Mine Discussion huge success

On the evening of Wednesday, June 25, nearly 300 community members showed up at the Center for the Arts for a panel discussion on the re-opening of the Idaho-Maryland Mine.

This was the first large-scale public forum about the mine organized by independent citizen groups. The audience submitted more than 90 written questions during the event; as many as possible were answered by the panelists.

We'd like to thank the Grass Valley city council members and other officials that showed up and gave their time to hear the community's questions. While there is no such thing as a perfect forum, we hope everyone came away from the event with new information and understanding.

All five major local media sources were invited; thanks to KVMR, YubaNet, and NCTV for sitting on our media panel to pose their own questions. Dixie Redfearn from KNCO was present and very interested, but unfortunately did not receive the invitation ahead of time.

Our moderator, veteran school teacher Mona Matthias, gave tremendously of her time, energy, and skill. Mona, along with the timing, vetting, and usher crews, made sure the night was run in a predictable and controlled manner.

You can read all of the questions and panelist responses at www.yubanet.com/minepanel - thanks to YubaNet for providing the Web hosting.

Tom Grundy

Nevada City