Police Union Seeks Inquiry Into Vote

The city’s Police Officers Assn. has asked the county district attorney to investigate the City Council’s closed-door decision earlier this week to terminate the union’s lease of a shooting range.

Police union President Richard Wright said the decision to end the association’s $1-a-year lease of the 28-year-old gun range should have been made in public. Council members made the decision at a closed-session Monday.

“We’re asking for clarification to make absolutely certain there were no violations of open-meeting laws,” Wright said. “The entire City Council should be concerned about their credibility.”

City Atty. Gail Hutton told council members Monday night that the decision could be made in closed session.

“It was the appropriate decision,” said Councilman Tom Harman, a frequent critic of the shooting range and its operation by the police union.

Harman has accused the union of using profits from shooting range operations to back council candidates who support higher police salaries.

Wright said that the shooting range is not operating at a profit and that council members Harman, Victor Leipzig and Mayor Dave Sullivan voted to end the lease for political reasons. Their reelection campaigns are being vigorously opposed by the union.

The lease, which expires Jan. 4, could still be renewed for a shorter period of time, Leipzig said, so that police training is not interrupted. The council will consider several options in the next three months, from rebuilding the facility to relocating it, he said.

City officials estimate that it would cost $2.5 million to prepare the site for new construction. The shooting range sits on a former landfill that leaks methane gas.

“The existing range is not the one I want,” Leipzig said. “In the future, there’s going to be a much better gun range for our officers.”