Police push for gun range

The Police Department, eager to build a gun range, asked the City

Council Monday for permission to continue its work with the city of

Fountain Valley to find a site and develop plans for the range.

The gun range would be used as a firearms training facility for

law enforcement officials only.

The Police Department is looking to build a facility with multiple

firing lanes and multiple long-range rifle firing lanes near the

city.

Funding for the range would come from both cities and from a labor

grant awarded to Huntington Beach by the federal government in

January 2001. Construction costs are estimated at more than $3

million.

The Police Department trains at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station,

an old facility that Police Capt. Chuck Thomas called “adequate at

best.”

Officials do not have the ability to shoot long-range rifles,

shooting time is limited and the SWAT team is unable to train there,

Thomas said.

Surf City’s original gun range opened in 1967 in an undeveloped

portion of Central Park. It was an open-air firing center with

separate ranges for public, pistol and rifle training. The city

closed the facility six years ago, citing safety and environmental

concerns.

Several properties in Huntington Beach have been researched as

potential sites, including Golden West College, the Orange County

Dump Transfer Station and a property at Newland Street and Pacific

Coast Highway, but all were eliminated from consideration.

“The most serious thing that a police officer does is use deadly

force,” Huntington Beach Police Lt. Dan Johnson said. “It’s necessary

for officers to be in control of their weapons.”

The police department will continue to work with the Fountain

Valley Police Department as it searches for a site.

Thomas said he hopes to return to the City Council within six to

eight months to seek approval for a more detailed proposal for the

facility.

Bill that would restore sand dunes making progress

A bill that would allow a local nonprofit organization to restore

seven acres of sand dunes passed out of the Assembly Transportation

Committee on Monday with a 13-0 vote.

Surf City Assemblyman Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) authored the

bill that would allow the California Department of Transportation to

transfer the environmentally sensitive land to the Huntington Beach

Wetlands Conservancy.

The sand dunes stretch along the Pacific Coast Highway between

Brookhurst Street and Beach Boulevard.

Harman is now pushing to send the bill through the Assembly

Appropriations Committee, said Tiffany Conklin, legislative assistant

to Harman.

If it passes, it would have to go through the Assembly and the

state Senate before reaching the governor’s desk.

Restoring the Caltrans-owned property to its natural state is

intended to offset environmental effects caused by Caltrans

construction projects.

“Sometimes they widen a road, taking a bit of habitat to do that,”

Conklin said. “This would offset the damage.”

If Gov. Gray Davis signs the bill, it will take effect January

2004.

Surf City resident to attend prestigious forum

Surf City resident Margaret Costa is one of only 35 professors

worldwide to be invited to a highly prestigious “think tank” on civil

rights put on by the University of Oxford in England.

The forum will address human rights, focusing on women’s rights

and gender discrimination issues. Organizers hope that the small size

will encourage an impersonal yet productive atmosphere.

Costa, professor of kinesiology and physical education at Cal

State Long Beach, is a sport historian who specializes in social

issues for female athletes.

Costa wrote a chapter in a book entitled “Sport and Women: Social

Issues in International Perspective” that looked at the woman’s role

in sports on an international level. The book was published in

February 2002.

Costa also gave a keynote lecture in Alexandria, Egypt in 2001 on

“Sport for Women in Zimbabwe: Issues and Controversies.” She was a

Fulbright-Hays scholar in Brazil in 2000.

The think tank will be held from March 30 to April 4 at Oxford’s

Lincoln College as a part of the Oxford Round Table, a forum in which

participants spend five days discussing important policy questions.

Beachmont Plaza renovation set to begin in June

Construction of the Beachmont Plaza Shopping Center will begin in

June and will include a renovation and expansion, with portions

demolished to make room for a 55,000-square-foot Ralph’s Supermarket.

The renovation of the aging shopping center at the northeast

corner of Brookhurst Street and Adams Avenue was given the go-ahead

by the zoning department.

The new center will also undergo an 8,000-square-foot expansion, a

revamp of existing buildings and broad landscaping and will have

public artwork on display.

Artist Beth Thielen has designed the public art project, which

will feature planter boxes and benches embossed with obsidian and

formed to look like open encyclopedias, a reference to Surf City’s

“encyclopedia lots” of the early 1900s, which came with a free set of

encyclopedias.

The old buildings will receive a new plaster finish, new roofing

and decorative columns. The parking lot will be remodeled and a

drive-through window will be added to the Sav-On Pharmacy.

The city completes its sewer lining project in the harbor

A $2 million sewer repair project in Huntington Harbor, which

involved lining 45,000 feet of mainline and 15,000 feet of manholes,

is complete.

The harbor was declared an environmentally sensitive area that

could be damaged by sewer line breaks and blockages by the

Environmental Protection Agency. The agency was concerned that

seawater flowing into the sewer lines could corrode the pipes and

damage the equipment, increasing maintenance cost.

Funding for the repairs came from grants from the EPA and the

Orange County Sanitation District.

Each agency donated $2 million to help the city refurbish its

harbor sewer system. The project just completed was the second

$2-million project.

Planning for phase II of South Beach underway

The city is moving forward with the second phase of the South

Beach improvements.

This phase of the massive renovation of the city’s beaches will

include improvements to the beach parking lots, concession buildings

and the beach services road, which stretches from Huntington Street

north to 1st Street.

The project will also include a revamp of the lifeguard

headquarters and junior guard headquarters.

The city predicts construction will take 14 months.