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North Adams, MA City Council Backs Citizens In Gun Range Dispute

The North Adams, Massachusetts city council is standing with citizens who don’t want a public gun range to close.

In June, Mayor Tom Bernard announced that the city’s public gun range would be shuttered. He said that the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association would be unable to insure the range past July 1st, 2019. The decision left both the city council and gun range users rankled.

“It was an abrupt thing. None of the council members saw this coming. There was no communication piece that was put out prior to that. We want to make sure that things that come to the city council and to the citizens are maintaining transparency," Councilor Rebbecca Cohen told WAMC. Oct. 9th, the city council passed a resolution that called on the mayor to explore insurance options that would keep the range open. “The reason that the mayor said the gun range was going to be closing as of January was because our insurance would not cover," said Cohen. "So the council unanimously — in the public safety meeting — decided to write a resolution to the mayor recommending that he does explore those options.”

The announcement of the closure has led to a spike in range users — and city council meeting attendees.

“There’s 82 members of the gun range at this point that are key hold members, and it is a substantial amount considering that there are people that go up there for recreational use and they’re very safe," said Cohen. "They cleaned up the gun range, and they have a position that that’s something that they want in the city, and it was a pretty large showing — we’ve probably had at our city council meetings more members in the audience for that agenda item then we have for almost every other one that I’ve been on.”

Cohen joined the council in January. She said if the question of keeping the range open was one of insurance, the council was confident that a reasonable solution was at hand.

The people that are up at the gun range have had a quote — Kim Perry has quoted — she works at an insurance agency — and she quoted $700 a year, which is a substantial difference to what the mayor had originally proposed that it was going to cost — and all of the key holders have already voted and have decided that they would pay for that insurance need be.”

Bernard’s initial estimate for insuring the range ranged from $6,000 to $7,500 a year.

“It’s within their rights to offer that statement. I’ve obviously read it. It lays out their position, and I think it’s fine," Mayor Bernard told WAMC. “It helps to have the opinion of the council. We’re continuing to look at insurance options through a provider suggested by one of the insurance companies that we work with, and when we have that information, we’ll look at it again, and this will be included in the consideration.”

The council meets next October 23rd.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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