Lawsuit against Spokane Gun Club fails

MEDICAL LAKE — A lawsuit filed in Spokane Superior Court contesting Spokane County’s removal of a no-shooting designation ahead of development of the Spokane Gun Club’s proposed shooting range north of Medical Lake and west of Fairchild Air Force Base has failed.

The Whitehead’s, an extended family with property near the proposed range, collectively filed the lawsuit alleging Spokane County incorrectly interpreted and applied a county code that allowed a no-shooting designation to be lifted in part of the Thorpe No Shooting Area.

Central to their case is language in county code stating approval of any petition to change a shooting designation must be approved by “at least 50 percent of the property owners residing within the area to be established, altered or changed.”

Specifically to the case was how the word “area” is defined as it relates to revising the isolated no shooting area comprised of 45 parcels between Thorpe and West McFarlane roads and South Brooks and South Ritchey roads.

The Gun Club’s 451-acre parcel is by far the largest of those parcels and sits in the middle of the no shooting area.

According to county property records, the parcels of 10 separate property owners border the Gun Club parcel, along with a strip of Burlington Northern Santa Fe right-of-way that runs through the middle of the Gun Club parcel.

Together, there are 44 parcels owned by 37 individuals within the Thorpe No-Shooting Area.

Ironically, removal of the no-shooting designation has effectively split the Thorpe No Shooting Area into two separate areas with a shooting range between them.

The lawsuit — filed in September after Spokane County Commissioners approved the no shooting designation change based on the recommendation of the County No Shooting Advisory Committee — argued the revision of the parcel’s no shooting designation was invalid because only the sole representative of the single parcel’s owner, then Western Pacific Timber LLC, agreed to the change but excluded surrounding neighbors.

However, attorneys for the Gun Club, who described the lawsuit in legal documents as “full of fallacies, factual errors, and legal fictions,” successfully argued that while multiple properties being changed would constitute an “area,” a single parcel being changed is also an “area,” and thus county code was correctly applied.

The Whitehead family collectively owns several parcels that were once part of a larger, 40-acre family legacy property that was eventually subdivided and divvied up between the Whitehead children.

The bulk of the shooting ranges development — including a club house containing meeting rooms, an industrial kitchen and dining area, pro shop and storage facilities, a separate maintenance building, trap and skeet shooting, sporting clay ranges and, eventually, a pistol range, along with parking for 88 vehicles and 166 self-contained recreational vehicles — is planned to occur adjacent to Thorpe Road directly across from the Medical Lake Cemetery whose origins predate statehood, according to the Washington State Archives.

Representatives of the gun club did not respond to repeated attempts for comment.

Attorneys for both parties either did not respond to repeated attempts for comment, or declined to comment on the record.

The final for hearing for approval of the conditional use permit for the gun range is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 5 at 9 a.m. in the Commissioners Assembly Room, Lower Level, Spokane County Public Works Building at 1026 W. Broadway in Spokane.

Lee Hughes can be reached at lee@cheneyfreepress.com.