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AUGUST 1, 2019
Town, gun club near noise agreement
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
ICE under pressure
By Jason Starr Observer staff
Three members of the Williston Selectboard separately asked the president of the North Country Sportsman’s Club last week the same question: How many shooting events outside of the club’s regular hours would the club like to hold each season? The board and the club are attempting to work out an agreement about the volume of shooting that takes place at the Old Creamery Road site and the resulting noise that will be allowable under the town’s noise ordinance. The club’s operations have been at odds with the ordinance going back to the early 1990s. The sound of shotgun blasts emanating from the site are also the subject of occasional neighbor complaints. The club sued the town in 2015 after the town cited the club for violating the noise ordinance, and the case landed in Vermont Supreme Court two years later. The court ruled in 2017 that the town could not restrict the club’s activities to any less than the club’s “historical levels of shooting.” The ruling pointed to 2006 — the year state law was amended to limit municipal oversight of sport shooting ranges — to define the club’s historical activity. Each time he was asked how many events the club would like to hold —outside of its regular Wednesday and Sunday operating hours —during last week’s selectboard meeting, club president Bob Otty declined to offer a definitive answer. He argued for a generous interpretation of the Supreme Court’s reference to 2006, pointing to a portion of the ruling that identified the more vague “circa 2006” as a historical baseline. That would broaden the time frame of reference to include 2007, Otty said, when there were 25 special events. How many events are allowed in a rewritten noise ordinance “could make a significant financial differsee NOISE page 2
Observer photos by Al Frey ABOVE: Protesters march on the ICE building in Williston on Sunday, denouncing federal immigration practices. BELOW: A Williston police officer escorts protesters along Harvest Lane.
20 arrested, Harvest Lane closed during protest Observer staff report Hundreds of activists gathered in Williston on Sunday for a group protest outside the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building on Harvest Lane, denouncing federal immigration policy that separates asylum seeking migrant parents from their children. Protesters came from across Vermont, according to Burlington’s Peace and Justice Center, a lead organizer of the event. The center organized a similar protest last summer. Harvest Lane was closed to cars for about two hours during the demonstration. The Williston Police Department reported charging 20 people — ranging in age from
20 to 70 — with disorderly conduct, citing them to appear in Chittenden Criminal Court in Burlington on Aug. 13. Two music groups performed and several social activists spoke at the event. The protesters called on local and state elected officials, as well as Vermont’s representatives in Congress, to advocate for several federal and state policies, including ending family separation and
immigrant children incarceration; ending ICE raids and deportations and defunding the agency; and ending state and local police collaboration with ICE. The Peace and Justice Center describes the ICE building on Harvest Lane as a “data center” that operates 24/7 and employs about 400 people, providing data about people’s immigration status to federal agents and local police.
Saturday, Aug. 24
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