Mayor to find different location for local gun range

City officials have scrapped plans to put a police gun range near the Blucher Poole sewage treatment plant on the city's rural northern outskirts. Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez said he was pulling the proposed $150,000 appropriation from the $48 million budget to defuse a potential controversy.\n"Providing our police officers with a firing range for adequate and effective training is important and needs to be addressed," he said. "But I want city council members to focus on the city's budget, which funds high-quality programs, services and investments in a fiscally responsible manner."\nThe city council voted on the budget proposal Wednesday evening. While most councilmen expected the "status quo" budget to pass, the result of the final vote was not known by press time.\nAt the preliminary budget hearing last Wednesday, the council voted in favor of the mayor's proposal 3-0-4. Two members left after the meeting stretched on long after 2 a.m.\nBloomington Chief of Police Mike Hostetler said the range is sorely needed for his officers, who now have to travel to other counties to train. The police have been without a local facility for firearms training since 1998, when Indiana University evicted the Sycamore Valley Gun Club from its property.\nBut many residents didn't take kindly to the proposed site at Bottom Road. Neighbors said it would disturb the peace and quiet of the rural area, reducing property values and causing lead pollution.\nAnd environmental critics said the shooting would disturb a nearby wildlife refuge, including a nesting site for great blue herons.\nCouncilman Tim Meyer proposed an amendment transferring the $150,000 to the sanitation department. The department has been strapped for cash and recently made an unpopular proposal to increase garbage collection sticker fees. \n"I think the amendment addresses the concerns of council members and of the public," Meyer said. "The decision to take the Bottom Road firing range site off the table gives us a little more time to consider the longterm needs of police firearms training, and a little more leeway as we look at the issue of funding sanitation services."\nResponding to rising gasoline and landfill usage costs, department officials considered raising trash stickers to $1.50 and yard waste stickers to 50 cents. The department was only $16,000 in the red last year, and Fernandez said the additional funding should take its proposed hikes off the table. \nFernandez and others insist that the gun range isn't off the table. It just won't be at Bottom Road. "Both issues need full council attention," Meyer said. Our community deserves the highest quality public service training and environmental protection."\nThe city already invested $100,000 into the range in the 2001 budget. After a suitable location is determined, Fernandez said he would ask the council to approve the appropriate funding from the city cash reserve, which is roughly $6.7 million.