Montana Tunnels owner pays county, keeps mine

The owner of the Montana Tunnels mine will keep the mine property after a new company he formed paid $5.1 million in overdue property taxes just days before a Dec. 2 deadline, preventing Jefferson County from seizing the mine through a tax deed.

County Treasurer Terri Kunz wrote in an email on Dec. 3 that Goldfield Funding Partners LLC paid the county $5.175 million “for the assignment of the tax lien certificate from the county to them.” In a phone call that day, she explained that the payment meant that Goldfield Funding Partners paid Montana Tunnels’ delinquent property taxes for much of the mine, and that Goldfield now holds a lien on the property. Montana Tunnels still owns the property, she said, but Goldfield Funding Partners could choose to seize the parcels.

“They have a lien,” she said. “They could choose to go through the tax deed process and get the deed that way.”