![Mark Anderson (left) talks to his son, Michael Anderson (center), and neighbor Daniel Rhodes about the site of the proposed shooting range near their homes. [AARON JACOBS|NEWS BULLETIN]](http://127.0.0.1/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ghows-DA-6a48bdec-4aa2-36b9-e053-0100007fde88-3c17ff99-scaled.jpeg)
CRESTVIEW — A new shooting range for the Crestview Police Department is in limbo after residents near the proposed site for the range raised concerns.
Mark Anderson, who lives near the proposed site off Retta Lane, spoke at the April 9 Crestview City Council meeting where the council voted unanimously to annex the site into the city. The council had previously voted to allocate that land for the shooting range in December 2016.
Anderson brought up a number of concerns, including safety, quality of life due to the noise generated by the range and the impact on the value of the surrounding properties. He felt that some of the claims made by police chief Tony Taylor and others at the council meeting were misleading.
“I believe that the police chief or whoever presented this to the city council deliberately left that information out,” Anderson said, speaking about the fact that there were houses adjacent to the proposed site. “I really didn’t appreciate that the gentlemen were spinning around the subject.”
He also claims that nobody spoke with him or his family when the range was first proposed. His neighbor, Danny Rhodes, said the first time he was made aware of what was going on was when he saw yellow police tape around part of the property directly across the street from his.
“Had somebody walked out here and talked about it, maybe it might be a little different. I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “With it being so close to everybody, why did nobody say anything?”
In December of 2017, activity increased at the site.
CPD Commander Andrew Schneider said that was when the department began clearing the land with a bulldozer donated by a resident. Officers also volunteered their time to go out and help clear the wooded property. Schneider said that was when the nearby property owners began to express their concerns.
“Right now, we’re in a holding pattern,” Schneider said. “We’re putting things on hold until we can basically determine what type of impact it’s going to have on some of those people in the surrounding area right there.”
Schneider said that it was unfortunate that the range was so close to some of the residents in the area, but that it was difficult finding a place to put a shooting range where it would not impact anyone.
“The conundrum is we’re trying to find a place that can be both safe and beneficial to our agency. Out of all the areas they want to do it, that’s the property that is the most ideal.”
He also addressed specific concerns the property owners had.
“There’s a big misconception that we’re going to be out there shooting all the time, all day long, like it’s going to be an open range and stuff like that. It’s not,” Schneider said. “There’s only going to be less than 50 times a year that we’re going to be out there on the shooting range.”
Rhodes is concerned that an active shooting range oriented towards Retta Lane would block the only access to and from his house. Rhodes, who has a military background, said the military would close off roads adjacent to their shooting ranges while they were active.
“There’s several times where somebody goes up and down this road, and if I have to wait because they’re out there doing their stuff, then I can’t get anywhere,” Rhodes said. “This is my only egress to get in and out of here.”
But Schneider said that was not necessary because of the 48-foot wide by 24-foot tall berms that will surround the range.
“We’re talking about 48 feet of dirt. There is not a caliber (gun) that’s currently in the arsenal of the United States government that’s capable of penetrating that.”
Schneider also noted that there would be large red flags put up when the range was in use to alert residents, as well as fencing around the entire property to prevent anyone from wandering into the range.
Rhodes said he understood the need for the shooting range, but did not want it so close to his front door.
“It’s right on our doorstep. It’s not far enough away,” Rhodes said. “We are not against them training. We understand that they need training.
“We don’t want to be looked at badly by the police force. You can probably poll them and ask them if it was in front of their house would they like it. I bet they’d say no.”
After the April 9 council meeting, council president J.B. Whitten arranged a meeting with Mayor David Cadle, Chief Taylor, Andrew Schneider and Wayne Steele, the city’s public services director. The group discussed alternative plans for the shooting range, including Anderson’s suggestion that they use a nearby spray field at the city’s wastewater treatment facility.
Anderson said he contacted the Florida Department of Environmental Protection about the idea and he was told there was nothing restricting the city from building a shooting range in that location.
“It’s a viable option for them,” Anderson said, citing the larger space that is further from residential areas.
But Whitten said it was not that simple. He said Steele contacted the DEP as well, and they highly recommended against building a shooting range in the spray field, citing examples of other cities that did so and had poor results due the high levels of chlorine in the treated water being sprayed.
“We kind of took that off the table, I believe, at that meeting,” Whitten said. “We need to look at what we can do to minimize the impact of this if in fact we go forward with this. The chief is focusing on limiting the type of weapons, limiting the days and the hours.”
Schneider said the department is now waiting on the city council to determine what will happen with the location.
“The next step is just assessing the impact. We have definitely heard and respect the people that live around there. We respect and appreciate their concerns. We have to move forward with some type of decision to either progress with a range there or find a location elsewhere that we could do it.
“Right now we’re just in the stage of making an assessment and putting trust in the council members to make a decision that can be beneficial for everybody.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Plans for police shooting range on hold