Hatchery, gun range faring well in Juneau
Published Sunday, March 30, 2008
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Stumble It!JUNEAU — With two weeks left in the regular legislative session, some Fairbanks area priorities are largely secured, while others are still up in the air.
Here’s a look at a few.
• Fairbanks Hunter Education Indoor Shooting Range. The state-owned range off College Road opened in 2000 and is used for hunter education, recreational shooting and school rifle teams.
Fish and Game officials say the range and others in Anchorage and Juneau were never meant to be self-supporting, but some lawmakers have been reluctant to fund the ranges, which get about $675,000 a year for operating expenses.
This year, money was stripped from the operating budget in the House and again in the Senate, but Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks, and Sen. Joe Thomas, D-Fairbanks, succeeded in getting the money put back in. The money is likely to stay in.
• Ruth Burnett Sport Fish Hatchery. Funding for the hatchery, which is already under way, was questioned this year after it became clear that the Fairbanks facility and another one in Anchorage would cost a lot more than lawmakers thought when they approved a bond package a few years ago. Lawmakers from Anchorage questioned whether it still made sense to build both hatcheries.
Lawmakers from both cities ultimately agreed to push for both facilities, and Gov. Sarah Palin came up with a plan for funding them. Palin also allowed the Fairbanks project to go out to bid, essentially committing the state to building it.
Funding for the Fairbanks hatchery is in the supplemental budget already passed and in the newest version of the capital budget. But lawmakers are still considering Palin’s funding plan, which basically covers the Anchorage facility, and there’s some effort to make the Fairbanks funding contingent upon passage of the plan.
• Stampede State Recreation Area. Healy and Denali Borough residents have been pushing for a park along the Stampede Road, largely in an effort to keep things how they are now. Thomas and Rep. David Guttenberg, D-Fairbanks, are both sponsoring bills that would create the park, and Guttenberg’s version had its first hearing this week. Either could still pass, but time is running out.
• BIOS. The University of Alaska and local lawmakers have been trying for years to secure funding for a new biological sciences facility on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The current cost estimate is $113 million, and for now there’s no funding source in sight. It’s somewhat unlikely that a direct appropriation will make it into the capital budget, but there’s talk of trying to fund BIOS in a bond package with a state crime lab and other facilities. Lawmakers have not yet considered the bond proposal.
Fairbanks residents appointed
Palin announced the appointment this week of Bernard Gatewood to the Suicide Prevention Council and Jim Lynch to the Alaska Workforce Investment Board. Linda Hulbert was reappointed to the workforce investment board. All three are Fairbanks residents.
Gatewood worked for the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice for two decades, serving at facilities around the state, including the Fairbanks Youth Facility. His is a former member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Health and Social Services Commission.
Lynch is a certified public accountant and chief human resources officer for Banner Health’s Alaska facilities.
Hulbert currently serves as vice chair of the Interior Alaska Regional Workforce Board. She is a past member of the Fairbanks Private Industry Council, State Job Training Coordinating Council, and other groups.
Bills on the move
A bill sponsored by Guttenberg setting up a merit- and need-based scholarship program moved out of the House Health, Education, and Social Services committee this week. The bill would award grants of at least $1,000 to full- and part-time students with at least a 3.0 grade-point average and a demonstrated financial need.
An associated bill that would deposit $100 million into a scholarship fund did not move out of committee.
Guttenberg said Tuesday he still thought the proposal could get through this year.
“It is unacceptable that Alaskans who show promise do not move on to higher learning simply because of the cost,” he wrote in a sponsor statement.
The bills are HB 397 and HB 403.
A resolution sponsored by Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, calling for the repeal of the federal Real ID Act of 2005 passed the House this week with only one vote against it.
The resolution, HJR 19, is scheduled for its first hearing in the Senate next week.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, dealing with driver’s licenses is scheduled for a hearing in its last committee of referral today. The bill, HB 75, would require everyone to renew their driver’s licenses when they turn 21 and pass an alcohol and drug awareness and safety test.
Community Discussion
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I still dislike others' funding of my range time.
I agree with MEL 1776 -- it should be self fundint -- completely, building, heat everything. And, how in H*** does it cost $675,000 to operate this thing. Oh .. government employees probably ... lol. Did they make some regulation about "young hunters" and then used that to justify the range? Pitiful.
The university needs another dinosaur bio building like I need 3 shoes. What an empire that has been created since I attended in the 70's. Essentially empty multimillion dollar buildings everywhere or only staffed by employees …. wonderful. I wonder if they have started providing a decent education yet?
A fish hatchery in Fairbanks … brilliant. Why not move it to Barrow where it is warmer and better suited? It will be nice when oil goes back to $8 and the state is broke and we have to pay huge income tax. Maybe people will wake up.
Salaries are not such a large portion of operating the Fish and Game Range. The range has just one full time and two seasonal employees.
Operating that state of the art air handling system (to keep lead out of our systems) eats up the dollars. The air handler expells a lot of warm air that has to be reheated (using more fuel oil). The HEPA filters have to be replaced frequently (and disposed of) depending on how much the range is used. The range is heavily used.
I agree that it would be great to have a self-supporting in-door range, but I just don't see that happening. How much are you willing to pay for an hour of shooting?
James..."It will be nice when oil goes back to $8 and the state is broke and we have to pay huge income tax."
Wanna bet?
I too only want my tax dollars going to only certain things. If that happened I would be willing you would feel it. Hope you dont mind.
The only reason others are trying to kill the Fairbanks range is because their city or town does not have one. A part of each hunting and fishing license sold in the US goes into a fund who's sole purpoase is to build new wildlife habitat and shooting ranges. The city of Kodiak wrote a grant request in the late 1970'-early 80's and received $250,000 for their indoor range. It was a self sufficent range, and, as the past Vice-Pres of the Kodiak KISA range, I can tell you keeping up with the bills and maintenance was a day to day concern for everyone. We relied heavily on an all volunteer force - if you have ever worked with a large group of volunteers, well, then you know how hard it is keeping everyone happy.
What Alaska needs is to create a small division who's sole purpose is to channle funds to build these indoor ranges across the state. These indoor ranges not only provide a place to teach safety and shoot safely - they give the shooting sports a better reputation by providing a place for novices to shoot who normally might set up a target by the side of the road, shooting unsafely, and leaving trash.
Right now, by having the Fairbanks range public funded - the people running it maintain an iron grip on the range safety, rules, and enforcement. If this range were required to be self sufficent - the staff would have to take a chill pill, and stop enforcing some of their current safety practices in order to not offend the paying customers. They would no longer be able to act like a lifeguard in a pool - more like a salesperson at Sears.
Most ranges, especially the ones in the lower 48, were established a long time ago. They receive considerable donations and funding from trust funds set up by dead and dying members. You don't get the kind of support from a new range - takes time. Most ranges are not able to support them selves. Especially if they host school shooting teams that can not pay the actual cost of their range time. The ones that do usually have a contract with the local police, military, and state police for them to exclusively use the range and pay big $$ for the time, and/or receive an income from an onsite gunsmith and ammo sales during open hours.
The funds to build ranges in other medium sized cities already exists - they just don't have the number of people willing to get the ball rolling. Writting the grant is easy - it's keeping the place running that is a real chore. Only reason Kodiak was able to pull it off - it's home to the 2nd largest Coast Guard base. With all the rain and poor weather - KISA is able to sell 9am-5pm range time to the different agencies.
Very good information Glacierwolf, thank you.
Mel and James you two must not of been keeping up with the information stream. The shooting ranges were never meant to be self supporting. The only way they could come close would be if they sold guns and outdoor accesories and that puts them in competition with local stores. Also I don't see a building the size of Sportsman's to house something like that.
So the purpose is to educate the communities on the road systems in hunter education. Since we are mandated to have a hunter education card when we hunt. On a side note, we do have a better safety record than the bush communities.
As for the fish hatchery since we have been paying for the Fairbanks hatchery for the last three to four years, I for one would like to see it build and know that my dollars went where I wanted it to go (in my lifetime)instead of someone's pocket.
And since we aren't going to get any fish out of Anchorage for a while, why not have one in Fairbanks. The schools will benefit from having one here and a lot of education spin offs can be accomplished.
As for the university, well once again the professors get a raise and the staff personel get .... enough said.
Glacierwolf
I checked into the Kodiak shooting range and it is like a lot of the private shooting ranges trying to scrap out a living.
In reading some of the minutes, you are right maintenence is a big problem with folks tearing down the gates and dragging freezers and other things into shoot at and not taking them off. If they do it is probably just pass the gate and left on the road side, the road is as they said "is not passable" at times due to the lack of maintenence and time to time bear alerts for thse who elect to walk from the gate to the building some 1.3 miles.
You also can't forget your ear protection because the viewing room gets a bit loud since they don't have sound board between the in-door range and the viewing area.
You also mentioned the too many rules and restrictions at our range here. Safety is the primary rule of the ranges or at least should be. I guess with all of the glass and debris being left around KISA range they have a lack of eyes on the range. I sort of like to have a range that is one well maintained and regulated, with state of the art hepa filters and sound suppressing so people in the viewing area can watch in a protected area.
Your comment about the staff should be like Sears is way out of line, have you bought anything at Sears lately, you can't get any help out of those folks.
I for one like to having the staff watch my back and and keeping me safe.
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