Assembly To Hold Mining Hearing In Northern Wisconsin

Let's hope the weather cooperates so people can get to Hurley on January 11th.

The Assembly jobs committee's chairwoman, Rep. Mary Williams, was criticized last month for holding a hearing in West Allis, a Milwaukee suburb hundreds of miles from the mine site. She has now decided to hold a hearing at a motel in Hurley on Wednesday, Jan. 11.

Williams aide Charlie Bellin says his boss thought a Senate mining committee would hold a northern hearing but nothing has emerged from that panel. He says she heard enough outrage over the West Allis site she decided a northern hearing was justified.

The Assembly bill is a legal and political mess, and last month's hearing in West Allis was a fiasco for the bill's phantom authors, but a triumph for citizen action.

Further information at the Ashland Current.

Not everyone will be happy with the venue, timing or schedule:

The hearing is scheduled to take place in Hurley on Jan. 11 at 10 a.m. at the Hurley Inn.

William's announcement comes only three days before a planned hearing on the mining bill at the Ashland High School auditorium.

The Saturday hearing's sponsors, Rep. Janet Bewley (D-Ashland) and state Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar), canceled the event shortly after learning about William's plan to hold a hearing on Jan. 11.

An aide for Williams, Charlie Bellin, said the committee tried to locate the Jan. 11 hearing in Ashland County, closer to the proposed Gogebic Taconite mining site, but Hurley had the "best venue available," he said.

Given that the hearing would take place during a weekday, it couldn't be held at a school in Ashland County, he said.