UPDATE: Keila Torres Ocasio, CT Post here.
The city’s West End police precinct undergoing a transformation into a training facility and firing range has stirred the emotions of school parents and some community leaders fearing a shooting facility so close to Cesar Batalla School on Howard Avenue.
“Put it somewhere else,” Town Clerk Alma Maya, a close friend of the late community activist for which the school is named, told OIB on Thursday. “A firing range next to the school would be an outrage. This is a very emotional issue for parents with the range next to a school.”
Police officials say the new police training facility will be for law enforcement only inside a sound-proof and bullet-proof building.
Mayor Bill Finch is scheduled to meet with the Cesar Batalla Parent Advisory Council Friday at 10 a.m. so parents can hear more about the plan, according to city police spokesman Bill Kaempffer. City officials have met with the PAC once before about the range and also with the West End merchants association and NRZ.
“This is first and foremost about public safety and we want to hear from community stakeholders, listen to any and all concerns and do our best to address and accommodate them,” says Finch.
Parents have asked community activist and retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez to attend the meeting. On Tuesday Lopez visited the city’s Zoning Office, according to an email letter she sent to Zoning Administrator Dennis Buckley “to obtain information and documentation of the City’s intent to construct a shooting range at 1354 State Street, the former West End Police Precinct. I went to your office to see if the ‘rumor’ had any basis in fact.” Lopez wrote, in part …
Parents at Cesar Batalla School are interested in being heard on the proposed use of this property as a ‘shooting range’ in a building directly across the street from where their young children attend school. I would hope that a Special Permit would be required and that the over the counter approval on August 15, 2013 would not be the final chapter in this administration’s latest example of disrespect to Bridgeport residents. A Special Permit hearing before the Planning and Zoning would provide a public forum and ensure all relevant information becomes a part of the public record.
Please forward the ‘detailed plot plan’ required by your office in connection with the filing of an application for certificate of zoning compliance. Thank you.
Dennis Buckley issued this email reply:
Sorry I missed you the other day, as I was in a meeting at the other facility. Regarding the pistol range–we processed an over the counter application for a replacement shooting range at the Police Precinct on State Street as the Range in the basement of the Congress Street Station was removed.
The proposed activity use is consistent with a police department use. This is not a commercial range open to the public. Should the police dept cease to function out of that building, the shooting range use would not be allowed on a pre-existing right.
Since there was no need for a public hearing, the engineering map of the subject parcel is acceptable for renovations without a change to the footprint. So the bottom line is that this is a city agency, with work being done by city employees on a project that is an accessory use to the primary use of a police station. According to our city attorney my staff acted properly in processing this application. All the best …
As the plan developed to site the facilities here over the past 36 months, might there have been some thoughts to approach the West End NRZ, the parents at the school (or the administrators) or the West End Business Assoc if it still exists, to prepare folks for this initiative? Of course it would be to promote a well-trained public-safety presence and not to disturb the quality of life of residents in any material way, but why wait until the last minute?
Two weeks ago the subject was raised at the BOE meeting as well as at the Citywide NRZ meeting. Who represents quality of life in the ‘hood?
This is not a sample of transparent development and shows significant insensitivity to natural community concerns when it comes to guns and the firing of weapons. How early did the Council members know? Time will tell.
*** Why there at that location? Also where are the West End and West Side NRZs on this as well as the City Council members who represent this area? And how convenient for the parents according to the Mayor’s office, by having the meeting on a Friday at 10:AM at C. Batalla School; doesn’t anyone work during that time of day? This P/D precinct is next to a black store-front church, across the street from a neighborhood bakery and elementary school, a corner (long-time) business, as well as a few family houses lining down Howard Ave with a bus stop directly across the street. Also, I believe the building is being leased by the city of Bpt, it’s not owned! What size caliber ammunition will be used at this shooting range and what will the noise factor be? This is not a good spot for a shooting range, “period,” especially if any caliber fired is higher than a 22. This is not a good idea for such a citizen-busy neighborhood nor intersection. Where is the district State Rep, State Senator and City Council members on this dangerous, cut financial corners, not well-thought-out P/D transformation economic development nightmare? *** GOD HELP US! ***
I don’t think it will be detrimental to the school. I don’t think it lends itself to community development on the other hand. Just another brain-dead building from the outside. The NRZ rubber stamped it. More should be demanded when a high-profile building is made an opaque, cold wasteland from the outside. Some kind of community, police-related, activity should be offered by the Police as a trade-off. This is another fortress city development like the other ones mostly on State Street.
Another tempest in a teapot!
We’re not talking about an outdoor shooting range. This is going to be a bulletproof range in the basement of a secured building. It’ll be in full compliance with all safety and environmental standards. I do not feel the city needs public permission to utilize a facility that benefits our public safety. I personally feel any shooter (Police) should be as proficient with a firearm as possible. This will have zero impact on the school or the neighborhood, you won’t even know it’s there.
I feel the West End has greater issues than this one.
Since this is a STRICTLY police shooting range, what’s the problem with having a serious police presence? This is not a commercial enterprise. It is soundproof and those using it are professional protectors of society.
Retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez, once again thank you for standing up and supporting the children and parents and in challenging Mayor Finch for attempting to placed a firing range that is so close to Cesar Batalla School on Howard Avenue.
Wish it were open to the public.
*** What’s next in the 131st district, another State Correction Center or Fed. halfway house after they knock down Marina Village? Or maybe another drug clinic and homeless shelter near the YMCA! The residents are still waiting for the city’s new economic development asphalt and quarry plant down Seaside Park near the compost site, too! And all that budget line-item money put aside for “marketing” what the Park City has to offer is sure panning out downtown and at Steelpoint, no? *** CHANGE ***
The West Side precinct is in the 130th. Cesar Batalla is in the 131st. Council members from the 130th support the pistol range. To me, this is the crux of the situation … political gamesmanship trumping physical location.
I agree with some, this would not create upheaval in the neighborhood. But wouldn’t Southport be a better location? That way suburban departments (known for their crack SWAT teams) could use it, too!
These are issues that should always be discussed with the community. I believe it may be in the interest of said neighborhood to have armed police officers (even off duty) periodically coming through. I really do not like guns and wish there were no need for them, but I understand there is a need for them.
*** When it’s in “someone else’s backyard” there’s always a way or reasoning to the madness, no? Same type scenario in Trumbull, Fairfield, etc. and there would not be anyone in that neighborhood who would be in favor of same! Bottom line is there are other sites in Bpt where this range and any other spec. ops, SWAT, etc. type of shooting and training facility would fit nicely; besides a small corner leased building located next to an elementary school, bus stop, neighborhood bakery and next-door storefront church located in a high traffic and people area! Just ’cause the precinct is there and underused for more than a P/D parking lot, gas stop, or roll call and meeting place. Does not mean the city can try to shove this bad idea down the throats of the citizens of the 131st district. *** TIME TO SPEAK UP, VOTERS ***
Imagine a police shooting range next to Sandy Hook Elementary. Response time would have been substantially less than it was.
There is already a shooting range near Sandy Hook. It’s an outdoor range. BPT PD used to use it. That’s one of the “benefits” of having a range in BPT … to reduce overtime.