News

Saluda residents plot battle plan against firing range

By Bill Moss, Published: April 18, 2018

SALUDA — Although they love peace and quiet, Saluda folks are making a collective roar against Henderson County’s latest effort to site a shooting range.

Nearly 250 people turned out Monday night to hear about the range, which Henderson County Sheriff Charlie McDonald wants to build on a 99-acre parcel of steep woodland on Macedonia Road in rural Saluda. The information session followed what turned into a rally of more than 150 people outside the Grove Street Courthouse on Saturday, when county officials held an information session inside with nearby landowners but barred the public otherwise.
At the meeting on Saturday, neighbors said they were stunned to hear McDonald say that he had not walked the property, nor had any commissioners, despite their unanimous vote on April 2 to buy the property for $655,000, conditioned on due diligence. Since then, commissioners Charlie Messer and Tommy Thompson have visited the property and met with concerned neighbors, and sheriff’s deputies fired shots on the land Friday to test the noise level.
McDonald said he needs a facility to provide “realistic training for deputies responding to crisis events.”
“Recent incidents across our nation have only served to underscore the necessity of such training,” he said two weeks ago. “We ask these men and women to respond to incredibly complex emergencies, exercising flawless critical problem-solving skills, when in many instances we have failed to properly prepare them.”
Monday night’s meeting featured Brian Goldman, the attorney who helped Green River homeowners defeat the county’s first effort to site a training center and firing range, at a former summer camp.
Goldman represents a small group of landowners, including Susan and Tom McHugh, who live near the site.
“We live within spitting distance,” said McHugh, a retired land developer. “I can look right into it. I was never asked. I was never consulted.”

‘Behind the 8-ball’

A Henderson County planner before he went to law school, Goldman laid out numerous factors that opponents can make against the Macedonia Road site. He urged the crowd to attend Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Commissioners and admonished them to behave.
“We’re dignified,” he said. “We’re not out there hootin’ and hollerin’ when someone makes a good point. We need to be respectful.” Lots of speakers is OK, he added. “But for everyone just to get up there and say the same thing, after a little while may fall on deaf ears. So we’re developing some talking points” to make sure separate major points are covered.
Among the points:
• Incompatibility. As the applicant for a special-use permit, the county would have to show “site appropriateness, compatibility with surrounding uses and protection of public health, safety and welfare,” according to the land-use code. The Zoning Board of Adjustment would hear the case. Opponents have brought up erosion, groundwater contamination, water pollution, traffic and gunshots as factors they say threaten public health, safety and welfare. On Monday night the neighbors scoffed at the prospect that the county could prove that a shooting range is compatible with surrounding uses.
• Lead pollution. A nearby example commissioners will hear about is lead pollution at an abandoned range at Southwestern Community College, which is currently in a remedial cleanup phase. A stream through the Saluda land empties into the Green River, which feeds Lake Adger, “a lot of y’all’s backup water supply,” Goldman said. “I don’t know in 20 years, that’s still too close.
• Environmental assessment. Engineers told residents Saturday they have not yet investigated whether there are endangered plants or animals. Neighbors say there’s an eagle’s nest on the property.
• Other options. The opponents point out that there are indoor or outdoor ranges at the WNC Justice Academy in Edneyville, in Shelby, at Cliffside in Rutherford County, in Buncombe County and in Greenville County, S.C. “He’s not making the effort to train his deputies as much as he could, even though that’s his primary motivation — to get better trained deputies, and we all want better trained police officers,” said James Hrynyshyn, a Saluda Planning Board member and a leader of the campaign against the range. “Even if all these other things weren’t true, even if we weren’t worried about the future of Saluda, this thing is not necessary and I think we’ve proved the sheriff has not taken advantage of existing resources to train his officers. Nobody needs to suffer through this. This should be the last time the sheriff tries to put one of these things through.”

Goldman held up a map with 1,000-foot circles showing what land would be off-limits because of the land-use code’s buffer from homes. The 1,000-foot radii put 80 percent of the land off-limits, he said.
“They’re already starting behind the 8-ball knowing that there’s very little property that they can use,” he said. “They may end up being good stewards of your money and not spend those funds to buy that piece of property. … It may make it very easy for commissioners to save face and say not here, not now.”

Issue attract candidates

Two candidates showed up Monday night who could team up to reverse the county’s decision if elected — sheriff’s candidate Lowell Griffin and Don Ward, who is running for his old District 4 seat.
“We need something that’s multi-dimensional,” serving fire, EMS and law officers, said Griffin, who faces McDonald in the May 8 Republican primary. “I understand the need for realistic and relevant ongoing training. … There are so many options out there. We need to slow down, let’s research all the options and let’s do it right.”
Retired Superior Court Judge Zoro Guice, who has deep roots in the area, has also joined the opposition. The Guice homestead “belonged to my great-great-grandfather,” he said. “I’ve hunted all over that property, I’ve fished all over it and I still own 30 acres at the top of the mountain overlooking where the shooting range would be.”
And he’s lobbying commissioners to kill it.
“I have talked to Charlie Messer,” he said. “I have a meeting with Mike Edney in the morning. I’m going to try to talk to my cousin Tommy Thompson sometime before the Wednesday meeting.”
Candidates for office have adopted the shooting range resistance as major planks of their campaigns. Besides Ward and Griffin, those include Democrats who face uphill battles in reliably Republican precincts. State House candidate Sam Edney and state Senate candidate Norm Bossert both attended the events Saturday and Monday.
“Personally I don’t think it’s going to work for the sheriff,” Bossert said. “These people are p---ed off. To me if the people didn’t care, I’d say OK. They care, this is their neighborhood, where their homes are, where their kids play. I would bet that there are just as many Republicans here as Democrats. This is not a partisan issue.”
Flat Rock resident Pat Sheley, a Democrat running for the Board of Commissioners, stood up Monday night and announced her opposition to the project.
Longshot they may be, but there’s firing range opponents will win the Raven Rock precinct.

Rally on the courthouse steps

Saturday’s rally produced a cinematic picture when around 150 residents stood on the steps of the Grove Street courthouse, cheering speakers who denounced the shooting range proposal.
“How many resource officers could we put in the schools for $6 million?” asked Steve Rhodes, provoking a spirited cheer. “The issue on the front burner right now is children’s safety. How many school shootings are we going to witness and this clown wants to put $6 million on a training facility. When we already have one that could be utilized. Bullet-proof doors. Metal detectors, something, $6 million to protect our children, not for some guy that’s going to go shootin’ out in the woods.”
Hrynyshyn, the Saluda Planning Board member, said McDonald dismissed the idea of using other facilities for training.
“He really wants to have his own,” said Hrynyshyn, the Saluda Planning Board member. “He doesn’t really care what else is nearby.”
Engineers told residents that the due diligence period ends around May 23.
“Six weeks or less, they have all these studies to show whether or not this thing is going to make sense,” Hrynyshyn said. “I’m not sure it’s possible to do the kind of deliberate due diligence in five or six weeks.”
“But isn’t that convenient,” a landowner said, “because that’s after the May election.”