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Gun club members don orange caps to appeal for range land CASS COUNTY BOARD Cass County Correspondent CROOKED LAKE Ð About 40 of the 141 Longville Rod and Gun Club members donned blaze orange caps and appeared before Cass County commissioners at Crooked Lake Town Hall Tuesday to seek board permission to lease or purchase county land for a new gun range.
The club currently owns about nine acres near Longville Airport, which members plan to sell to fund the new gun range development.
They suggested a 117.5-acre county-owned site surrounded by federal forest land a short distance west of Longville and north of Cass County State Aid Highway 5.
While Board Chair Jim Demgen noted the county has been trying to get out of the leasing business by selling state and county leased lakeshore lots, Land Commissioner Norm Moody said the county currently leases 10 acres in Wilkinson Township to a Cass Lake area gun club and eight acres to another club near Outing.
Moody said those annual lease rates are based on 5 percent of market value for the land in the year the leases started. Because a few Woman Lake property owners living within a mile of the site the gun club seeks have filed objections, Moody said he suggested the club consider another site about the same size, which currently has road access and electric service.
Options once a site is picked could include the county selling the site to Kego Township, which, in turn, could sell it to the gun club or exchanging county land for a parcel the gun club might purchase somewhere else, Moody said. Any land sale could include a reverter clause should the gun club cease to exist in the future, he said.
The county comprehensive plan states the county supports gun ranges, according to Moody. Leasing with a future option to purchase could be another option, he said.
Club President Rusty Lilyquist told the board plans for the range include a youth range, 3-D archery, trap, skeet, pistol, 500-yard rifle/black powder and sporting clay course areas. He said club membership is open to anyone and some general public use days would be set aside.
The board referred the request to Josh Stevenson, land department forester for that area of the county, to work out a proposal and return to the board with an action plan.
Max Gilbert, Woodrow Township Board chair, offered that township's old town hall to the club for a clubhouse building on the condition it could be moved by next spring.
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