Hearing is set on comp plan

NEWPORT — Pend Oreille County’s board of commissioners is conducting a public hearing on Wednesday, May 22, to consider amendments to the county’s comprehensive land use plan.

The hearing runs from 6-9 p.m. at Newport High School.

Comments may be submitted at the public hearing or in writing to Greg Snow, director of Community Development, P.0. Box 5066, Newport, WA. 99156. They can also be submitted via email (gsnow@pendoreille.org).

Copies of the proposed revisions can be viewed from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Pend Oreille Community Development Department, Courthouse Annex, 418 South Scott Ave.

Last month, the county’s planning commission decided on a split vote to recommend denial of a comp plan amendment which would reclassify public lands across the county.

Some contend the comp plan change is meant to feather the nest for PacWest Silicon’s proposed smelter operation south of Newport because parcels purchased for the project carry the public lands designation. County officials, however, have denied that the public lands comp plan amendment is related to the smelter proposal.

Talk of the smelter was conspicuously absent from P&Z discussion of the proposed plan change in Cusick on March 9.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.