MANSFIELD — The Mansfield Police Department may get a new indoor shooting range.
During its regular meeting Tuesday, Mansfield City Council approved the appropriation of $48,000 to police operations contractual services classification to pay for design/architectural services to prepare contract documents for the construction of a new shooting range.
“As all our members of council know, we’ve had a little problem with our shooting range downstairs (in the municipal building). It’s out of date, it’s not up to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) standards, and we had to do some emergency funding for lead cleanup,” said Third Ward Councilman Jon Van Harlingen.
Because of this, the department has been using other entities’ firing ranges, including Richland County Fish and Game Club’s and the Lexington Police Department’s facility.
“I think somewhere between the 1970s (when the municipal building was built) and 2017, those EPA standards changed drastically in how lead is handled,” said Police Chief Ken Coontz. “You can imagine what type of rounds the officers were shooting in the early ’70s and ’80s.”
Coontz said the department looked into renovating its firing range, but estimated costs ranged from $650,000 to $1.25 million and it would have required reconfiguring the “guts” of the building to accommodate air filtration standards.
“That would have included digging a couple floors down beside the building just outside where our current records is, where the fountain is,” he said. “There was an area there where they were proposing to dig down a floor or two, put in this gigantic wall-size louver system, basically tapping into the structure of the city building itself.”
That was not a realistic option, he said. Neither was renovating an existing building.
“The problem with renovation is it’s terribly expensive to bring an existing building, change the configuration from the roof and HVAC system to make it appropriate for a shooting range,” said City Engineer Bob Bianchi. “It’s complicated and there’s lots of design criteria that must be followed.”
Ultimately, officials deemed the best option is to construct a new shooting range, Bianchi said.
“The property that we think is most viable is the top of parking garage right outside (the municipal building),” he said. “It has a sufficient width and length to accommodate a shooting range. It also has what we believe to be a proper foundation. Obviously there needs to be some structural engineering analysis on the concrete foundation to see if modifications are necessary, but that is where the new shooting range is proposed to be constructed.”
Police departments throughout the state must meet standards set by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy.
“We go way above and beyond what’s required to make sure that we’re maintaining a high standard of professionalism for our officers in terms of shooting and their ability to shoot and hit a target and not make poor judgments,” Coontz said.
Mansfield PD takes OPOTA’s course four times a year and incorporates other requirements in its training, including different scenarios that the officers are likely to encounter.
“We’re trying to figure out how we get three shifts of officers to qualify every quarter,” Coontz said. “It’s been difficult, especially with our night-shift officers since we don’t have our own shooting range.”
With about 80 officers on staff, the department shoots approximately 20,000 rounds of ammunition using about nine different weapon systems annually for qualification and training purposes, Coontz said
“We do have to build some type of a shooting range because it’s great that these other organizations and cities are helping us out with our shooting qualifications, but eventually you’re going to wear out your welcome,” Mayor Tim Theaker said.
Coontz noted the officers try to be respectful when using other firing ranges, making sure to pick up their rounds and clean up any trash.
“We leave like we weren’t even there,” he said.
Also Tuesday night, council approved the purchase of three 2017 Ford Police Interceptor Utility vehicles for a total cost not to exceed $124,731.
“These monies are already in the capital improvement fund with the Mansfield PD and this has been through the board of control and approved,” Van Harlingen said.
