City funds shooting range

A 4-3 vote to move money from the city’s U.P. Depot fund to pay for a shooting range at the Green River Police Department reflected a major division amongst members of the Green River City Council.

The city will move $210,000 originally earmarked to help seal the U.P. Depot on Railroad Avenue to cover a shortfall seen in bids the city received regarding the shooting range. The council also approved a bid award for the range totaling $550,000 from Rawlins-based Sheppard Construction in a unanimous vote.

Mayor Pete Rust and Councilpersons Lisa Maes and Gary Killpack voted against, while Councilmen Allan Wilson, Ted Barney, Mark Peterson and Brett Stokes voted in favor.

Discussion about the shooting range and moving funds to cover the shortfall originated last week during a workshop session.

At the workshop, the council decided to go through with the proposed bids, work out deals if they had to, but make it work regardless, build it properly with the best materials that are needed.

The alternative the council looked at was to open up the shooting range to the public, or potentially work out a private partnership, and utilize a commercial aspect of the shooting range.

“We unanimously said we need to keep it private, for law enforcement only,” Rust said.

“We decided that we want to move ahead as soon as possible to put the shooting range into the police station,” Rust said. “Let’s come up with the money and do it right, and lets do it properly so we don’t have any regrets two or three years from now.”

An aspect Rust said the council hadn’t initially considered as far as specifications, was the acoustical sound issues.

With the shooting range’s location placed in the basement of the police department building, the sound could be heard in the offices above, unless its properly built with the right materials. This, of course makes the bid for the project go higher, making the project more expensive.

“That’s the big basis,” Rust said. “That and other factors caused bids to be higher. It’s a significant cost.”

Last night, discussion focused on the desire to fully complete the police department construction project versus the desire to save money for a potential budgetary shortfall later this year. Killpack said the reason why he isn’t in favor of the shift is due to how tight sales tax receipts have been for the city. 

“This year might not be awfully great,” Killpack told the rest of the Council.

Fiscal responsibility was also a major point for Rust, who said he’s been told by residents the city should be more responsible with their funding. Rust believes the range should be built, but thinks it isn’t the right time to build.

While there were those against moving the money, others were in favor. Stokes thinks the city does have enough money to complete the range and believes it should finish the police department building.

Barney also agreed with funding the range, saying it will be a tool for the police department and send a message to the city’s residents that the Council wants to finish what it starts.

Originally, $340,000 was budgeted to the shooting range after the building was completed and the police department and municipal court had moved in.

A space in the basement floor was planned to house a shooting range, but the range was never built as a result of wanting to keep construction costs down.