The Nevada County Planning Commission, in a stunning 180 degree reversal over their earlier intention to approve vesting, tonight voted unanimously to deny Blue Lead Mine the vested right to mine.

They were no doubt influenced by the new revelation by Dave Comstock that Lyle White, on whom Blue Lead was pinning its hopes for vesting because he was thought to be a serious miner on the Blue Lead property in 1954, was in fact working full-time as a typesetter for The Union newspaper during the fifties, and thus could not have been conducting mining at Blue Lead in any serious manner.

Most of the commissioners could not get over that fact, and seemed seriously shaken from their earlier determinaton to grant the right.

When I asked Dave Comstock before the meeting what his source was for that new revelation, he told me it was Bob Wyckoff.

In his comments to the Commission, Blue Lead owner, Robert White (no relation to Lyle White) angrily accused Dave Comstock of “having an agenda.”

In several discussions I’ve had with Dave Comstock about this whole process, I know for certain that his only agenda was to get people to understand the truth about Lyle White, who was not a miner, after all, but a typesetter by profession and historian by avocation (for the love of it). Comstock knew Lyle White personally and clearly respected him.

Blue Lead has the right to appeal the decision to the County Board of Supervisors. Most likely, though, they will give up the quest for vested right and resume their pursuit of an ordinary use permit to mine.

We’ll report it here if such an appeal occurs.