The following is from a letter I wrote concerning the NIOSC application regarding Sandy Hollow, submitted to the Sioux County Board of Supervisors: Al Bloemendaal, John Degan, Arlyn Kleinwolterink, Mark Sybesma, and Denny Wright. If you would like to express your opinions or information on this matter, email them at board@siouxcounty.org. Make sure to state that your letter is for the record.

The data alone is powerful enough to carry this case, but this isn’t just about numbers – shots per day, decibels, names signed for or against, income gained or lost, parts per million lead contamination, potential cost for taxpayers – this is about humans. If a shooting range is built, quality of life would be significantly reduced for neighbors as long as they continue to live near Sandy Hollow.

I lived the first 22 years of my life across the street from Sandy Hollow. I can watch myself grow up in the memories I made at Sandy Hollow: getting my kite stuck in trees, field trips, paddling inflatable boats across the ponds, the excitement of a new bike trail, turtles, church picnics, roller skating down the driveway, ice skating on a frozen flooded fairway, selling firewood, running in the sprinklers on the golf course, camping with friends, sand volleyball, swimming in the summer, tobogganing behind the truck in the winter, running at night and seeing fireflies over the corn, learning to fly fish from my fiancé, taking wedding pictures. Sandy Hollow is a valuable park where the community enjoys a variety of activities. I live in Omaha now, and we are home visiting my parents often at the house I grew up in.

In the past several months I have experienced a spectrum of emotions regarding the push to make Sandy Hollow a shooting range: Nostalgia that a place for families may become instead a place for guns. Confusion that planners unapologetically kept plans from the public to conveniently avoid opposition. Conviction as the research I read concerning gun range development, safety regulations, noise pollution and sound barriers, lead poisoning, and other health risks all strengthened my belief that this plan is unsafe, disrespectful, and poorly thought out. Disappointment that the property and zoning committee reversed their ruling based on political pressure from NIOSC instead of a thorough consideration of facts. Disbelief that leaders continue to promote a project that has been met with so much resistance. Anger at the shallowness of a group that seems content to – even intent on – sacrificing the well-being of an entire existing neighborhood for their preferred leisure activity, which NISOC supporters have referred to as “the greater good.”

The problem is not the idea of building a shooting range; the problem is that the proposed shooting range would be located at Sandy Hollow. I have not heard or read any arguments why Sandy Hollow is an appropriate site for gun range, only that a gun range itself would be cool and Sandy Hollow would be convenient.

Several obstacles prevent Sandy Hollow from being an acceptable gun range site. A gun range here would be too close to residences and businesses, too close to ground water and wells, and too close to the existing entertainment options currently enjoyed at Sandy Hollow. This makes the plan not only inconsiderate, but unsafe, unsustainable, and unacceptable. Future plans to expand with an ATV course are equally disturbing. Choosing to build an entertainment option for a special interest group at Sandy Hollow would come at the cost of undue stress and mental, physical, and financial toll for the existing neighborhood. Noise levels would disturb both animals and people, interrupting every part of life indoors and outdoors, including leisure, sleep, and business. Establishing a gun range would also negate the current role that Sandy Hollow holds in the community as a place for people of all ages to enjoy a variety of outdoor activities. This is not the greater good.

I think we all can agree that respecting others as we respect ourselves is central to living with integrity. You might enjoy visiting the proposed range to shoot, but would you like to never be able to leave? Would you want it built in your front yard? Would you be willing to lose your own financial investments for it? Would you like your children to drink the water downstream from thousands of pounds of lead sitting on a flood plain? Would you like to wake, work, eat, relax, and sleep to the noise of thousands of gunshots daily?

City officials have told the press and told my family directly that their public commitment to protecting rights, preserving community, and promoting wellness extends only as far as the city limits. You are a rural neighborhood. You are only 70 people. You do not belong to us; you are nobody's responsibility. We will make decisions that affect you, decisions that harm you, but it is not our job to make decisions to protect you. This not only shatters my concept of what leadership is meant to provide, it also makes me afraid.

I fear that the brainstorm of a well-meaning group of gun enthusiasts and a bandwagon group of city leaders eager for “progress” at any cost will rob the Sandy Hollow neighborhood of their peace, their reputation in the community, their mental and physical health, their ability to enjoy their own personal property, their financial stability, their property value, and ultimately even their plans for the future. I believe a shooting range can be built somewhere else where it will not destroy an existing community.

I do not have the money to seek legal action against NIOSC. I do not have the political clout to sway a committee. I do not have the time to continue researching and petitioning and losing sleep and writing letters. I was taught that a good leader is someone who balances compassion with wisdom, and speaks up for those who have been ignored. I implore you to utilize both your compassion and your wisdom in your consideration of this proposal. I ask you to step up and lead where the leaders before you have failed. Find a way to achieve progress safely and with integrity. An ugly rift grows in the community over an issue that could still be resolved in a way where both sides win. Build the gun range; Build it somewhere else.

I wasn't surprised to hear that the Sioux Center City Council voted unanimously to lease Sandy Hollow for development as a gun range. They are only some of a larger group of city leaders, DNR employees, project promoters, and zoning committee members who have chosen to lead in this manner.

For the past several weeks, when presented with facts politely, honestly, and urgently, leaders have demonstrated no concern in response to the overwhelming evidence indicating that creating a gun range on this site is dangerous and detrimental for the land and water, the wildlife, the surrounding neighborhood, and people who currently enjoy Sandy Hollow for various activities.

They have demonstrated no concerns about approving this floodplain to be the dumping ground for 30 tons of lead shot each year, and no concern about the high potential to contaminate ground water, drinking water wells downstream, and farmland with lead.

They have demonstrated no concern in response to the sound tests -- numbers indicating that the impulse noise generated from a million shots fired every year, year round, during prime leisure hours will be as loud in the surrounding neighbors’ yards as a semi truck passing while you stand at the edge of the highway, or as loud as a jackhammer from 50 feet away. This level of noise is not only noticeable or irritating, it interferes with normal conversation and contributes to health problems, including an increased chance of heart disease.

They have demonstrated no concern that Ben Berka, the DNR employee who designed the course, is clearly not the “expert” as claimed: he didn’t know the name of the waterway running through Sandy Hollow (it’s the west branch of the Floyd River), he didn’t know that he shouldn’t design a course where lead shot is being discharged across water, he believes that a buffer of prairie grass and vegetation will control sound (when it is the correct season and the plants are mature) although the US Department of Transportation has several resources available online illustrating how this method would be ineffective in this case, and his course design doesn’t follow expert guidelines set forth by the EPA and the NRA regarding gun ranges.

• Sandy Hollow is too small to function as a gun range: it should be ½ mile from residences, but at Sandy Hollow there are around 25 residences and a campground within half a mile. It also seems wise to design a safety zone between a firing station and the edge of the property – At Sandy Hollow, guns will be discharged less than 40 feet from the property edge, putting pedestrians and cyclists on the Sandy Hollow driveway within lethal range of gunfire if an accident were to happen.
• A gun range should not be located over an aquifer (which Sandy Hollow is) due to high risk of groundwater contamination. Sandy soil over a high water table poses the greatest risk for lead entering the water supply. 
• A gun range should not be located in a valley (that’s why they named it sandy “hollow”) because controlling sound will be much more difficult.

They have demonstrated no concern for the safety of residents who drink from wells downstream (or the residents of Orange City, whose city wells are downstream), no concern for the safety of campers with children adjacent to multiple unfenced shooting areas, and no concern for the safety of area wildlife exposed to lead and noise, or pedestrians who will be exposed to noise levels high enough to cause hearing loss.

They have demonstrated no concern that approximately 400 people, not “only” the neighboring 70, signed a petition objecting to the development of a shooting range and sporting complex at this site.

No rationale has been given to counter the facts: a neighborhood will be destroyed, income and property value will be significantly reduced for the families who have lived in this area for decades, a public park enjoyed year-round by the community will now be enjoyable only for a special interest group, tons of lead will compromise the environment, and an ecosystem will be disrupted. This is all justified in the name of generating income and replacing the entertainment options already enjoyed at Sandy Hollow with firearms -- "progress."

City officials have told the press and told my family directly that their public commitment to protecting rights, preserving community, and promoting wellness extends only as far as the city limits. You are a rural neighborhood. You are only 70 people. You do not belong to us; You are nobody's responsibility. We will make decisions that effect you, decisions that harm you, but it is not our job to make decisions to protect you. And when the city council voted this week, they too confirmed this sentiment.

I am sickened by the mindset of people who selfishly remark "but I would like to shoot there." Would you like to live there? Would you like to drink the water? No matter how much you enjoy recreational shooting (my husband does), who are you willing to dismiss for your entertainment? Are you willing to say, to my face, "My entertainment options are more important than your father's ability to rent out his apartments and pay his mortgage. My leisure activities are more important than the health and relaxation of an entire neighborhood. My fun is more important than your safety. I am more important than you."

Who is listening? Who is leading? I am broken by the lack of Christian leadership in a town that holds a place very dear in my heart, a town where I believed that people did good to their neighbors. I grew up going to church with some of these city leaders. They were members of the church council; they were role models. I wait for them to show me their thirst for justice, for informed decisions, their commitment to speak up for people without power. Instead I hear that they didn't foresee any objections to the project because they had only recieved positive feedback, and that it was easier to plan this project when nobody knew about it in order to object.

I do not trust the heart of a leader who does not take my concerns seriously. I do not trust the wisdom of a leader who dismisses expert opinion. I do not trust the vision of a leader who explores only one side of a situation. I do not trust the judgment of a leader who responds to only the loudest voice. I do not trust the motivation of a leader who harms others for their own benefit, financial or otherwise.

Although I am no longer surprised by the city council’s callousness, I remain disillusioned by their leadership without love. The data alone is powerful enough to carry this case, but this isn’t just about numbers – shots per day, decibels, names signed for or against, income gained or lost, parts per million lead contamination – this is about humans. A group of people asked the city council, “Do we matter?” And they said, unanimously, “No.”