BELLEVILLE --
St. Clair County leaders are still pondering whether to refile an eminent domain lawsuit to shut down a shooting range next door to Scott Air Force Base six weeks after a county judge dismissed it."There are still discussions going on about what the next move is going to be," State's Attorney Robert Haida said. "It's possible we will not file it. That's still up in the air."
Haida, however, said the county is still pursuing a court injunction aimed at shutting down the Caseyville Rifle and Pistol Club in Mascoutah.
The county wants to close the open-air shooting range because of its location in the glide path of planes landing at Scott -- a situation that threatens public safety because of the risk of a stray bullet hitting a low-flying aircraft, according to court papers.
A hearing on the injunction request is pending before a county court judge.
Meanwhile, the gun club is seeking to recover from St. Clair County more than $100,000 in legal fees and other costs connected to the gun club's defense against the eminent domain case.
The shooting range's recovery effort follows the county's Nov. 8 decision to allow Associate Judge James Radcliffe to dismiss the lawsuit.
A hearing on the gun club's efforts to recover the fees had been scheduled for Friday, but Radcliffe granted a county request for more time.
Harry Sterling, the gun club lawyer, declined to answer questions about whether the county has been seeking to settle the case out-of-court.
"I try desperately not to try lawsuits in the newspapers," Sterling said.
Haida also declined to say whether the county is trying to end the lawsuit through a compromise.
"No final decision has been made on exactly what the next move should be or will be," Haida said.
The County Board passed a resolution May 31, 2005, to seize the gun club. But the resolution's authority was fatally undermined by its lack of specific detail, such as the gun club's name, Sterling argued during the Nov. 8 hearing.
"We don't know anything about that resolution," Sterling said. "We don't know if it's about Caseyville or if it's about dog-catching. We don't know anything."
But Charles Swartout, the county attorney, shot back that the county authority for seizing the shooting range comes from a statute pertaining to public safety.
"It would suffice," Swartout had said.
"Yeah, it would probably suffice for any (lawsuit) in the world against anybody," said Radcliffe, alluding to the resolution's lack of detail.
Radcliffe told Swartout to refile the county eminent domain lawsuit under the authority of a much more detailed ordinance the County Board passed in late October.
Even if the county refiles the eminent domain case and prevails in court, that could prove expensive for taxpayers. The county could end up spending close to $2 million to compensate the gun club for improvements it made at the site.
Improvements to the club include $334,000 in grading and the construction of berms, $107,000 for the construction of a new building, $68,628 for engineering and architectural costs and more than $400,000 for the construction of covered shooting positions, according to papers filed by Sterling.
Contact reporter Mike Fitzgerald at
[email protected] or 239-2533.
