Residents Request `No Shooting’ Area Be Designated

Some people who own land in a sparsely developed North Side neighborhood west of Highway 2 have requested that their neighborhood be designated a “no shooting” area.

County commissioners will consider the request at their regular meeting Tuesday.

The meeting begins at 5 p.m. in the downstairs hearing room of the county Public Works Building, W1026 Broadway.

The proposed “no shooting” area would be bordered by Woolard Road on the north and Colbert Road on the south and would extend from Highway 2 west about a half mile.

The designation would prohibit discharging guns, including pellet and BB guns, and bows and arrows and crossbows.

There are 20 parcels of land in the area, most of them large acreages, said Gary Kennaly, a county engineer and chairman of the county’s No Shooting Area Advisory Committee.

Ten of the landowners in the area signed a petition requesting the action, Kennaly said.

“They are concerned about folks that are hunting back in there without permission,” Kennaly said.

A spur of Burlington Northern Railroad track splits the neighborhood, giving trespassers easy access to the area, he said.

The “no shooting” ordinance has a provision that allows property owners to set up a target practice range on their land if it is approved by the Sheriff’s Department.

“We’re not coming in and grabbing all the guns,” Kennaly said. “The property rights are still there.”

Much of the urbanized area of the county is already considered a “no shooting” area.