Denali Borough: October 13, 2026 Community & Outdoor Recreation Committee Work Session - Healy Area Shooting Range

Has a couple of updates on things with shooting ranges in the borough. Hi, for those online, I'm Stephanie Ford. I'm the Community Development Director, and I provide administrative support to the, the CORC, or the Community Outdoor Recreation Committee. This was identified— this shooting area for the— or shooting range for the Healy area was identified in the plan, the Community Outdoor Recreation Plan that was created a couple of years ago. And I'm just gonna provide some updates of, of what I know that's coming up relating to the 252, um, hit and then also relating to, uh, other shooting ranges in the borough.

Um, so the first update is the, um, material site at Mount Post 252, um, which is kind of used as an unofficial, uh, shooting range. It's a DNR material site and it's very likely that it is going to be used by DOT projects that will be active starting next summer. So in summer 2027 and potentially summer 2028, either being used as a material site or potentially as a staging site for some DOT projects that are going to occur around the Healy area. There are several material sites that are going to be put in the contract that contractors could decide to use. And I've been told by DOT that this particular pit does have, um, a lot of good material in it, is in a good location, so it's likely that a, a contractor will select it.

So it will not be available, um, for use potentially, um, 2027 to 2028. I'm not sure how quickly the construction project will be done. And then, um, another thing that came up was the Cantwell Shooting Range. The, at a joint work session that the Borough Planning Commission and the Assembly had in September, one of the topics that was brought up for discussion were potential land swaps between Ahtna Incorporated and the Denali Borough. And that might involve a land swap where the borough maybe would acquire the land under the Campbell Shooting Range.

So nothing is formalized yet, but I just thought I would let this group know because the Planning Commission, the Assembly did have some questions about what that would look like if there were to be an active shooting range on borough land. So questions like, um, what were requirements for liability cleanup potentially of the site, you know, from garbage or potential, um, lead contamination or other types of contamination. So just giving you the update that those are 2 things that have come across my desk that could be of interest to this group. And then I'm here listening and happy to provide support when I do have that subject matter expertise or, or to track things down as well. That sounds perfect.

I have two things too. I did email everybody that was signed in on our last meeting so that they had information just to let them know for sure that this meeting was happening tonight. Last week I was able to go meet with the high school government class here in Healy, and they, um, I was talking about the cork and about opportunities for them to serve on the cork and on election board. And this is one of the projects that came up, and there was some interest from students with that. And, um, one of them said that there was quite a bit of garbage there.

And so I was a little bit late getting here tonight because I went ahead and I'm taking a little road trip real quick to see. And I have noticed that there is the sign. I noticed just now in the fog that the sign is still up. And then they have some shooting hours, some quiet hours, 9 at night till 7 in the morning is what is posted. At this time, there's no concrete barrier or anything to keep people from driving in there and using it.

I noticed that there was a, um, help me with the words, like a trap puller thing that somebody has left set up and left there, um, kind of over a nice bank for a trap shooting situation for fun. Um, I didn't see a ton of trash. I did see that there was some evidence of targets in the hillside and whatever, that maybe it has been cleaned up. John White cleaned it up. The state paid him to clean the site up.

Right, and I knew that, and I, I was worried there was a bunch new, and I don't think it's a bunch new. Some new. I mean, you can see that it's been used some, right? No, no, not at all. Yeah, um, a lot of it I would say is not shooters.

Okay. But the people who camp there. Oh, you think so? There's a lot of overnight campers in the summer. Well, and it sounds like that won't be an option because if it's a material site or a staging site, either way, regular campers won't be allowed.

Every night in the summer, there's a camper, a motorhome that you can see from the highway. And out of curiosity, I'll just take a drive down into the pit, and they're clear up on the other side towards the power lines. And so it's word of mouth or whatever, how they know it's there. And if they're not parked there, then they're parking on the other side of the highway. Just on the Pangaea out there?

No, on— so the The pits on the east side, they just go right across the highway to the west side. And there's a huge, um, it's like an earthquake. It just opened up the ground. It's about 10, 12 feet long and it's a good 2 to 3 feet wide in places. I'm—.

Somebody's going to drive into it one of these days. So, but that's state land over there. Okay.

And supposedly years ago I was told that's where the burial sites are at for the indigenous people that lived in the area centuries ago. Uh, yeah, I don't know if it's state or if it's university property. I don't know for sure. Um, the other thing I was going to say is Dakota MacGyver has— was intending to be here, um, at the meeting today, and he's talked to 6 or 7 guys that are interested, and he thinks he has a core group that he needs to start a nonprofit like a shooting club or a sportsman's group or something like this. His stepfather passed away this weekend, so he is flying out tonight.

So he is— he texted me like, I can't make it even. They're not even packed yet. So unexpected sadness going on in their family. So I kind of do think that that's the next step is how the borough can help support a sportsman's group. To form a nonprofit, and then we could just start that ball rolling of what borough land could we use, where would it— where would the good places be, that kind of stuff.

Talk with them. Yeah, when, uh, Johnny Gonzalez was mayor, he and I were talking about a sportsman's club. That's been a few years ago, my friend. It is. He said He had worked out a deal with the railroad.

The railroad was willing to lease land just north of Lignite for this sportsman's club. So he went back to the community and had a community meeting, and there just wasn't enough interest in people's history, so he dropped it. But the railroad had agreed to lease him a place north of Lignite. I don't know how far. I didn't really question, but he said there just wasn't that much interest in it, which surprised him.

Yeah, he was a member of the, the Clear Sports. Yeah, of course. Yeah, because he lived right there. He lived right there and he was trying to, you know, for years trying to get a sportsman's club in Healy and then went as far as to get to an agreement with the railroad, the lease land for it. Right.

The town's people kind of dropped it. There wasn't enough interest. I am feeling from our last meeting that there is enough interest at this point. Simply because we have traditionally used gravel pits that are no longer going to be accessible to us. And we have many more homes along Dry Creek where we used to, you know, we used to go and shoot and stuff like that.

Regardless, it's not going to be available. So something different is going to have to happen. Another thing is last year, Al Guggesberg, put in a trail, groomed a trail at Otto Lake for cross-country skiers. Fabulous. It worked out really good.

We also knew that as a quirk— meaning he's one of the quirk members, and he was just kind of doing this on his own as a test thing, like, what's the interest? And, you know, some of these projects feel really big and expensive, and this was just a guy and the snow machine with some gas making a nice thing for community. Anyway, to make a long story short, we know that every winter we won't have as much snow as we did last year. And the wind is always a problem at the lake as well as overflow. So he's been looking into railroad land here, right back here, part of the subdivision, and he's mapped out a about 5-mile loop in there with some shortcuts so you don't, you know, for those skiers that can't go that aren't that aggressive.

And that is going to be a railroad agreement for us using that land. So I feel like if there is a piece of railroad land that this shooting range might be best on, that we're going to already have a little bit of toes in the water with an agreement with the railroad. The railroad of 2026, you know, not, you know, as administrations change, all that stuff changes. So I feel really positive about that. Like if we have some experience with some agreements, you know, even at the Ahtna land swap.

I think that's great. Testing the waters, you know, seeing how we can use some of this land with our landowner partnerships, you know. I did have a meeting with the railroad and I brought up the idea of a shooting range and they, they didn't say no, but it would just be like an evaluation and they don't want it next to the railroad tracks, which seems like obvious, like, okay, well, you know, a location where it's not going to— and then the shots aren't going to be going over the railroad tracks. But they're open to, you know, listening about a lease situation or other type of arrangement. So yeah, borough land, railroad land, I think a lot of things are on the table right now.

Of course, you know, the borough has more control over borough land, but I've had good discussions with the real estate team with the railroad so far this year. That's great. What sort of, um, when you're talking the shooting range, what sort of parameters are you set up for this? Like, like how close to Al's cabin would you go on the shooting range or not on the shooting range? I kind of worked this out.

I mean, 2, 3 miles in the sun. 2 Is minimum, 3 is better from the cabin. Dwelling. So, and, and really, if you've ever lived by a shooting range, that's not—. That's serious.

The one in Campbell is a terrible location. Absolutely. The one in the Out in the Lands is a terrible location. There is a subdivision right there. That thing should be closed.

So I wouldn't jump on that one. There's a lot of people there that don't want it there and shouldn't want it there. And so when you, when you start doing this, you know, you start coming up with these ideas. Using something like that as guidelines. There's not that many places where you could do this.

Right. At our last meeting, we had a good, some good maps and some sticky notes and stuff going on, just places and ideas. Yeah. Another thing is, is we've talked about the specialist at the Park Service. What is his title?

A sound specialist? That's cool. Yeah, he's a sound specialist, um, uh, works for the, um, is based in Tonali but works for like the, the science team that's based out of Denver, basically. Yeah, so he's an acoustic sound specialist. Okay.

Yeah, and we were thinking about using his expertise to see how we could build barriers or point it in different directions that would help mitigate some of that sound. I do know that for some of the people that live near the current pit that's been used for years, it is a problem. We also think that having some better rules and more formality with it than just a gravel pit you pull over and shoot whatever you want. We hope that maybe some of that would be helped. I don't know.

You know, you have to have them attended if you're going to have a shooting range. Because how do you switch targets unless you've only got, you know, what you see at the gravel pit down here is usually one person or one group of people, right? So they can stop, change their target. But if you're going to use a shooting range and have multiple people shooting, you got to stop, you got to unload your gun, you got to set it on the table, you got to go set targets up. You need an attendant to do that, right?

Um, okay. So I think that also this is part of what the Sportsman's Group will come up with because I think that there's going to be maybe an area for the pistols at such and such a distance, and, you know, maybe a more longer range, and seeing that trap gun— is that what it's called? I don't know— like shooter, right? Um, tonight I'm like, oh, I do— I mean, shooting traps, fun, you know, like, that would be great to have. So, I mean, I think the sky is the limit, and also we can start as small as we can to try to start doing better than we've been doing at not taking good care of a gravel pit.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Simple, simple as like a covered area so that you could actually have a few shooting tables or standing areas where if it is raining, you can stay a little bit dry. You need to have at least a 600-yard. That's kind of where people are shooting.

A lot of people are shooting now. So anything, the one in Cantwell is 300 yards. Okay, then Peggy Creek, 250 or less, right? It's not— and I, I had heard a friend of mine was at the transfer site. While he was sitting at the transfer site, a bullet landed next to him.

He ran around it and, you know, ran there and said— he saw the guy that he said, what's going on? He said, well, I didn't know, I didn't think it'd go that far. Right. Just shooting up in the air. I was there last Saturday and there was people shooting.

And if you're at the transfer site and everybody's shooting north, south and north, it isn't a pleasant thing to be. I mean, that's a dangerous, that's not a good spot. Right. We need to do better. And I'm sure Al, he doesn't like it there either.

And he's within what, a half mile of it? Probably. And I know he's also up the hill where his house is. Yes, his house is right in the yard basically. What it sounds like.

Thank you. Yeah, so the maps that you had last time are, um, on that back table. Oh, okay. The maps that we were looking at last time on this back table. Yeah, and we can easily break up and do that.

It's a little bit formal because we have people online that are watching with us, so— but it's also just a work session. We're not making any important, you know, final decisions today. Oh, good. Sure. Yeah.

The Anderson site is, I think they go 300 yards. And then there's a, um, they, for the long rifle, they don't use the pavilion, if you want to call it that. They shoot from a hill a good 100 yards further back. And then they'll shoot across through the pavilion and at a target downrange. So there's holes where they're a little high.

Um, it's all self-monitored, um, self-clean-up. Um, a couple of times, some, you know, once a month or so, some of the guys go out with, um, magnetic thing and just clean the floor and So it's all the brass is cleaned up and, um, but it's, it's mainly done by the city. By the city, right. Yeah. But there's no one there to check anybody in.

It's—. And there's no attendant. Like, yeah. No attendant.

It's, it's, you need to know what you're doing. Right. The state has ranges that are unattended. I've shot at Maud. Road a couple times in the valley, and times that I've been there, there have been multiple shooters, and it's, it's always worked out quite well, you know.

Um, you know, somebody has to take control though, right? Um, and, and explain, you know, hey, are, are we ready? Can we go downrange? Can we go downrange? And wait till everybody's ready, everybody takes their bolts out, you know.

Weapons cleared, nobody touches weapons, and you go, go down range. And if anybody sees somebody touch their weapon, they say something. But that doesn't happen all the time, I'm sure of it, right?

Was it a 300-yard or how, uh, that was just a, that was just a maybe 200, 100 and 200, um, you know, 300 yards. Fine for most people, I think. South Cushman in Fairbanks is 320, and there's no range monitoring there.

Is that a North Star Borough? I believe it's North Star Borough. Then the Chena Hot Springs is 100 yards, 31 miles. I believe that's Park Service. It's still unmonitored, or State Park Service.

Okay, no, it's good to know. I mean, some of that— we don't have to reinvent all the wheels, but we can do better here in New York than we have. Monitoring is working good. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it opens things up for shotelats arenas with monitors too, like that. But it's expensive, you know, and it's a lot of volunteer hours earlier.

And I mean, like, I'm envisioning, and, you know, just because I know our community, that we start simple, and then as momentum grows, you know, there's different things. Maybe a clubhouse someday. You can have memorial shoots or a covered pavilion where you could have the barbecue area or what, you know, like, I can see it starting pretty simple and things growing as there is interest and as, you know, But yeah, there's part of me that's like, is it realistic to think that by next May we could have something going? You know, at least a spot, tiktok. But yeah, but maybe we could have, maybe we could have a ball rolling to where there's some good progress.

So by August, even if it's just a, some bulldozer, you know, I don't know.

So thanks, Grant, for telling us that.

You're very great.

What was the second rifle range that you had mentioned? I got the one on South Cushman, but was there a name for the one that's managed by the state? Gina Hot Springs Road, mile 30 and, uh, China State Park. 31, Mile 31.

You have anything, Nicole? I don't. So, um, yeah, so we think we have a group though that's going to be able to stand up. I think that we have the start of a group. Yeah, it's going to, um, Stephanie gathered all of the information on what it would take to start your nonprofit.

Um, I know Dakota is really familiar. Um, also he's the president of the Huey Hockey volunteer situation right now, so I don't think that he'd be able to be the president, but he definitely is knowledgeable enough to get balls rolling. He just didn't get it done and thought he'd be Tonight's meeting or whatever. So, yeah, I feel pretty positive. And I even thought, you know, if nothing else, tonight's meeting is a good come on, you know, let's keep the ball rolling, a little nudge down the road.

So I have a few questions.

What do What does the borough think they have funding for, right? Are we talking $500, $5,000, $50,000? What do we think if a nonprofit was to be formed and a site was to be found? What does the borough think it could contribute? I'm going to answer off my thoughts and then I'm going to turn it over to Stephanie, who probably knows a lot more.

But I, I don't think we're quite there yet. I think we need the nonprofit that will be eligible to apply for grants. I know there's a lot of educational grants with the NRA and stuff, like if you're doing youth hunting programs or Hunter's Ed, they like to contribute to programs like that. I think the nonprofit would be a lot more successful at getting that grant type funding. Um, also the borough wants this for our community, and I know that there's like borough land possibilities available and stuff, um, like to partner with them.

I'm sure there are some grants that we will need the borough to apply on the behalf of the nonprofit to get that going. So I don't think the borough is really interested in like, we own a shooting range and we have the guy that goes and sits there all day. You know, I don't think that's quite that. It's more like a partnership is what I think. Sure.

And I, I would kind of suggest that, you know, once we get this thing going, that maybe reach out to other organizations and see what it actually would cost, right? Um, because let's pretend it costs $10 million. Obviously it's not going to cost $10 million, but Is it feasible? That's all I'm saying, right? Um, so, and my simple answer to that, without being smarter than I am, is if Cantwell can pull one off and Anderson will, I think Healy could, even if it's just simple, um, starting points, you know.

Um, but again, we're talking railroad leases, maybe that's some money different, or land swaps with the borough. There's lots of unknowns, you know. Uh, Grant, question up in Fairbanks, do you guys have to pay to go? Like, are you a member? Um, I'm looking right now at the Upper Susitna Shooters Association.

They've got their schedule and then there's fees. Associate member, $60 a year, right? If you want to shoot 1,000 yards, it's $12. So have you experienced any of that going to these public ranges? The North Cushman Range, there's no fee whatsoever.

The Park Service has a $5 camping fee or $5 usage fee in the gravel pit where the shooting range is out at China Hot Springs. I honestly don't know if that's if you're shooting or if you're just camping, but I just normally throw money in and walk away.

Nice. Yeah, I am a member of a private range here out in North Pole for $300 a year, but yeah, that's convenient.

Do, do you want to speak to the bird? Yeah, I can speak, um, uh, I guess just Um, real broadly, like looking at overall project planning, I'd say this is kind of in a project concept stage. So there's lots of stages to go through, like clearly identifying need, like what the scope of the initial project, like you said, it could be staged, you know, could develop over the years. Um, but looking at that, um, and then I would say no, there's no funding right now available in the capital improvement plan. You know, it's not identified as a project in the borough's capital improvement plan, which would be like one of the next steps to get a higher level of funding.

But there are different ways the, the borough could partner. Say, for instance, if it is on borough land, that doesn't require like a direct, you know, monetary contribution. It's like the contribution of the value of the land. There are other arrangements where if it were on Railroad land, say for instance, to use the Lions Club Park at Otter Lake as an example. The borough holds the master lease and then subleases to the Healy Valley Lions Club.

So there are ways that the borough can assist, maybe being also a project sponsor, say for grant funding. And I think that there— I don't know if there was a discussion about grants at all, but that Pittman-Robertson grant, I think there maybe might have been the The Cheena Range and maybe even the range on Cushman as well as a range in Juneau recently had received some money from that grant program. And one of the ways that at least Juneau received the money to make major updates, including accessibility, so folks that maybe, you know, needed to sit down to shoot were able to shoot as well and have some covering, is that they contributed towards the design. So like money towards the design, and then you apply for the larger like million-dollar or multimillion-dollar grant. Build something.

So I think you can start off pretty simple and then stage it. The borough in the past has invested like in doing some engineering documents too, and that can be a relatively small price to help get a project off the ground that we might be able to do within the existing budget. But I'd have to talk to our treasurer here to get approved. I mean, I think that's the thing too. Like once Once the sportsman's club begins, and they may have a $50 a year fee to be a member.

I mean, who knows, right? You know, there could be stuff like that too, but then the corp will probably support that and ask the borough for the borough support, or then the corp would have to talk to land use planning, say, hey, this is the land we want. What do you, land use planning committee, what do you think about this land for a shooting range? You know, like there's lots of communication that still needs to happen. And then once you have a nonprofit established, that's a model that's really used well within the borough, is a nonprofit takes over management of an area, say like the Healy Valley Lions Club at the Otto Lake area.

You can apply for grants through the borough's nonprofit grant program if you are a nonprofit. So there's a way to access you know, borough grant funds out outside of just having the borough directly contribute, but also for like maintenance. Like, you know, at Otter Lake, they're upgrading some of the picnic tables and doing things like that while the borough is also making a larger investment in infrastructure there. So I think that there are multiple ways, but really getting this nonprofit and people who are invested and looking at the ongoing management of a shooting area, because the borough does— is not of the size and doesn't have the staff to manage a shooting range, even if there's not an attendant, but, you know, looking for an entity to take over that management. In a lot of our discussions with some of the trails and things, we're really looking for those groups to be like Friends of the Whatever Trail that would, you know, go do the trash cleanup or whatever.

So that's the concept.

I appreciate your questions. They're excellent questions. I'm, I guess I'm curious. I've heard some considerations for locations and operations of, uh, a shooting range. We've talked a little bit about location from residences, you know, safety considerations with the length of range, noise considerations, you know, staffing.

Is there anything else that anyone wanted to add to the discussion when you're thinking about maybe what a shooting range that would be ideal might look like in the Healy area?

I mean, my only other thought would be the access piece because we do have a lot of land that's not very accessible. And like, I'm, I'm not sure we're ready to build driveways and, you know, big— like, that, that's a whole nother ball game, right? If we're choosing a piece of land that's far off the road to where it's away from people, you know. So that's something to consider.

Winter maintenance of, of the road right where it is, because so many people on shoot year round. Yeah. Would there be a lot of shooting in the winter? Yeah, probably not as much as May to September, right? Especially August, you know.

Yeah.

James, do you see a lot of shooting in the winter when you're at your clubs?

Or Grant, do you?

I don't go out shooting too much in the wintertime myself, and I don't— I mean, the indoor shooting range up here is great. Yeah, I don't think we're quite there yet. Yeah, well, it's, uh, total is pretty close. Yep. Sorry, I was muted.

Go ahead, sorry. Okay, this is James. Uh, one thing I mentioned in July was I kind of like the idea of it being somewhat accessible and visible, right? If it is down a road that hypothetically is plowed in the winter, um, just More eyes on it, I think, keeps the bad eggs away, right? I.e., some young kids going down there shooting Tannerite at night.

Well, if we see his truck, we know that it's a blue Chevy. Well, we know who it belongs to. So that's one thing I would advocate for.

Thanks.

It's been moved and seconded.

So not off in the back 40 to where people are having a little bit more awareness of what's going on and how things are going there. Yeah, I think in the July meeting I, I kind of made a similar point that, you know, if it's, if it's on the Parks Highway, for example, you know, there's a lot of traffic, there's troopers going by, there's law enforcement, there's there's military, you know, um, you know, it's got a lot more eyes on it. People tend to be more careful about, you know, their behavior, um, when they know somebody might be, be looking. And you're likely to get more people going there and shooting. And then that groupthink where, you know, you have, you have, you know, somebody that takes control and, you know, starts talking to other people on the range.

Maybe not control is the right word, but like, like just communicating with the other people on the range about, you know, about, you know, hands-off weapons when we're going downrange, or, or, you know, different safety things.

Yep, I feel like those are both good points. Um, you were starting to ask about electricity. Yeah, I was, you know, And is that like a requirement? Is it something that— no. Okay.

Never had electricity. Eventually, you know, like if we were to have a club or, you know, potentially. But no, I don't think the initial 3 stages it would be important. Training portable or something, training building or something.

If you're going to model it after that Cantwell site, it's a fairly simple affair. And it's got, I think, what, 3 benches there, concrete benches, and they have 3 berms built up, 100, 200, 300 yards. Pretty simple, not a lot. I mean, if you want to do a simple startup, that's as simple as— yeah, I mean, it's what, 100 yards off the highway, and you got a couple concrete shooting benches and 3 berms. Pretty simple.

Yep. And then just to find that location, like, right, that way it's close to the road like they are, and it's pretty much a simple setup. The benches are concrete and the weather doesn't bother them, you know. It's pretty safe, cheap to set up. Yep.

And easily accessible. That's easy one to look at too. You just drive down there. Okay, got it. Yeah, I haven't done that yet.

I need to do that. Yeah, it's, it's not bad. Shot there a few times. It's just close to the neighborhood. Yeah, they got that, um, they call it The Nation.

That, uh, it's a pretty big group of people live there and They've got shooting hours and it's, it's offended a lot of people there. Yeah, people go in there late at night, late, not at dark, but they could close at 6 and people that are shooting a lot later and it's not nice. Good. So that's why it'd be nice to get it away from a little farther away. Yeah.

Yeah. But the idea how they did it is pretty good. It's simple. It'd be done cheaply and it's easily accessible. And of course, summer hours, 6 o'clock is not very late in the summer.

Yeah, you know, the houses are right there. I mean, you can just about see the houses by the range, and it's just too close, right? It's a good design if you want to start simply. Mhm. No, that's great.

Tina, were there some specific sites that were actually identified that we Um, mainly just discussion, and we can easily go look at the maps and, um, and talk about some of those. Um, I don't— I don't feel like I'm ready to say this is the best one. I mean, I can have my opinion, but that's kind of a sportsman's group that hopefully will get created that will be like, yeah, this is, you know, this really does make the most sense. Again, the access the ease of the lane, and there's a borough lane, or there's, you know, with the railroad even, you know, I'm guessing that the design would be different if it was a railroad lease, potentially, or, you know, they might have different requirements and whatever. So, and also, I've never designed a simple shooting range before, so I really have no idea.

One thing we mentioned last time too was that troopers need to do shoot, you know, they have to have so many hours or whatever time with their weapons and they use this gravel pit. And there's one that the Park Service rangers have been using that might not be available much longer. So it's not just the hunters or the, you know, gun enthusiasts. There's some—. There's more than just that that's going to be needing this too.

So be really great if we'd have—. Well, I mean, I'm hoping that eventually, like, one of them would be on the board or be a member that could, you know, help out with those meetings and whatever. So, yeah, anything else?

Any other thoughts online?

Do we need a toilet? Sorry, I'm just thinking about questions that, like, if we're looking at recreation sites that we're building, like, what are the needs? Like, is that like, or—. Porta Potty or some kind of outhouse. Yeah, probably be something, but not as formal as a pit toilet because, yeah.

It could be, it could be much more primitive than that. Okay. I think James had something. Yeah, I would agree with Chip that I think, uh, that we should kind of use Cantwell kind of as a, a blueprint for something, right? There is no toilet, etc., but I think that would be something that would be a visual for those who don't shoot or not are familiar with it.

So that would be something that I think those on this committee or whatever in the public can see. Most people drive south, they know what the Cantwell shooting pit looks like. So I think that could be a basis to start. Nothing too crazy, but just something simple like that. Yeah, so like a stage one, that's what that sounds like to me.

I would agree, yes. That's awesome.

Okay, anything else? We want to go look at some maps.

Yeah, okay, let's do that then. Sorry, my online friends, thank you for joining us. We can leave it going, but I'm not sure that we're gonna have a lot more discussion than what, what we've already had. So, um, we'll leave it live. We'll leave it live.

Okay, perfect, perfect, perfect. Okay, great.

Chip, would you be interested in joining, uh, Healy Sportsman's situation? Probably. Yeah, you got 1 to 12 grandchildren that Hunter said might be good for, and whatever.

Evelyn got a grouse this year. One of you friends, he was very happy.

Well, where are you looking?

Well, we got some places. This is just a— you want to explain a little bit? Yeah, so this is an overview of the land ownership. It is a bit dated. It was done, I think, in like 2018.

But the borough lands are shaded in blue, private is in red, the railroad land is in yellow. And then these are, insects that have more definition to them, but this might be a little bit easier to start the conversation with.

Generalization. But yeah, we've got all those, that's like this top sheet. And then there's somebody on named William Keith. I don't know if that's BJ. Oh, he just dropped.

So, I mean, um, a couple of ones that I know that we look at, and I, you know, I think every one of you have heard of the cows, and this is just—. What's, um, BJ Sun's name—. Here is part of our Antler Ridge, um, plan. I'm not exactly sure where it is, but we have some on the east side too. We had talked about that.

We do have a railroad over the edge of the rafters down in the river. So also, you got the sheep area, which I didn't show you. And you also have the highway, you know, and there's not a lot. So that's one place. One that Grant had mentioned was the road where Burgerman— because we saw the girl— Birdwood City.

Um, do you know what I'm talking about? There's, there's not a lot of houses. It's railroad land, whatever. We go back to access being tricky. Um, we still have the railroad on the other side of that river.

Um, you know, a lot of that. Um, one that was mentioned was that Hebe Road, the railroad in here. Like, so the cemetery would be up here, um, somewhere along There's Salt Lake and whatever, lots of places in there. Again, we're going to winter access. Maybe we just have a seasonal shooting range and it's weather dependent.

You can ride your snow machine in there if you want, you know, but it's probably not going to have— I don't see a borough plow truck taking care of, you know, or a shooting club plow truck, you know, rather, because I only ever shot pistol and learn to shoot a little bit. And you need to stay practiced. And yeah, absolutely. We did have a little bit of discussion with some of the borough land back this way. So Lester Road is right here, and I know there's borough land here, which is— this is kind of where the zip line would be coming through, that this access to borough land this way.

There's definitely some houses on this side, but maybe there were—. I mean, because the plant people wouldn't probably like that much.

Um, no, they should be very enthusiastic. Mhm. Close. Sure. And I think that we, you know, to have access is awesome.

Um, one for sure that it's been, uh That might make sense is the one, just, you know, the borough has lands just north of the transfer station. So, from this side of Kingman, we would go on the other side, the north side of Kingman. We would already have a driveway there. That's somewhere that they could left turn or whatever off of the already borough maintained place of business. That's not going to completely help the sounds people like Al have with night cleaning, but it's— I think it will still be better because it's going to be more, um, regular, supervised.

And that area, you got a lot of private You know, just pass out, just, uh, so I've been hearing—. Well, it's a little bit hard to—. You're talking like right here, pass for some—. Here's the original shooting pit. These are so probably the— here, but on this side of the—.

Talking probably this up here and catalogs. There's, there's probably going to be 50 people with lots of— and show you what they have on our inventory.

Do you want that? They already have it. Uh, not so much. You can, you can go later on.

And I think, but when you start getting down here, you're— which, you know, you'd have to have that discussion with them. Of course, of course. Yeah, there's a lot of people, a lot of potential from a lot of the last farms haven't been sold.

So, yeah.

You know, the next step is out.

It's— I think it would be like the same driveway, but transverse. So it would be— so the transverse— there's the— this is the 252. Yeah, we're going to still be putting up with the same one. It'd be closer to the residential than the current parking lot. Bus, bus noise, buffer.

Yeah, he could have tricked you out with that. That's a good thing.

And you're—.

Are you the driver's right on the left, right after? How is this driver right on the street?

Okay. Um, yeah, I think like with anything there's no perfect matching. There's more of a spot in the cinema. Um, one has a fan light, um, every bathroom, right? She works in the closet.

Um, not developed. But it's too— subdivided. There's a lot, and they haven't really been back because of—. The other thing is a little farther away from our regular customers. So, you know, like, there's always going to be trade-offs.

So I would love, you know, maybe if it You can get the sound guy involved and they're shooting into the— away from the transfer. Yes, away from the highway and the community.

And if it's, you know, if it's burned, it might make a little bit of a difference. And I know that the mayor of Saratoga has reached out to sound specialists or whatever. Like, that's—. I know he's probably not a magician, but he could at least tell us what you could do to help.

You think about overpasses and stuff where there's big rock walls on highways, you know, they're trying to protect some of the residents from some of the high The whole highway access seem to be kind of what James was saying, accessible, but there are the negatives. Yeah, I agree with that. People need to have visibility.

How about turn around?

You get into the one thing you could possibly do, which is so food, you find a way to bury everything like they have been in the—. You know, and then, and then we go too far, we might as well just shoot it clear.

They're just going to shoot it and then they're going to drag everything. We're on land up here, but it's more slope, right? Where if I slightly, you know, look in, it doesn't necessarily need to be limited to borough land either. So again, like, if there's like, you know, a site in here, I mean, that is, I think, right now on the table, you know, to at least ask questions of, right? So you got your low wage here and away from there, right?

Between there, there's that bench where you drop down onto the flat. I mean, that might be a noise barrier too. The natural one, you're gonna be shooting out past sort of the house, might see it. But if your percussion is behind the bench, yeah, I mean, it's just like the power player, like if they were short in the stack a little bit, they probably wouldn't have heard it.

Yeah, I spent a lot of time in the South Beach Theater there. It's the waves. You know what, Steve Carlisle out at Stampede out at Ormond, he was just in one of those raging times. Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's how It's not what you're talking about, you know. And there was always, you know, we talked up here in Vermont, you know, that's sort of our playground.

And do you really want that? You know, it's not about— it's really the contrast, you know. Yeah, I think about Dry Creek and people up there and Look at somebody in the eye. You've been there, seen the four-wheelers and the fat cows and the— anyone play shooting range. That is good, I say, for communities.

Trash is happening and nobody says anything, and they get shooting range, shoot four-wheelers and fat cows. I mean, that's kind of—. We could probably sign somebody up for that. Been out there creating some stuff. We have.

Yeah, it's just down, happened there, you know.

That's another topic. Well, so now you're good for shooting.

Right, that's why we left to go to Gili River, you know, while they lost— we don't want to lose Gili River to that sort of condition. It's going to be rough to distribute.

Maybe we can share it, maybe we can, you know, I don't know. But so Chip, you had mentioned like railroad land in the Johnny Gonzalez time. Yeah. And I'm thinking it must have been like over here, but now I see there's these private plots right here and private plots right here. I wonder where that was identified, like any—.

This would be marshlands. Okay. Yeah. Huh.

Now there's probably—. And I, you know, unfortunately I was more interested in the sportsman's club than I was in the exact location for a reason. But he did mention that he talked to the railroad. Okay. Yeah.

And north of McKnight, I mean, I'm sure it wasn't here, but that is— yeah.

Actually, yeah, sure. So looks like you only have a small radio there, so I, I know, I, I, I think Johnny's passed away. Sure, yeah, so can't—. Was 30 years ago, was a while, because I was the borough clerk for him, so it's been a while.

Or second? No, was our first.

I wonder what they do at South Coastland. I don't know how close that is to anything in Fairbanks. It's like Northern Wood, it's just beyond. Yeah, kind of nothing there. Okay, it's, it's, you know, residence.

Yeah, mostly commercial.

You know, this railroad stuff you're talking here, yes, but it all in here right now. You know, we got— you know, railroad is going to continue develop, you know, you're kind of downhill.

We start gathering that here, we start picking, but this won't help because that same vet said she going to need 30s and all this to come here, you know, but that's going to be— they're probably not going to want to.

Well, it doesn't hurt to ask. Yeah, no, no, no, no, she already got it. But this, yeah, gets away a little bit from your visibility, accessibility. Yeah. And then, you know, another place that I didn't mention earlier was, um, behind Auto Lake where the original— there was a back 30 years ago.

Yeah, but that should— now it's a model. We've had it Well, and it's a, you know, element even farther into West Branch Creek past the four-wheelers and the wagons and the turnarounds. Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, it's actually, you know, you, I mean, they still got some there, like that, but that's wild. I didn't think they wanted that function there.

No. Oh no, I'm sure. Well, I mean, having business trouble, that's probably not great. It's probably going to be more people hitting you up. I mean, that was a nice little sportsman's club we had for a while.

Yeah, had a dirt machine.

It's been a long time. Yeah, because there is somewhere to live that way. It would be great for us, but We're spread out.

And we're growing without any patterns of preferences. So, but I'm not ever going to say the C word because, yeah, you can't not do that. Um, even though that was the Outstamp, can you pass for the development team? Do you have any more of them out there, or is that all just laid out there? No, I think it is.

Great morning, Nathan. I'm gonna have to look— I can't read my, my upside-down map here. This is—. Yeah, this is Sam King. Yeah.

It's all dated, right? You know, so I think there was still like movement to create like a rec area out of it. What was that? Was that like 10 years ago or something like that? Yeah, maybe not quite that long ago.

I know that the deck for the brothers are out there. That's where we go to. So you're talking about the boarding alley? Uh-huh. Basket lines.

Um, there's Five Mile Pit, but that would be terrible working. Yeah, I don't know anything exactly out there, but there—. Yeah, the sandwich and all the mushers, including me, train there and run there in the winter mode, but in the fall, springtime, I think it should be recreation, you know, and it's a high— that, that makes it good nature, you know. Further out, then you get pretty—. Right, you guys are running all over, not just—.

Um, in the fall we're just running road, um, the trail, and then in wintertime we go all kinds of trails. Yeah, all over the place, all around. That side, north side, 8 mile, that bunch of trails on the side.

Yeah, I think it'd be— if you're going to do a sportsman's zone and they were running, shooting range, they could certainly restrict hours, which would really help as you get closer to a residential area. That would restrict the couple of these valley places. When you want to shoot, we still have a couple of bears on there. And hopefully though, in the summertime, it's never dark, so we can go. But if it's gated, then you should probably have a view of some sort.

And sportsman's club in Raleigh, you can certainly restrict that. You should really help. That would mitigate any noise. I mean, the sports club members could come up with who's got key and who's in town to open it on Saturday morning or whatever. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, exactly. That's a great idea. I don't have a brother.

Invest in hearing about Cedar. Yeah, it's better than putting it down a shooting range and walking away. Good luck. Yeah, they're not speaking. At least my area, so anything you find, they're talking in foreign language out there.

So if you have any brilliant ideas I do want you to sign the sheet that I have just so I can make sure that I got your address, that you know how to address, so that I can let you know. Um, I do think Dakota's gonna come. He— um, there was like 7 people that told me that they'd be willing to be on sports and stuff. So at last week, so that just tells me that there is enough interest, you know, you're gonna have somebody take the, the reins and 3 or 4 people underneath him. That's basically— tough, it's going to be hard, but I think if under their umbrella, I think you can come up with something that's— that'll— yeah, somebody's going to hear it, but it won't be tricked out enough.

And whatever we do start, it's going to be improving over what's going on right now.

Safety, safety lights and trash cans, and you're just bringing this issue, whatever issue that is, does anyone have any familiarity with the Clear Clear Sky Sportsman's Club. They're going to talk about Anderson and Campbell. Does anybody know how Clear Sky operates right now? Pretty much just—. They do a trap shoot once a month.

They have like a small rink, but I think really good fishing.

Yeah, they only trap shoot. And they do have a pretty primitive clubhouse. That's right.

Guys were setting up for some long-range targets, and, um, you know, a couple more people showed up, and everybody knew everybody. And what were you going to work on today? And And that's at the Riverside Park, right? Which is kind of funny because the campground, you know, I don't know how many people come and there's a bird there. I just wonder if they notice them.

You know, like if you want to shoot larger bore, they do it off on the side. They'll get in the mountain game course or then if they want to go winging.

But they let everybody in there.

It's not like, you know, I'm working outside cutting down trees and then all of a sudden I hear them starting and at 10 o'clock at night. It's ridiculous. The signage has really made an improvement. They're not out there at all night long shooting and going nuts.

So that's got to be a lot better.

Um, it was really bad for a little—. Cindy texted me a picture of the Anderson signage and it says dawn to dusk for the hours. Bigger than the summer sign, which is kind of ironic, you know. Um, you know, they, um, if the neighbors hear people down there after 10 o'clock they'll call each other and go, who's shooting? What's going on?

And 2 or 3 of them will go down and, you know, show up and go get—. It's very well self-controlled.

If you guys want to take field trip, yeah, I want to send them down to see how simple it is, how you can do that. Money's not— you know, the guy with the dozer today Yeah, sure. Where's this spot you were thinking? It's pretty—. What you said, like a natural—.

I can't—. On this one? No, I mean, it would be basically— it's north of the transfer site, and it's not quite to Slate Creek. I think it's somewhere right in here.

It's just wherever, like, it's not a super steep drop down into the flats, but there's like some thick timber down in there. And yeah, it's not too flat. Like, if that's a part of land that would be— like, there's pockets of trees and foliage would help. It's—. Hitting the road doesn't seem like it'd be too big of a problem, right?

And you wouldn't be right on the road. I mean, the road would be behind you. And you can look down. But if you're far enough south, often the hill's not in the way yet. I know, like, um, not quite to Slate Creek, but where you get on Jay Carter and those places, you're not on the road down there.

It's just so steep. Yeah. Do you think that's part of the Slate Creek subdivision? Not Brian Baker.

No, I'll try to remember. Pay attention. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a gamble.

Sportsman's guys to go over, be standing there working hard with it. Well, there would be one more in the series. Got a bag to start with. It's closed.

Where I would—.

What would I think it would be like? Is that the gravel pit?

There's the—. There's the barn.

That's the transfer stand, right? Yeah, it's close over here where these trees—. Yeah, there's a bluff here.

You'd have to make sure that it doesn't shoot over the railroad tracks.

Right, I don't think that's railroad tracks. It technically would, but it's like, I mean, the railroad is—. This is the power line, this is the power line, and then this is the potential AK LNG line, but I don't think that's a game stopper now, but it may like—. May not want to be shooting straight or touching. Yeah.

But that was just a spot that, yeah, I noticed.

Yeah, but that's just something that I've seen with the hill there. There, if it wanted to hill up here, if you double block it, it wouldn't help. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be—. So And if you're all shooting, granted you'd be shooting towards the river, they're also on a different bluff or different bench, so yeah, it's not like you just have a shooting range with no backstop. Yeah, your backstop is—.

Yeah, like we needed access road for here. Yeah, there was a spot like that that I seen like it was a little jet that went right in. Almost— it doesn't look like a driveway because I've never seen tracks in it, but it's a spot of interest from somebody. Okay, maybe.

That's a good spot. From their—. Are these mainland center residents? Like, do you think they're—. Okay, there are some that feel Well, that one here, I would be there.

Where's Edward? Edward at the cabin, 2 or 3 places there.

Is it still here or how? Yeah, there you go. So that, and this one, these two were— you bought that, used to be Mandy's. You bought that from Mandy. This is Ed's cabin there.

He also had the cabin in this spot here.

Heard. But I, I think what you're talking to me a little further down from there. It might be. Yeah, I don't— I think, I think you're talking like right in the middle.

It should—. I don't hear— yeah, should better. And then here you're into, um, To know what people are thinking, it always be inclusive. Like, if we did it that far in our community, we always need another sportsman member to help self-regulate. I mean, it'd be quite an ask to ask somebody to drive 40 miles a day to open the gate, shut the gate, you know.

That's another consideration, right? If you move it farther and farther away from people, then it's not just a volunteer couple out, couple miles, or even 5 miles. If you, if you've got a sportsman's club, everybody got a key.

Sporting Club's a great idea. Okay, you get there, that's— I'm sure that you're on to— and that is only 10 miles away. It's not super far. No, I think that's well within— it's really 4 or 5 miles.

I like the key concept. That's—. I mean, Cody, when I was there, and I drove, I drove, problem, the sports kids change the lock, somebody is right back in the keys, you know. And then, well, most people, there is a charge for $150 a year, $20 a year, like, people complaining. But also, if you have a clean spot to shoot, that just be safe, a little cover, like, yeah, that's well worth it.

Even if you're—. Right, I mean, even— I mean, yeah, right, I mean, it'd be worth it if you knew you could go to a clean spot that Class anywhere. Yeah, I mean, you always had a day use. Yeah, that day could be right every third Saturday. I think I have the others on revision.

Is that people on that line with us, Amber, or—. No, that means I just got an email. Okay.

I love it when you do that. Thanks for coming. I know it's not always— No, no, it's good.

Down there by the train station, 35. Not a lot of people live there. Like what, what house? One, one resident family. I chased your son out of there one night.

Did you? Good for you. Was it my son Ethan? No, I don't think I—. You guys want Kodiak?

Yes, I got a shoe ready now. Come back here. If you think up the Healy River, there's nothing like before you get to the Mental Health Land Trust, that's land like some of those areas over there. It's been great to they mined, maybe? Or like, there's some areas there that it seems like there's some, some flat areas.

Yes, but no, because there is a house up there too. And I mean, I mean, it's just—. You just build it. Yeah. So it would be—.

And Robert Treehouse, right at the bottom. I don't know how far up the earth, how far down the Because, uh, I think it's all the way down because I forget the guy's name, but they have that cabin for—. Did you send it to me? Okay, not that far. I just—.

Yeah, I mean, it is a good spot.

Agency, but you know, I mean, you don't want to be right next to—. Yeah, or you're shooting directly at his house, yeah, or the other way at the river and boat with the sub-seasonal, I mean, packrafters and whatnot.

Where I thought he'd be, he probably going to do it year, but I think do it. Yeah, that's the art of cleaning. You can't beat it. What access is in the back? Well, exactly, when you start getting into our playground, nobody wants that.

That's a great spot too.

I actually— I— and it's a potentially get the lease back there and have close access. I think that might be future. Yeah, yeah, already there.

I mean, I, I think you were talking the highway access. Yeah, nice. That's— yeah, that's checks a few of the boxes. There's other way in there. That's—.

Yeah, I mean, you know, if you use that as a starting point and then locate all the houses around, you may just come to this width, you know. And I don't think you're going to get up far north. We go too far, I don't— he was clear, right?

10 Miles north, and that's about it, right?

You can't really go past Slate Creek, really. Not really, because then you're getting into Rock Creek and then Berry Rock Creek. Yeah, yeah. And then, then you got the big bank right there, which kind of moved down in that area. Well, I think this meeting was worth having.

Um, again, I'm hoping this just furthers the ball for the folks that are interested in being on Celeste's list to get that book in Latin America. Paperwork isn't hard, um, and I have the link, so you could send them a try to get this started.

So it'd be great to have this work. All we can do. Yeah, so could I get—. You go to this kind of lead in charge Yes, except that he doesn't want to be the president since he was the president of King County. There might be, um, I know we talked to Jake from Capitol Manor too.

Liam Chiu is very interested. There was a guy, so I know there are people.

It's just even if Dakota is the ball shover and not the top name on the list, then let's, you know, Yeah, I don't think that'll be hard. Yeah, he likes talking too much, so he can't help himself.

I think we're looking at a good candidate. I do too.

Yeah, they did a good job. They're doing this with their life.

That's interesting. She got her first job Oh, shark. Sharknail. Yeah, you got a sharknail. Oh, and she was—.

It might have been a rock. She was pleased as punch.

I was surprised. Did she shoot it out of the top of the tree? That's where sharknails grow. No, they're on the ground. They're on the ground, but they're on the ground.

It was just a perfect impingement a little like old windrow. To me, I think so. She could walk pretty close and it was a little peep site. And like, all right, before we left, I drew it on the whiteboard of how the peep site works. I'm like, just put that in the middle.

And then like, aim for the head. She's like, okay. And she hit the head. I was expecting this to blow up very easily. She hit the head.

Okay, she was probably like 15 feet or so. So I was like, but she—. Her smile was for Miles. So cool. Well, thanks for coming, you guys.

I really appreciate it. I, um, will make sure that you get the next emails when the board has a meeting or whatever else. I mean, yep, I see that. Thanks, Ethan. Yeah, you were the last one.

I was, yeah. Yeah, you're in the sign. We're in the same thing. Yeah, you are. It's time.

Maybe has mine. All right, I'm gonna, um, write this down right now so I don't lose it. Cindy, everybody Yeah, yep.

Off the press, is that what you're saying? Yeah, I'll just remove the label when it prints and there she go, by hand delivering my places.

How you gonna know to take it off my— off your mailing list? Okay. I have to prepare 1,800 of these and always have to not prepare one. You go. That was funny.

Stephanie, now I need collections. Yes, I knew that. And as soon as I pulled in, I'm like, shoot, I didn't email her today. Binky and Julie. Does she want to be Inky or Elma?

Uh, you can put Elma. It's her voter card. And then, um, I have 4 students. Not Serafina, I'm assuming? Not Serafina.

And baby Reuben. Reuben, that's cute. Reuben Graham Wentworth. So what's really funny— Julie Torrey? Yes.

Okay, we had him here on the last Thank you. Okay, I will. That would be great. I was, I was going to say I want one more person, um, but I have 4 students. Great.

So do you know the, um, jingle? JG, what word? 877-CASH NOW. And they're often like in an opera situation. So we, because Oliver's last name is Winters, so we have been his baby, JJ.

But our—. Perfectly. It's really funny too, some of the little girls, some of the little girls call, um, him, um, he was named Ashlyn, this little guy, it was Judah, and they'll call, oh, Judy, and they're gonna have Judy at Ruby.

Oh man, grow out of Some of the little girls call him—. He was named Ashley's little guy, it was Judah, and they'll call him, oh, Judy, and they're gonna have Judy at Ruby.

Oh no.