The BCC Weekly – Taking the “Blind” out of the BCC
Last month, Commissioners Chris Barnett and Ron Smith made a vote on an issue in front of the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) that in my opinion was the equivalent of turning down millions of “free” revenue for Josephine County law enforcement programs and instead opted for what could be millions of added expenses for the county. But before I dive into the details, be aware that this week’s BCC Weekly is more of an op-ed opinion piece and I have a big personal dog in the fight (conflict of interest) in reporting on this topic.
I’ve been following the BCC very closely ever since 2012 when the County lost a significant amount of federal timber replacement dollars (SRS funds) that used to provide a big part of support for County law enforcement and justice programs. I was one of several people that helped start a nonprofit dedicated to getting the County law enforcement programs back on their feet.
In the years to follow, Josephine County outside the City of Grants Pass had less law enforcement than many third-world countries. Until 2017 when County voters finally approved a levy for the adult jail and juvenile justice operations, our law enforcement financial crisis was severe. Many different ideas and solutions were studied, and one of the most popular ideas in the eyes of voters was to get back to making better use of our plentiful natural resources (think both timber and mineral resources). Many locals understand our timber history, but this is when I learned much more about our vast local mineral resources and teamed up with a local expert in this arena with a goal of supporting county law enforcement.
Before timber was big business, the local economic landscape was dominated by the mining industry. The vast majority of the membership of the Commercial Club, the predecessor to the Chamber of Commerce over 100 years ago, were involved in the mining industry in some form or fashion. Many of our local lands, both public and privately owned, are misclassified as timber/forestry properties when they are really mineral properties or have significant dual-use potential in both timber and mineral resources.
Josephine County has significant revenue-earning potential from our mineral resources, just as it has significant potential in timber. While former Commissioner John West started the ball rolling on selling many of the County timber properties (without assessing mineral potential), Josephine County still owns a large amount of “timber” properties, many of which started as patented mineral properties rather than timber properties. While there is a potential to earn revenue from federally managed properties, today’s subject is how to make better use of our county owned “timber” properties.
A microscope picture of rock from a private property in
Josephine County that contains gold and tellurium
In the 1980s, an ordinance was approved by the County and added into the County Code to govern the process of doing a mineral exploration permit or mining lease on County-owned timber lands. County staff may have expertise in timber operations, but the County needs an outside private party with industry expertise in order to develop mineral resources that may be on County owned properties. Without going into too much detail, the ordinance states that for any applicant that gets approval from the County for a mineral exploration permit, if they spend time and money and find a high-quality mineral deposit during the period they hold an exploration permit from the County, the County shall grant them a longer-term mining lease.
It doesn’t say may, the ordinance says shall. This is very intentional, because no mineral development company would spend time and money developing the mineral resources on a property without the guarantee of long-term access to the property if they find a valuable mineral reserve. In fact, in this industry usually lands are leased out for many years into the future before significant exploration even begins on a property.
One of my business partners and founder of American Mineral Research (a company we created about 10 years ago) who has decades of local experience in mineral research, first tried to do a mineral exploration permit on a specific County-owned property back in 2008. In the years following his application, former Commissioner Simon Hare blocked his application citing a need to update the ordinance. The ordinance requires a decision by the County on any application, and the BCC led by Commissioner Hare at the time, ignored the ordinance requirements. And in the end, no changes were made to the ordinance.
So, we tried again in 2019, submitting an application for a mineral exploration permit on a County-owned property that has a history of mineral development activity about 30 years ago. There is a literal gold mine that partially goes under a section on the western end of the property. Close to $3 million was spent drilling this property a little over 30 years ago, and a significant gold reserve was found on this end of the property. Due to lower commodity prices 30 years ago, a project didn’t move forward at the time, but this is a perfect small business opportunity today that could benefit both the County and the developer. We knew at the time of our application a significant mineral reserve existed on this property, but we needed to do some of our own exploration and research work on the property.
All the way back to our 2019 application we stated our intention in doing this project was to help the County earn extra revenues for County law enforcement programs. So in May 2020 after a couple hearings by the BCC, we were approved for a 3-year mineral exploration permit. While we were slowed down significantly by Covid in the 2 years to follow our permit approval, we found very promising results when we explored this property. There is, without any doubt, a very high-quality gold deposit on this County owned property, which by the County ordinance should guarantee us a long-term mining lease on the property.
But shortly after we were approved for the exploration permit in 2020, the shenanigans by both County officials and a neighboring mining company began. We uncovered evidence that a neighboring mining company was illegally mining underneath this County property for several years before we were approved for the permit. We reported this to County Counsel Wally Hicks and a Sheriff deputy, as the theft of gold ore was likely in the hundreds of thousands or maybe even over $1 million by this point. Under Wally’s direction, a comprehensive investigation never happened. This was likely the biggest theft from the County in the history of Josephine County, and for some reason Wally didn’t feel it needed to be pursued in great detail.
We had to force a more formal investigation a few years later when we decided for sure that we were going to seek a longer-term mining lease on the property. But by then, the thief literally was able to cover their tracks. During the three years we held an exploration permit, we heard from sources that County Commissioners and County officials had more meetings with the neighboring mining company who was illegally mining under the property than they held with us, the one party who had a legal permit to be working this property. And the County’s Forestry Director along with former Commissioners John West and Herman Baertschiger treated us very poorly during the three years we held a permit. It seemed as if their goal was to prevent us from doing this project, which is extremely concerning given the County’s Forestry Director Dave Streeter had a friendly relationship with a representative of the neighboring mining company who was illegally mining on this property before we secured the permit. Public records requests showed that Dave Streeter and the individual illegally mining under this County property exchanged text messages somewhat regularly.
We tried to get an extension on our 3-year permit due to all the delays we experienced during Covid. The BCC, led by former Commissioners John West and Herman Baertschiger along with Wally Hicks, tried to illegally force us to pay new permit fees that were not even built into the County’s fee schedule. Due to the illegal and uncertain nature of the fees they were trying to force on us for the permit extension, we had no choice but to withdraw the permit extension request and file a formal application for a mining lease under the terms of the County ordinance.
We turned in over 200 pages of geology information, a notice of mineral discovery, and a mining lease application which proved beyond any doubt that there is a very high-quality gold reserve on this County property. We voluntarily offered to pay a higher than market royalty to the county on any production we would have during the course of the lease, which would have generated millions of revenues to the County to help support County law enforcement programs. The lease and other fees we would have paid would have resulted in no cost to the County for managing the lease, and the County would earn millions to help support County law enforcement.
After just about every commissioner who has run for office in the last decade has claimed they support law enforcement and most claim to support better use of our natural resources in Josephine County, you would think our lease application would be an attractive proposal for County officials. But instead of embracing this significant opportunity, former County Commissioners John West and Herman Baertschiger refused to even bring our application forward for an official hearing and decision of the BCC as required by County Code.
In fact, rather than making a decision on our May 2023 mining lease application, in October 2024 former Commissioner John West arranged a vote of the BCC to just sell this County property before they even decided on our lease application…highly illegal according to the terms of the County code that guaranteed us a lease. Commissioner West, facing a recall, made several false statements to the media about the status of our mining lease application because he didn’t want us to be able to do the project.
Moving forward to early 2025, we had some hope that the three new Commissioners would follow the County law (ordinance) that requires the County to hold a hearing on our mining lease application and make a decision according to the terms of the County Code. Despite County staff telling the 2025 Commissioners there was a pending mining lease application, the new BCC also refused to follow the County Code requirements. We had no choice but to bring a lawsuit against the County just to force the County to follow its own laws and act on our mining lease application.
County Counsel Wally Hicks threw up all kinds of ridiculous legal arguments as to why we shouldn’t be granted a lease and why the County hasn’t acted on our lawful mining lease application. Several of Wally’s legal arguments were issues that were settled years ago when we were first approved for the mineral exploration permit, but Wally argued them anyway. Every single argument Wally made had absolutely no merit, and he knew it, therefore the day before we were set to go to court he settled the lawsuit in our favor and agreed to have the County hold a public hearing on our lease application as the law requires. But by now, we were delayed by two years due to the County’s illegal refusal to follow the code.
After one public hearing in August 2025 and a second meeting with us and the BCC in September, Commissioners Ron Smith and Andreas Blech appeared poised to do the right thing and follow the code requirements in acting on our lease application. Commissioner Chris Barnett was negative the whole time, because after all he’s good buddies with former Commissioner John West who was illegally trying to stop us. County Legal Counsel Wally Hicks resigned from representing the County in this case immediately after our August presentation to the BCC, likely because he’s conflicted in this case. But Wally has not stated the reasons for his resignation from the case. Wally Hicks is a big part of why we have damages against the County in this case.
American Mineral Research offered a couple different lease proposals that would have generated between about $6 million and $10 million of revenues to Josephine County during the life of the lease and mineral development project. And we used a conservative market price of $2000 per ounce of gold in our revenue assumptions. With gold market prices closer to $4000 per ounce as we sit today, the actual amount of revenues to Josephine County could be twice these conservative estimates if gold prices remain closer to today’s market prices. We also warned the County that we would continue to pursue this in the legal arena if our lease application was denied and that we would seek millions of dollars of damages if our lease application was illegally denied.
Here is a near verbatim transcript of Commissioner Ron Smith’s comments and actions in recent meetings.
BCC Meeting on September 17, 2025:
Commissioner Ron Smith – “So, so here’s, here’s my basic opinion of this whole thing. We’re looking at 70 acres. It probably has a value of something like $200,000, which really doesn’t mean much for the county because there’s no timber left on it.
- So what are we haggling about here?
- I mean, is there an opportunity here to actually bring some significant revenue to the county?
- I mean, I mean, what in the world that could happen. I mean, as long as we’re indemnified, sure ensure that we’re not going to be liable for anything.
- What do we as a county, what problem do we have?
- I kind of I’m sitting here thinking, you know, it’s sort of like other properties that we’re… we don’t want to do that [was he referring to the library lease here?]
- We don’t want to sell this property, even though that’s the value of the property.
- We don’t want to sell it because it’s them.
- It has nothing to do with the property or nothing to do with the value.
- So, I’m kind of sitting here wondering what do we have to lose?”
BCC Meeting on September 23, 2025: Commissioner Chris Barnett makes a motion to DENY the application. Ron Smith votes yes to deny, Barnett votes yes to deny, Andreas Blech votes no on denial.
In the end, Commissioners Ron Smith and Chris Barnett made a decision that may end up costing the County millions in lost revenues and millions in additional legal expenses. They ignored what the County Code says are the requirements to get a mining lease, because there is no doubt that our application met all these requirements to be guaranteed a lease.
As we promised, we will in fact continue to pursue this in the legal arena. As legal cases can always be settled out of court, Commissioners Ron Smith and Chris Barnett may have one final chance to do the right thing before it ends up literally costing the County millions.
The moral of this story here is the importance of electing the right people to the top spots in County government. There are many decisions and actions they face that if they make the wrong decision, it will cost the taxpayers millions.
Earlier this year, Commissioner Andreas Blech presided over the firing of two department heads right after last year’s commissioners were found to have bullied and retaliated against them according to an internal investigation by a third party. This was another decision that has a potential to incur millions in legal costs. And considering it was an attorney in Wally Hicks’ legal office that announced the results of the internal investigation…where is Wally Hicks when the BCC takes actions that don’t follow the law? As BOLI cases filed by these former County Directors are reportedly pending, we taxpayers can look forward to some very expensive lawsuits against Josephine County after BOLI weighs in.