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Hauser pays gun club award

by Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer
| September 20, 2017 1:00 AM

The city of Hauser dug into its coffers last week and paid the local gun club a wad of cash for losing a lawsuit filed five years ago.

With an annual budget of around $184,000, the city — after a legal battle that lasted several years — paid $44,250 to the nonprofit Hauser Lake Rod and Gun Club, an entity that has provided shotgunning space for area residents for almost 70 years.

Club members said Hauser Rod and Gun received a check from Hauser for the full amount attorneys agreed upon after the Idaho Supreme Court ruled fees must be awarded to the club.

Mayor Claire Hatfield confirmed the city had paid off its debt, but wouldn’t talk about the case that began two years before her 2014 election. She said the payment will put a dent in the city budget.

“Of course it will,” Hatfield said.

In its opinion published in June, the state’s high court took the city to task for trying to enforce a code violation on the gun club located within its impact area, but which lies more than a quarter mile from city limits along Highway 53.

The action prompted a lengthy legal battle that ended in the state’s highest court.

“The city of Hauser attempted to enforce its code on the club, an entity located outside the city,” according to the Supreme Court opinion. “After extensive administrative and legal proceedings, the club prevailed against the city and requested attorney fees...”

The high court overruled a First District Court opinion and awarded fees to the club.

“It’s been a tough situation,” club member Jerry Paulus said.

The settlement, however, doesn’t reimburse the club the entire bill of fighting city hall for five years, he said.

“We won, but it cost us quite a bit of money,” Paulus said.

The legal battle began when the city filed a notice of violation alleging the club was illegally expanding by adding a building. Neighbors, many who didn’t live in the city, complained over the club’s increased use. More people joining the club caused an increase in gunfire as members and guests shot at clay pigeons from the club’s two trap ranges, they alleged.

But the acreage of the club, which caters to kids and families, “veterans and retired people,” Paulus said, is limited to just two traps. Club officers maintain their membership has remained constant.

“We can’t expand physically,” he said.

Shooting hours haven’t changed much either over the past several decades, he said.

“This all started when a few people, probably fewer than the fingers on both your hands, and many of them not living in the city ... created all this firestorm, and cost the city taxpayers all this money,” he said.

Neighbors picketed the club, stood along its property harassing members, prompting calls to the sheriff’s office.

“They threw some pretty bad allegations at us,” the 85-year-old former club president said. “If we hadn’t fought it, we would have lost everything.”

The $44,000-plus Hauser doled out to the club does not include what the city paid its own attorney.

The amount trumps an expenditure of $34,250 for financial and administration costs in the city’s latest annual budget, as well as $34,940 budgeted for building and property. It’s almost as much as the city’s street fund of $56,270, and the $64,150 the city has budgeted under general government.

Paulus said members have no animosity toward their accusers.

“I just hope this is over and they leave us alone, and we can operate in peace,” he said. “We’re good people.”