Shooting park’s deficits draw commissioner’s fire

By Joe Schoenmann

Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010 | 2 a.m.

The reason for the spat between two commissioners over the Clark County Shooting Park — a $64 million Xanadu for gun enthusiasts — is money. It’s not making enough to cover expenses, and the outlook isn’t positive. Both would agree on that.

What keeps Commissioners Tom Collins and Steve Sisolak taking potshots at each other is their strong beliefs about what the county should do about it.

“We are two men hard of hearing who speak loud to each other, and I have a tendency to use profanities,” Collins said. “We’re going to be meeting again, see where we’re going and look at the changes the county needs to be more effective and profitable. And when (Sisolak) gets a broader understanding, I think he’ll come along.”

To which Sisolak replies: “We have a fundamental difference of opinion.”

But this fight is more serious and annoying than either will let on, because it is over something that is in short supply these days: revenue.

Sisolak does not think the county should own a shooting park, especially one that loses money. Since its opening in late 2009 through Aug. 13, it has taken in $431,000, but has cost $1.3 million to operate.

Over the past year, Sisolak’s ideas for the park have included getting a private group to take over or closing it until the economy improves. He ridiculed the typical daily user fee of $7 as less than the cost of going to a movie.

The valley is full of shooting ranges, he said, “and I don’t think we should be taking away their business.”

“And how is it that other parks make a profit, yet we can’t even operate ours on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis without losing money?” Sisolak said. “It’s a gorgeous facility, but maybe it’s so big, it can’t make money.”

Collins thinks there are shooters aplenty to fill ranges — estimates are that 47 percent of the valley’s residents own guns, as do both commissioners — and with better marketing and planning, the shooting park can balance its budget, even make a profit.

The park is doing what county officials said it would do — making no money. For the first three years, the park is expected to need $1 million to $1.5 million per year in county subsidies to stay afloat.

The expectation of ultimate profit, Sisolak said, was based on the assumption that Clark County would enjoy a blistering hot economy.

“But the economy isn’t so hot anymore, so I’m sure it’s going to be a lot longer that (the park needs) these subsidies,” Sisolak said.

Collins countered: “If he keeps talking that way, he’s just going to hurt the park, and it’s going to take a lot longer for it to make money.”

Sunset Park, a regular recreational park in Sisolak’s district, gets a $4 million annual county subsidy, Collins said. Sisolak answered that Sunset and other county parks don’t collect fees as the shooting park does, and it’s always been assumed those parks would require county support to maintain them.

The way to make the shooting park profitable is a long-range plan that includes hiring someone with marketing experience, Collins said. Naming rights — as in, letting a company such as Winchester build a clubhouse or put its name on a particular range — is a possible way to generate money.

“But we have to get in place the process, and that hasn’t been done,” he said.

Just getting the park to this stage — the county is fond of saying it took 24 years of planning — was something of a miracle given “the entrenched anti-gun people in the county bureaucracy,” Collins said.

Sisolak chuckled at Collins’ statement.

“He said the same thing to me: ‘Are you anti-gun?’ I go, ‘What? I’m anti-losing money, Tom. I’ve got absolutely no problems whatsoever with guns. I own one myself.’ ”

The park has a public information officer, and Lisa Coder, former head of the now-shuttered county Redevelopment Agency, has been assigned to help with marketing. Collins wants a marketing professional.

To demonstrate how poorly the shooting park has been marketed so far, he points to its name.

“It should not be a shooting ‘park,’ it should be a shooting ‘range,’ because this is not soccer, or baseball or Frisbee property,” he said. “This is a place you market internationally to bring tourism and conventions and sportsmen of all types to.”

At the northern end of Decatur Boulevard, north of the Las Vegas Beltway, the shooting park is on 2,900 acres, of which only 900 acres will be developed to leave enough buffer for surrounding communities. Phase I includes a combination trap and skeet field, archery range, public rifle and pistol center, and a shotgun center on 178 acres.

To get the park on the moneymaking track, Collins tried a few weeks ago to get commission approval to discount range fees for organized groups. For instance, groups shooting rifles, pistols and bows and arrows would pay $5 per person instead of the current $6; groups shooting trap and skeet would pay $22 per case of “birds” instead of $30.

Sisolak got the item held. He said he was surprised that Collins, working on behalf of the park’s operators, tried to lower those fees, given its financial situation. He thinks park finances need to be examined.

“What if the fee changes don’t help, then do we come back in six months and change something else?” he said. “I don’t like this à la carte approach. I think the fees are a small part of the plan, but I want to see a plan for the entire place.”

Sisolak admits to being upset after learning a shooting range near Boulder City is going to host the Nevada State Sporting Clays Association tournament. Why wasn’t the county’s brand-new shooting park considered for that event?

Collins said the park simply isn’t set up to do the sporting clays event.

“Because to get this park going, we had to do the basic rifle and pistol and shotgun ranges just to get the people out there,” he said. “And once they’re out there and talk about the good experience they had, they’re going to tell the clubs and friends and organizations. You take what’s available until you can educate people enough, and then you expand.”

For Collins, the shooting park is not just about making money. He’s put so many hours of work into it and so much of his well-known cowboy character is built into it, it’s become his hill to die on.

“This is the frustrating part — I’ve spent years getting it open, getting the construction done, my staff and I have spent hours and hours out there, with a lot of help from sportsmen and (shooting park) committee members,” he said. “It only makes sense to make this work.”