To: Directors, East Bay Regional Park District
STOP OR DRASTICALLY REDUCE THE GUNSHOT NOISE IN CHABOT REGIONAL PARKS
Victory! The creator of this petition declared the campaign a success. You can still sign the petition to show support.
EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT DIRECTORS: Require a schedule for specific, stringent limits on noise as a condition of any operation of a gun range in Anthony Chabot Regional Park after the lease of the Chabot Gun Club expires this year. Your website says, “We acquire, manage, and preserve natural and cultural resources for all to enjoy now and into the future. Our parks are ideal for healthful recreation and environmental education. We invite you to enjoy hiking, biking, picnicking, horseback riding, camping, fishing, golfing, and nature study in our parks.” Consistent with your statement, users of the parks and neighbors deserve to be able to enjoy the parks and their homes and yards without being assaulted by the sound of gunfire, which because of increased use of the gun range and the way the sounds reverberate in the canyons and hills, is incessant and intrusive sometimes for hours at a time.
Why is this important?
Residents of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties: Please support your neighbors who want to enjoy nature in Chabot Regional Parks and who live near the parks. They are being assaulted by the sound of gunfire to such an extent that they often cannot enjoy the parks or their homes and yards for hours at a time, especially on weekends. Support them by signing this petition.
The lease of Chabot Gun Club to operate within Anthony Chabot Regional Park expires this year. The use of the park for environmental education and experiencing nature has expanded by leaps and bounds in the last many years, as has the number of neighbors near the park boundaries. While the gun range is a valuable resource for the law enforcement personnel and private gun owners who practice there, that use is basically and essentially inconsistent with the mission of urban-area parks such as the Chabot Regional Parks.
Since over 95% of the users of the parks want an experience of the natural world, free of the explosive intrusion of gunshots, if a gun range is to continue to be operated in the park after the current lease expires, it must be under stringent restrictions on the noise levels and days and hours of operation.
Any Request for Proposals for operation of a gun range in the park after the current lease expires must include conditions of use with specific limits on the decibel level of gunfire noise at designated points on certain hiking trails in the park and at stated points on the park boundary where it borders residential neighborhoods. The California Vehicle Code’s limits on vehicle noise may provide a starting place for developing the standards of tolerable noise levels, which certainly should be much lower in the heart of a large regional park than is allowed in our cities.
If continued operation of a gun range is contemplated, a committee of park users and neighbors is willing to work with the Park District’s staff to develop the exact noise levels which may not be exceeded, the location of the designated points for noise measurement, the days and hours of operation, and the time line for implementation of noise mitigation.