10/13/2006 5:17:00 PM SSNW business OK, but land use along Discovery Bay is still limited
By Steven J. Barry, Leader Staff Writer
A Kitsap County Superior Court judge has ruled that Security Services Northwest can continue to operate at its firing range center along Discovery Bay, but that use of the property would have to be limited to what it was prior to the adoption of the county's zoning code in 1992.
Jefferson County Administrator John Fischbach said Friday that the ruling ensures the company would not be allowed to continue its large-scale firearms training courses that generated a flood of complaints from area residents.
SSNW attorney Glenn Amster said the company is "back in business."
Judge Jay B. Roof ruled on Oct. 6 that SSNW's recent use of the property known as Fort Discovery, "is not consistent with its use prior to Jan. 6, 1992," when the county zoning code was adopted. Roof has remanded the case to a hearing examiner "solely to determine the scope and nature of SSNW's nonconforming use."
Fort Discovery is located on the western shore of Discovery Bay south of Gardiner in an area zoned for rural residential use. But because SSNW had been operating there since 1988, the company's attorneys argued, it should be "grandfathered" out of the county's zoning code.
Amster said he would start legal proceedings to allow the company to resume operations there.
"We're obviously pleased that the judge recognized that Security Services has been in business and was in business long before the county had a zoning code," Amster said. "As far as we're concerned, SSNW is back in business, and we will be presenting an order for the court to effectuate this memorandum and decision in the next few weeks."
Fischbach said the ruling would not allow the company to continue large-scale firearms training.
"I consider it a minor declaration of what is grandfathered and what isn't grandfathered," Fischbach said.
SSNW had been training U.S. Navy personnel before their deployment overseas, along with the company's own counter assault team that contracts to protect certain shore installations and private vessels entering Puget Sound and other ports. The training at Fort Discovery had occasionally included explosive courses taught by FBI-qualified instructors.
After receiving dozens of complaints about the noise of automatic gunfire and explosions emanating from Fort Discovery in the summer of 2005, Jefferson County planning officials posted a series of "stop work" orders on the 3,700-acre swath of land SSNW President Joe D'Amico leases from the Gunstone family.
Those orders prohibit D'Amico from occupying several buildings and prohibit activity at his commercial firing ranges. D'Amico appealed those orders in a three-day hearing in November 2005.
Hearings Examiner Irv Berteig upheld the orders, ruling that "all training activities and use of firearms and weapons on the property be prohibited," but allowing the company to continue office activities, provide armored car and alarm installation and monitoring services, keep K-9 units with kennels, and offer site security services.
In February 2006, Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser threw out a county lawsuit seeking to shut down all commercial activity at the site.
SSNW attorneys later appealed Berteig's ruling and had their case heard in August in Kitsap County.
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