SIMI VALLEY : City Drops Plan for Outdoor Gun Range

After a barrage of protests from residents, the Simi Valley City Council Monday night decided to abandon a proposal to build an outdoor police shooting range at the northeast end of the city.

The council said it will take the next 90 days to study two proposals by private developers to build an indoor range within the city limits. Among other things, officials said they want to determine whether the developers could provide their own financing to build a gun range.

“If the private sector can do it,” said Mayor Greg Stratton, “we would be tickled pink.”

If the development of an indoor range does not work out, the council said it will pursue two alternative sites for an outdoor range at the Simi Valley landfill.

The council’s action came after two hours of angry testimony from residents opposed to the outdoor range, which would have been built on county land in the Las Llajas Dam retention basin about half a mile north of the Indian Hills neighborhood.

Members of the neighborhood group Citizens for a Safe and Scenic Simi Valley delivered a petition to the council with 1,000 signatures of residents opposed to the shooting range. About two dozen members spoke out at the council meeting against the outdoor range, which they said would have created too much noise, endangered hikers and horseback riders in the area and damaged the environment.

“I’m ecstatic and very pleased,” said Eileen Gordon, one of the group’s organizers. Gordon said she would prefer that an indoor range be developed.

The city has searched for more than two years for a suitable location for an outdoor range, which officials said could be built for about $60,000.

Officials said the range would save the city $50,000 a year that it now pays officers in overtime and travel expenses to practice at a shooting range in Camarillo.