Newport
Additionally, Sturm, Ruger & Co. also might be testing its guns at the range.
“We are looking to move quickly on this,” O’Keefe said on Tuesday, a day after the five-member Selectboard unanimously passed three motions related to the proposal for the landfill that was placed under a conservation easement in 2007, a year after the town acquired the property from the former New Hampshire-Vermont Solid Waste Project. “I hope to have a (lease) agreement in place next week.”
The board authorized O’Keefe to “negotiate and execute” a one-year renewable lease with the property owner, the Economic Development Corporation of Newport, a nonprofit that focuses on attracting new businesses to town.
“This is on a small scale, maybe up to 2 acres,” O’Keefe said.
The motion authorizing the lease negotiations says the property would be for a “municipal firearms shooting range for the police department.”
Selectboard Chairman Jeff Kessler said the town has been searching for a new site for police.
“Right now they use the airport, and that is not a good solution,” Kessler said on Tuesday night. “We need a better range.”
O’Keefe said there is no construction planned at the site and there are no requirements for local or state approvals at this time.
“We would use what is already there and the natural berms,” he said, adding the site is away from the recreational trail that runs along the Sugar River to the south.
O’Keefe said circumstances that could trigger a Planning Board review include a change of use, expansion of the site or if a party other than the town becomes the lessee.
In addition to providing a new use for police department training and testing of weapons, the range area also would be made available to Sturm, Ruger, the town’s primary employer. O’Keefe said the board wanted to be able to accommodate the firearms manufacturer’s testing needs.
“If Sturm, Ruger needs it, we would like to be there for them,” O’Keefe said.
The other motions passed by the board say there is a need for a municipal firearms shooting range and that the ash landfill is suitable for the use. The motions also authorized O’Keefe “to allow for occasional and infrequent” use of the range by other parties.
Kessler said the immediate goal is to serve the police and be sure Ruger has a site to test new products. Long term, there may be the possiblity that recreational shooting would be allowed if things work out under the new arrangement.
He expects the police department to use the range, which would not be over the area where the ash has been buried and covered, a couple of times a week. The landfill is located on Route 11-103, just before the Claremont line.
The arrangement is far different from the controversial gun range site plan that was approved three years ago by the Planning Board for the Mountain View Gun Club and Sturm, Ruger. Neighbors of the 64-acre parcel on the south side of Route 11-103, just east of Kellyville, strongly opposed the plan and had gone to court to appeal the board’s decision when Sturm, Ruger suddenly withdrew the application and its approved site plan.
About four months later, Sturm, Ruger was approached by the town about building a gun range at the ash landfill site; at the time, the company was said to have expressed an interest. In October 2013, the town Conservation Commission lifted most of the conservation easement on the property to allow for construction of a gun range, but plans were never submitted or publicly discussed after that.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
