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Show i r - f. 1 3 -- f & . I . Davis County rescue personnel struggle to free four teen-agers from the wreckage of their vehicle vehi-cle after they had been drinking in the mountain area above Bountiful. The driver was unable to negotiate the sharp turns getting back out of the mountains and careened into a gully. There were no fatalities, but one youth had to be transported by helicopter from the scene. Rescue workers fought rough terrain and darkness for several hours to free the youths from the twisted vehicle. Range war enters negotiation phase By SCOTT SUMMERILL FARMINGTON - The Davis County Search and Rescue team withheld their bid for control of the Davis County Rifle Range with the understanding that representatives from the group will meet with Wasatch Wa-satch Shooters Association and Davis County Sheriffs Department representatives to hammer out an acceptable range management policy that satisfies each group's needs. The range has been managed by Wasatch Shooters for 10 years, and their contract with the county comes due for renewal June 24. During the past decade, law enforcement en-forcement personnel have experienced experi-enced problems scheduling adequate ade-quate time on the range for training police officers. In addition, there have been many complaints that the range has not been managed property, the facilities have been allowed to deteriorate, de-teriorate, the range masters have treated patrons not belonging to the association rudely and nearby residents have had stray rounds hit their property. J The mounting problems involving involv-ing the range and complaints prompted pro-mpted the Search and Rescue team to develop a bid for control of the range. However, when the time came to submit bids to the county commission last week the groups agreed to work out the problems by forming a committee. "We're repairing the holes in the roof of the medium range," said Wasatch Shooters Association president John Ott "We're also setting set-ting up new targets, putting a new cover on the small bore range, and we're working on the drainage problem." Davis County Sheriff Harry Jones said police agencies have had very restricted access to the range. The difficulty getting on the range has caused problems getting some of the training needed by police officers, such as special weapons training and night firing. "It's been like jumping hurdles to get on that range," Jones said. "We don't want to get rid of the Shooters Association. We just want to have more control. We want to be able to negotiate and not have to go over and beg on hands and knees fortune." mm' According to Jones, the problems with range neighbors will persist because people are shooting outside the range grounds. "We're always going to have problems with the residents in that area," he said. "That's just the nature of the beast." Davis County Sheriffs Department Depart-ment Chief Deputy K. D. Simpson added that, "Our whole goal is to make the range more accessible to the public and the police departments." depart-ments." Commissioner William Lawrence, who was also instrumental instrumen-tal in developing the range, said the original purpose of the range was to provide a place for the public to fire. However, he acknowledged the need of police to train as well. "The public has very few places to go if they want to shoot," Lawrence said. "The original concept con-cept of this range was for the public. pub-lic. It's a multipurpose concept." Officials from each group will be meeting to work out details of how to make things better at the range. Some of the ideas discussed at the commission meeting were getting get-ting personnel from each group to sit on the range board of directors to act as liaisons, having volunteers ' from the law enforcement groups put time in as range masters and train more personnel as range masters to allow the range to increase in-crease hours of operation. |