More appeals to Wasilla shooting range filed

WASILLA — Opponents of plans to build a gun range near the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center have filed two appeals to a recent decision granting the city a conditional-use permit for the facility.

After a previous appeal, the city’s planning commission decided May 11 to give the city its permit. Mayor Verne Rupright said soon after that there was yet another window for appeal before the city could move forward with a gun range.

On Tuesda,y the range’s detractors took that opportunity.

Two appeals were filed with the city clerk. One was signed by Kevin Baker with an accompanying memo signed by John Katkus. The 11 points listed in that appeal include:

• The commission didn’t state why the facility needed a 20-acre buffer zone around it.

• There is not a 100-foot vegetative buffer zone as required south of the facility.

• The planning commission was reviewing its own decision, which “makes no sense.”

• Adjoining property to the south is not, as stated at the hearing, zoned industrial.

• The sound testing done was not reliable.

• Public comment at the meeting was overwhelmingly opposed to the plan.

• The city’s Parks and Recreation Committee was not involved in the process.

• Shooting ranges should be private, not city, enterprises.

• The process followed seems to be to have the city review its own application.

The second appeal was drafted with help from a law firm in Eagle River. Its appeal points are much narrower and have mainly to do with errors that the petitioners allege the commission made: it didn’t give enough notice of the meeting, didn’t follow the proper format in the hearing, didn’t give proper notice of its decision, didn’t give enough time to submit written comment and erred in deciding the range was harmonious with nearby landowners.

Rupright was not available for comment Thursday. In the past, he has said that the main point of the previous appeal was the noise issue and that the city has proven noise will not be an issue. He has also said that the second appeals process isn’t the end of the road — opponents of the plan can still go to Superior Court. The mayor said that once the appeals are exhausted and the city has a permit to build a range, the plan doesn’t necessarily have to go back to the city council unless the city has to appropriate money for it.

As evidenced in the appeals, Rupright’s opponents on the range issue dispute that the noise study was done accurately. Even if it was, opponents say, the level of noise the report projects will come off of the range are not acceptable levels.

Brad Laybourn, the man who signed that second appeal, said the notice requirements were something the city had agreed to but not followed through on. He said there had been talk of sending mailers to more people than just those immediately surrounding the sports complex.

Laybourn lives near the proposed range and said that to build the sports complex in the first place the city had get permission from him to run some of the utilities across his land.

“I would have never given them the right-of-way if they’d showed me a picture of a shooting range,” he said. Noting that the sports complex came to be through a vote of the people, he said, “If they’re going to change it, we ought to vote to change it.”

City Councilwoman Taffina Katkus, another neighbor of the shooting range, is often painted by the pro-range side as a staunch opponent of firing ranges. She said she’s not opposed to shooting ranges in general, or even building a shooting range to serve Wasilla.

But she doesn’t think having one next to the sports complex and near surrounding homes is a good idea.

There are much better places with fewer neighbors in the borough. She also doesn’t like the way the current process to approve the range has proceeded.

She pointed out that the planning commission is made up of mayoral appointees and that therefore, at least in this instance, the city — or at least a city body — is being asked to review a city application.

“The city cannot be the applicant and reviewer,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.