ASG - Date and guidelines set for revocation hearing

DAYTON - An Oct. 16 hearing date has been set to determine the fate of a Dayton gas manufacturing plant.

Lyon County commissioners adopted a list of proposed procedures for what is expected to be a lengthy day of testimony.

The board said the hearing regarding the revocation of the special use permit for Advanced Specialty Gases would begin at 9 a.m. If the date is not agreeable to ASG, a hearing to temporarily suspend the permit until an agreeable date can be reached will be held on Sept. 27.

District Attorney Leon Aberasturi said company officials preferred Oct. 17 or 18, but commissioner Chet Hillyard has a conflict on Oct. 17 and the commissioners' regular meeting is on Oct. 18. No representatives from ASG attended Thursday's meeting of the county commissioners.

The company agreed to postpone the original Sept. 27 revocation hearing date when SECOR's project leader, Doug Martin, was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident, delaying its completion of a county-sponsored investigation of plant operations.

Aberasturi expects to have SECOR's completed report by Sept. 24 and has tentatively set Sept. 28 as the date the notice of allegations will be sent out to ASG, giving them three weeks to prepare a response.

He said even if the SECOR report comes back without enough evidence to revoke, there will undoubtedly be some concerns that will need to be addressed.

According to Aberasturi, the revocation hearing will be a history making experience for Lyon County. With no set guidelines, it was necessary for him to submit his suggestions for how the commissioners should run the hearing.

" I can't find any record of a prior revocation hearing in Lyon County, or even Washoe County. The lesson we will learn from this is we will see some ordinance changes regarding revocation procedures," he explained to the Dayton Regional Advisory Council Wednesday evening. "There are no formal rules of evidence, but we want to keep it somewhat formalized."

He told residents he would try have a SECOR representative at a future advisory board meeting "to give the community a good idea of what went into the investigation."

Suggested hearing proceduresinclude:

--The district attorney's office will present its evidence between 9 a.m. and noon.

-- The company will have witnesses testify between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

-- The district attorney and ASG will then have an opportunity to summarize, taking no longer than 30 minutes each.

-- The public will be given one to two hours, at a set time, to present evidence and testimony, sometime after 4 p.m. The company will be given 20 minutes to rebut this testimony.

-- Documents will be submitted seven days prior to the hearing. Commissioners must not discuss these documents amongst themselves. Commissioners can consider documents submitted by the public as of this date, but copies must be supplied to ASG.

-- Each party will submit a witness list seven days prior to the hearing. The list is subject to change.

-- Both the district attorney and ASG will have 30 minutes to cross-examine witnesses, followed by 10 minutes of redirect questioning.

-- Each party will submit proposed findings seven days prior to the hearing.

Official procedures will be adopted at the Oct. 4 commission meeting.

Aberasturi said the meeting will probably last a minimum of five to six hours, and could go into a second day. If more time is needed, the hearing will be continued to the afternoon of Oct. 18.

What: ASG permit revocation hearing

When 9 a.m. Oct. 16

Where: Lyon County Administrative Building in Yerington.