Commissioners debate reopening, funding and leasing options for county shooting range

Several commissioners who toured a Weber County shooting-range complex described an advanced training facility with movable walls, target cameras and staged simulations, and said it was far more elaborate than the county's facility. The group discussed a range of options: renting time at an existing regional facility for advanced training, funding a scaled-down county amenity for clubs and limited law-enforcement training, or pursuing a lease or sale of the mountain property and using proceeds to seed the county's capital fund.

A placeholder of $100,000 was included in the recommended budget for initial personnel to coordinate reopening and scheduling. Commissioners debated whether the coordinator role should be full time; several suggested starting with a part-time or contract coordinator and using user fees, partner contributions and tourism/recreation dollars to sustain operations. The county noted Weber County's model blends tourism/recreation funding with user-fee revenue and acknowledged that market pricing (e.g., $7 per bay per hour at the Weber site) constrains what the county could charge without losing bookings.

Members discussed commercial and partnership models: Farmington was cited as a potential partner to provide land or other support; buy/lease proposals ranged from $1.5 million to $1.8 million for a lease or transactional framework that could replenish the capital fund. Commissioners also raised safety and management needs (range officers, monitoring, clear rules to eject users who exceed safety markers) and said detailed management and operating agreements are necessary before committing to capital investment.

What comes next: range subgroup to continue meetings with stakeholders, staff to produce potential lease/purchase terms and a management plan, and commissioners to tour regional facilities where appropriate before making a final capital recommendation.