LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Lincoln’s city council will soon decide whether to lease land for a new police shooting range, but the city’s police chief has a bigger project in mind.
Council members on Monday will discuss whether to lease 80 acres of land for a shooting range, and are scheduled to take a vote on April 28, according to the Lincoln Journal Star (https://bit.ly/1r50pxQ ).
But Lincoln Police Chief Jim Peschong said he is talking with other local and state agencies about pooling their money for a Lancaster County public safety training campus at the space.
Peschong said a larger, county training campus could include three or four classrooms, half a dozen offices and a course where crews could practice emergency driving.
“The real question is: Will it ever materialize?” Peschong said.
Lincoln police can’t do it alone, he said, which is why he’s reaching out to potential partners that include firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, Nebraska State Patrol troopers, railroad police and the military. Peschong knows no one has a lot of money to pay for something like this, but he hopes several agencies could pool their cash and build something that benefits them all.
Lincoln officers have stopped using the old shooting range on the east side of Lincoln Airport Authority Land. Their lease for that range requires they clean up six decades worth of ammunition. Bids to clean up the range came in higher than expected, delaying the task. A Colorado company will be paid about $125,000 and should get to work in the next month or two, when the land will be turned back over to the Airport Authority.
Then, the chief said, he hopes he can recruit more agencies to get involved in the potential training campus.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com
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