City of Carlsbureaucracy

Guest Commentary
by Michael A. Schwartz

While many were out celebrating Cinco de Mayo, more than 200 people again showed up to Carlsbad’s City Council meeting to support Gunther Guns’ indoor recreational shooting range. The first time was back in February, as I previously documented.

This time there were a couple more speakers in opposition than February’s lone opponent, but the speakers were overwhelmingly in favor of approving the indoor range. One of the opposition speakers was concerned with possible traffic issues and a couple other speakers simply didn’t want guns to exist, especially in their city. There were no reasons presented why this range does not fit into the current zone, an industrial area that includes “recreation facilities.”

City Attorney Celia Brewer explained that the City Council’s narrow issue to consider was whether or not the City Planner made an error in his analysis or abused his power in his original denial. Brewer went on to say that the Council was only to base their decision on the evidence brought before them in the meeting that night. The reality is that no matter what each individual City Council Member bases their decision on, an approval would clear the way for an indoor gun range and a
denial would not.

Backstory

After the February Planning Commission meeting there was a flurry of activity. Lisa Gunther, her supporters, advisors, and I received a lot of communication from those who wanted to help. Lisa and her husband Gregg took the high road throughout. They made it clear that no matter how frustrated they were or how frustrated their supporters were, nobody was to be disrespectful to city staff or the city’s elected officials.

A number of constituents, voters, supporters, and friends of Carlsbad Mayor Hall and the City Council Members asked what they could do to help. A number of professionals with experience working with Carlsbad staff on other projects volunteered their services. It was an outpouring of support by people who wanted to support a small business, people who wanted to support a gun range, and people who just wanted to support the Gunthers.

The first priority was to find out how each Council Member viewed the idea of an indoor recreational gun range in Carlsbad. Elected officials, people representing tax groups, people from different political groups, pro-business groups, and gun rights groups attempted to contact the Mayor and Council Members to discuss the issue. We quickly found out that Mayor Hall and Council Members Michael Schumacher and Mark Packard had adopted a bunker mentality. The few who were able to get the Council Members to talk about the indoor range reported back with stories about personality conflicts between Mayor Hall and the Gunthers or claims of dishonesty and code violations by the Gunthers.

Naively, supporters of the Gunthers assumed this would be as easy as finding out the concerns of the Council and addressing them in a logical, level-headed manner to make sure all were comfortable with the proposal. But after our first attempts to communicate, we knew that the personal bias expressed by the Mayor and some Council Members would be difficult to overcome.

To their credit, Council Members Keith Blackburn and Lorraine Wood were available and happy to discuss the indoor range issue. Both were interested in gathering as much information as they could to have a better understanding of the issue. For their openness and hard work, both are a credit to Carlsbad and the voters they represent.

The Vote

All speakers had a chance to address the City Council. Everyone was very polite and respectful except for one person who earlier in the night spoke in opposition to the range. After his statement, while he was in the audience he loudly interrupted one of the other speakers repeatedly. He finally chose to run out of the meeting while Mayor Hall attempted to stop him from interrupting. His inability to even hear someone with a differing viewpoint speak was the only example of disrespect all night. It was a shame.

The final vote was 4 to 1 in opposition to the gun range, with Council Member Blackburn the only vote in support. Mayor Hall started out by explaining that he doesn’t think the City Planner made an error or abused his power. Hall said he listened to all the radio interviews and researched Poway’s new ranges. He said he is open to a range, but thinks it needs to be researched more. Apparently, time spent with the constituents and experts who tried to meet with him over the last two months wasn’t the kind of research he meant, and listening to his constituents wasn’t as interesting as the radio interviews.

Council Members Schumacher, Packard, and Wood all fell in line with Mayor Hall, echoing the idea that they wanted to give the range more consideration. I am not certain why the months between the Planning Commission meeting and the City Council meeting was not enough time for consideration, but they said they didn’t want to be “reactionary.” It is nice to hear elected officials be honest about their lack of interest in voter opinion even if they do it by using a huge buzzword.

The one Council Member who voted in favor of Gunther Guns was Keith Blackburn. Not only were his comments about the proposal and everything that had gone on around it elegant and thoughtful, but he also successfully asked that the City Council add to the motion a request to have city staff add indoor shooting ranges to the zoning uses. He added that he’d like to get this completed “sooner rather than later.” It was a show of leadership from the Council. Finally.

Council Member Schumacher’s comments were particularly interesting. In his explanation he told us all that voting against opening a gun range was not a gun issue or a Second Amendment issue. He went on to say that Carlsbad isn’t against the Second Amendment and the proof is that they approved the Gunthers’ gun shop. What he failed to mention was that Lisa Gunther was in front of the Carlsbad Planning Commission three times and three times was denied a permit. All three times Schumacher, while a member of the Planning Commission, voted against the store .

Now What?

If the Council Members were all being sincere and the angst from city staff towards Gunther’s range has dissipated, there is every reason to believe that indoor gun ranges will be added to at least one of the zones in Carlsbad. Not necessarily the zone where the Gunther building is, but somewhere.

Considering what Lisa Gunther has been through, I do not believe the future looks any easier, as evidenced below.

Posted on Facebook by Jerome Stocks, just after the meeting Tuesday, was the following:

“As a friend of Matt Hall, a shooting enthusiast, and former Mayor of Encinitas, I understand how cities want business licensees to follow zoning and licensing rules. Mayor Hall is a Vietnam era injured Army veteran. We need to be willing to listen to the whole story of this permit application. As usual, I’m sure we’ll discover there’s more to the story than we currently understand.”

Minutes later by Stocks, “…there must be a zoning or code enforcement or some other issue at play here. It simply isn’t clear or being disclosed. Legalities?”

“But again,” continued Stocks, “there may be issues not made public for legal reasons that the Carlsbad City Council is aware of and acting upon. We will eventually be so advised.”

Combine what Mr. Stocks said with a column by Thomas K. Arnold of the Seaside Courier. In the comments section a debate ensues and Mr. Arnold says of approving the indoor gun range, “They won’t. It’s not the song so much as the singer.”

What is Mayor Hall’s dear friend Jerome Stocks implying? What has Thomas Arnold been told to prompt such a comment? What is wrong with “the singer”? Most importantly, who is doing the telling?

The fear is that this will turn into a witch hunt and a smear campaign against two of the nicest people I know, Lisa and Gregg Gunther. Hopefully this is not an attempt to shut down their small, Carlsbad business because of what they sell.

*****

Schwartz is the Volunteer Regional Coordinator for Gun Owners of California