Council to Review Vote on Gun Range

Council members will publicly review their closed-door decision to terminate the lease on the controversial police shooting range.

The range is operated by the Police Officers Assn., which has asked the county district attorney’s office to investigate the legality of the council’s Oct. 7 vote not to renew the one-year lease, which expires Jan. 4. Police union officials say the vote should have been taken in public.

“I see this as a public confirmation of action already taken,” said Councilman Ralph H. Bauer, who asked the vote be put on the agenda for the council’s next meeting Monday. “The city attorney said we don’t have to talk about this publicly, but I feel more comfortable with it on the agenda.”

Bauer said he would prefer to have the council take another vote on the lease, but would be satisfied with “merely a confirmation.”

The 28-year-old Central Park shooting range is leased by the city’s police union for $1 a year and used for weapons training by about a dozen police agencies. Police union President Richard Wright said the cancellation of the lease is “a flagrant act of retaliation” for the union’s opposition to three incumbent councilmen seeking reelection.

Wright said the police union is considering taking legal action against the city.

Most council members say the site of the shooting range, on a former landfill in Central Park, is unsatisfactory.

A city-commissioned study estimated it would take $2.5 million to prepare the site for construction. The soil is unstable and leaks methane gas. Safety questions were also raised after a stray bullet struck a nearby home in January.

Bauer said the best solution may be to form a partnership with the various police agencies that use the shooting range to build a new facility.