G-Tac doesn't deserve lease extension

To the Editor:

Since board members at the Meet the Candidates forum at the Hurley High School said they wouldn’t have signed the lease if they knew what was in it and Iron County Chairman Joe Pinardi said he was working to renegotiate the lease, they shouldn’t float Gogebic Taconite for a year on the lease.

Very few people actually attend meetings to see what is really going on and seem to prefer to talk in generalizations or call anyone who doesn’t like the lease names. That’s not going to help anything.

This is the county’s chance to make things right on that lease for the citizens of the county. Why would anyone be opposed to that?

The documents are available through the courthouse and are online and meetings are open to the public. The lease gives G-Tac too many options the county did not retain for itself. The price of stumpage for this land is a fool’s bargain and giving the mining company an option to end the lease or take another 800-plus acres of its choice of county land for any mining purpose is just asking for trouble.

These things were handled too quickly in the beginning, now our county board should know better. Now is the time to make things right for the citizens.

— Maureen Matusewic

Hurley, Wis.