A public listening session on proposed Wisconsin mining legislation will be held at the Ashland AmericInn beginning at 9 a.m. on Feb. 9. The public event will focus on Senate Bill 1 and Assembly Bill 1 authored by State Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) and Legislative Reference Bureau proposal 0821, authored by Sen. Tim Cullen (D-Janesville).

State Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) and Rep. Janet Bewley (D-Ashland) said they're hosting the session because their Republic counterparts have not answered their request to hold a hearing near a proposed mining site near Mellen.

“The only option remaining to ensure that the citizens of the North who were deliberately excluded from the process have their voices heard is to hold this listening session instead,” Jauch said in a news release.

He said the listening session will not be a partisan event.

"It is an opportunity for citizens on all sides of the issue to be heard in a respectful manner, unlike the embarrassing manner in which the hearing on Wednesday was conducted,” Bewley said.

“The committee chairs could have held a hearing somewhere in central Wisconsin to make it equally accessible for citizens from around the state to attend, but they didn’t. Someone living in Ashland or Iron Counties had to drive 11 hours round trip for the chance to offer two minutes in testimony on a bill that will directly impact their community,” Jauch said. “Instead they chose to make the hearing convenient for their friends in Southeastern Wisconsin, going so far as to reserve a room for the conservative political group Americans For Prosperity to work from during the hearing, a reservation that was placed a full three days before the committee chairs announced the hearing to the public.”

Sen. Cullen and Rep. Nick Milroy (D-Superior) have indicated they will participate and Jauch expects more legislators to announce plans to join them in the coming days.

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