2021-02-23 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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out shooters? At least here and what we did was take a look at the demographics of the shooting classes that we put on here on the Island. OK, so the issue is 90% of Hawaii Island's % million guns are rifles or pistols and there is no legal, publically accessible rifle and pistol shooting facility on the Island. That's a fact. So how do we go about this? Well, we spent 12 years — going back to 2015 — research, planning, testing have been completed and here's some of the highlights. The shooting range was established in the land management plan for Puuwaawaa and that was the first time I have seen anything on paper. There's a lot of talk before then, but that was the first [unclear]. I served on the council and we made sure that among the things that we were gonna do at Puuwaawaa it included a shooting facility. In 2004 we started how we were gonna get about that so we formed a shooting range working group and that group — there's a list of the participants — I can't image how you can get any more people in there — we talked to a lot of folks — had a lot of meetings — and tried to put together a direction in which we wanted to go. And in 2005 we set out and drew up — put all these requirements on to paper and came up with this concept of a shooting facility that with the County and everybody's desires and needs — it turned out that it occupied about one square mile. So in 2005 we looked at potential range locations — and in 2005 we selected the Puuanahulu Range [unclear] for a number of reasons and in that same year we conducted the initial sound test. The [unclear] design [unclear] there were some of the things that we looked at — were concerned about — biological and cultural use restrictions are very, very significant on this island — don't overlook 'em. We looked at things like how do you get in there — how do you get out — proximity to habitation — easy way to get a range closed up is to be anywhere near where there's people and one of the issues there — compatible climatic conditions — very important if you're going to construct a facility that you're going to try to attract people's use particularly for competitive shooting — those plans have to be made months and years in advance — so you don't want it to be rain or snowing or something else when the day finally comes. And here are some the shooting range site evaluations that we looked at — and we settled on Puuanahulu and in 2007 we got the Land Board to approve a square mile of the GMA for use as a public shooting facility. That's where it is map wise — next door to the Puuanahulu Landfill. There's some of the criteria — open landfill has very, very little vegetation — no significant fire 3