impoundment. The impoundment, needed for the company's expansion, is about 50 percent completed, Smith said. The company plans to triple production at its Nye mine. There was no reaction from the landowners who initiated the zoning district. The attorney for the landowners, Gary Thomas of Red Lodge, had no comment about the decision. Thomas, who requested a postponement in November when the commission was poised to act on a planning staff report that there were insufficient signatures to the petition, did not attend the meeting in Columbus. In November, Thomas threatened legal action. He stated in a letter to the commission " ... if the county takes any action to decertify, invalidate or dis-establish the petition, the signatures on it or the zoning district itself, I will recommend to my clients that they promptly seek all lawful relief to which they may be entitled." But when informed of the commission's action, Thomas declined to say whether the landowners would seek legal relief. "Nothing changed in the report we had in November from the planning staff," Blattie said. "What changed was the information from the Attorney General about whether what we were doing was right." The planning staff, after receiving an opinion on several issues involved with the zoning from state Attorney General Joe Mazurek, sought to clarify the boundary of the district and the validity of signatures. Under the zoning statute used by the landowners, 60 percent of the freeholders within the proposed district were required to create the district. In May 1998 the county determined there were sufficient signatures, but decided to review the issue in July 1999 after receiving the AG opinion. Since that time the county planning staff had worked to gather a list of all possible freeholders within the district compared to the number who signed. It also researched whether all those who signed were entitled to sign. "The percentage is clearly below 60 percent," county planner Bo Bowman told the commission. Bowman said it appeared that between 51 percent and 55 percent of the signatures were valid, meaning the petition was invalid. The difference in the percentages depended on whether the county used a list that included corporate or trust ownership, something the planning staff earlier stated could invalidate some signatures. Bowman said the planning staff "did its best to try to favor the landowners while thoroughly researching and scrutinizing the list." Every deed within the district -more than 300 - was pulled from county records to study. "No one was eliminated based on a technicality," he said. "They either weren't in the district and were never qualified to sign or they weren't named on the deeds within the district." Good investing to all. RGWII