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THE GUNS OF AUGUST

While the nation of America continues to struggle against the ever-growing proliferation of guns of all shapes, sizes, and type, the Town of Linn decided in its Monday evening planning commission meeting that it will not attempt to stand in the way of a new “Hunt Club,” being constructed there. The hearing was contentious, with just under twenty citizens showing up to oppose the rezone from agricultural to park/recreational for the land in question.

The gun club wants to build pistol and rifle ranges within 300 yards of the residential center of Zenda. It wants to build rifle positions, where the guns may have ranges of up to three miles, only one and a half miles from an elementary school. The gun club wants permission to build what they have already built. So, in truth, the club sent Chris Severt, its agent, hat-in-hand (sorry, not the owner, as he does not do hat-in-hand kind of stuff) to beg for forgiveness and seek a retrograde rezone of the property to support what’s been done already. Mr. Severt argued nonsense, compared to the proposal the club submitted earlier, but the commission did not toss the rezone attempt out even when Sue Polyock pointed out the nonsense.

Cully “Pillbox” Pillman, of the Breezy Hill Nursery, sits on the commission, and let it be known that a private property owner in Wisconsin should be allowed to do whatever he or she pleases with private property, period. Mr. Pillman, of course, has a huge “private” shooting range on his nursery property that everyone gets to enjoy from afar every Sunday afternoon. Jim Weiss, after one of the most wonderful pieces of political doublespeak every demonstrated in Town of Linn, finally voted with Zimm and Pill. But then, he cagily pulled back and instead of endorsing the approval of the rezone he asked for a motion to table the whole affair and have the hunt club people return with a better proposal. That new proposal would have to have 15 requirements the city attorney discussed he was ready to add, along with a recommendation that the agricultural zoning remains, but with those extra requirements attached.   Mr. Pill was not happy at this turn of events and stalked out, to return to his gun range passing itself off as a nursery. Why Mr. Pill would want another gun range a couple of miles away is probably due to some cloning issue not known about by others of lesser genetic (and property ownership) makeup.

Will the Guns of August actually become those guns shooting up the farmland around Zenda by the late summer? Stay tuned.

 

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