by Garth Meyer
The pursuit of a new Redondo Beach Police gun range remains in effect as the city council approved Tuesday two consultant contracts for up to $100,000 each, in a second attempt to get federal funding.
The $19 million shooting range proposal was denied last year, although feedback from the U.S. government suggested Redondo Beach was close, according to City Manager Mike Witzansky.
“The (response) we received was very sincere. We were very much on the precipice of receiving funding,” he said.
“This is an enormous quality of life issue,” said City Councilmember Paige Kaluderovic, who has championed the project, telling of the noise emanating from the existing facility. “We have an open-air shooting range built in 1947.”
She asserted that the federal grant would fully fund what would be a shared facility with Los Angeles Air Force Base.
“There is no backup plan,” Kaluderovic said. “The city needs to have some peace of mind and quality of life, and we’re going to deliver it.”
The first consultant contract, with McClaren, Wilson and Lawrie (Phoenix), is for design services. The second is with Geosyntec Consultants, Inc. (Los Angeles) for environmental planning and assessment.
In public comment to the city council meeting March 17, Planning Commission Chair Wayne Craig spoke against hiring the consultants, saying the shooting range is “not a critical project, not an urgent one, a project we cannot afford to build, and even more concerning, a project we cannot afford to operate if it ever gets built.”
Another resident asked why a gun range could not be put in the basement of the coming new Redondo Beach police station.
Witzansky answered that the bond-funded budget does not include what would be a “very expensive endeavor to include it in an indoor structure.”
The council vote was 5-0 to hire the consultants.
“We will have spent $100,000-$150,000 to receive $19 million,” Witzansky said. “We’ll know this summer.”
In 2024, a 3-2 city council vote directed city staff to use $545,000 in capital improvement funds to design the project, in its current location next to Dominguez Park, in the hopes that a particular grant could fund the joint range.
Former City Councilmen Todd Loewenstein and Nils Nehrenheim opposed the move, saying the city should hold off until its money situation is more clear.
The grant in question is part of the U.S. Defense Community Infrastructure Pilot Program. ER
