When Unimin acquired the mineral rights it was considered a change in ownership and at that point it became subject to reassessment. According to documents produced at the hearing, this week, the current owner of the mineral rights interest is the Unimin Corporation whom acquired them through a stock transaction.  Howard Properties, the former owner of the property, has an agreement with Unimin that states the Howard Trust is responsible for paying the property taxes. Therefore, the change of assessment, for the most part, affects Howard Properties because they will be paying the taxes, and yet the documents needed by the county to assess the property must be produced by Unimin since they are in their care. Assessor Jim Rooney described the agreement between Unimin and Howard Properties to TSPN as “unconventional”.  He commented, “Unimin has information and market data that they would probably want kept confidential. Information about the mining interests that they (being Unimin) probably don’t even want Howard to know about.” And that’s where it becomes a sticky situation.

The County by law is required to do an assessment on the property within 4 years from the date of transfer, otherwise anything prior to that they cannot assess. In 2002 the Assessors Office requested documents from both Unimin and Howard properties. Howard Properties claims they complied with that request. Unimin produced very little documentation in response to the request. So in 2004 when the Assessor did not receive the needed documents they did the re-assessment according to the law- with the information that they had available to them. Then Howard Properties, after viewing that assessment, did not agree with the new amount and appealed. Under the Revenue and Tax Code they were entitled to an appeal heaing within 2 years. However, the Assessors Office maintains that because the documents they requested in 2002 and 2003 were never received that they could not hold an appeal hearing because they did not have the appropriate information.

Unimin’s legal counsel, even to the present continues to tell the county that they are in the process of gathering the documentation and at one point more recently said they had the documents and need a confidentiality agreement with the county, according to the attorney for the Assessor’s Office. The legal wrangling at this week’s hearing latest over an hour with the Board of Supervisors using only about 3 minutes for discussion. The main issue for Howard Properties is that the county had two years to conduct this hearing and waited until the last minute to notify them about the missing documents from Unimin and Howard Properties. Howard Properties’ legal representative stated that under law they can not order Unimin to produce the documents, further complicating the issue. Assessor Jim Rooney expressed his frustration to the Board stating “This has been laborious and frustrating for me.” Rooney related that in 2002 was told by then county counsel John Hahn, to not get involved and let the hired attorney and appraiser take care of the matter.

The representative for the Howard trust stated that at anytime the county could have subpoenaed the information and in response the county’s hired attorney stated that he felt that was unnecessary given the representation by Howard Properties and Unimin that the documentation was forthcoming. The hired counsel, Brett Price, saw no reason to “drag everyone from around the state into Amador county Superior Court”.

The Superviosrs then discussed alternative approaches to gaining the documents and information, such as from mandated reports required by the bureau of Mining. Those reports would not suffice they were told because they are more general in nature. After very little discussion Supervisor Forster made a statement followed by a motion. “I’m a bit disturbed about the amount of time this has taken, and it looks like there is fault on all sides for that, and I realize that things like this are complicated and take a long time to be resolved, too.” Forster continued “I do believe that all the information needs to be provided though and I think that we are still in the discovery phase of this and for that reason I will move that we grant the motion for an order determining that the Revenue and Tax Code 1604c is not applicable for Howard III Trust application.” The other Supervisors agreed and the motion was passed unanimously essentially ruling that the 2 year statue of limitations was made void because both Howard Properties and Unimin did not provide the requested information. Assessor Rooney concluded, “The assessors office will still move ahead and if they don’t provide the information we will just go ahead with the hearing.”