EAGLE, Idaho — Eagle neighbors filled City Hall Tuesday night to weigh in on a proposal that would have changed where people could legally discharge firearms within city limits.
The proposed resolution would have created a map identifying specific areas where firearm discharge would still be allowed as development continues pushing into the foothills. The proposal also included deleting an amendment to the firearms ordinance passed in October 2021 that neighbors said no longer accurately describes the areas where shooting is permitted or the nature of the land involved — which is federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, not owned by it.
WATCH: Eagle City Council rejects proposed foothills firearm rules after hours of discussion
After hours of discussion, the Eagle City Council voted unanimously against the proposal.
Mayor Brad Pike opened his remarks by addressing what he called a mischaracterization of the ordinance circulating publicly — including a recall effort that he said incorrectly attributed the proposal to him personally.
"Ordinance 942 is not Brad Pike's ordinance. I didn't design this. I didn't bring this to the city. This has been part of the whole evolution of the BLM property, the development that's been going on around it, the existing county parcels that have been going around it," Pike said.
Pike said he has been personally observing conditions in the foothills for years and described what he has seen — rounds fired from knolls with no backstop, trash, mattresses and couches used as accelerants for fires, and cartridges scattered throughout the area.
"The people that are doing it right, absolutely, I have no problems. I'm confident that you guys are imperative. But the people that are up there on those knolls... they never have a backstop. They're never in a safe location," Pike said.
He said the safety concerns are not hypothetical. He referenced a recent discharge incident near a neighbor's house where a round came close to a child who was playing nearby.
"We could have had a dead child right here on a mistake, and that was an accident. But what about the people that are up there?" Pike said.
Pike said the encroachment of development around the BLM land has been known since at least 2007 when the Villanova development began, and that the city has a legal and moral responsibility to act on what it knows.
"If we know this thing coming at us and we just blow it off, and somebody gets killed up there, do you think they're not gonna come back and go to the city? You knew you had an open meeting. You've had multiple meetings, and you still allowed this to happen," Pike said.
He also noted that the foothills safety concerns extend beyond shooting — pointing to equestrian groups who came before the council years ago saying they could no longer ride safely in the area, motorcycles causing damage to trails, and off-road vehicles cutting ruts into paths meant for hikers and horses.
Pike said he understands the frustration of responsible shooters who are being penalized for the behavior of others, and said he has gone through numerous firearm safety courses himself.
"I'm sorry that the encroachment of the development back in 2007 is when this whole thing started, and we've got the encroachment, but we have to think in terms — we're responsible for the safety and welfare of you as the community. That's our number one mission as council members and the mayor up here," Pike said.
He said the city also has a pending legal threat related to the proposed shooting range site — noting that someone has already stated on the record that they will sue the city the moment a shovel goes in the ground at the archery range location.
"There's a lot of history here, folks, that has been going through this. It's not just a knee-jerk reaction. We've known about this encroachment for years now, and it's just coming to fruition today. So we have to make decisions based on today," Pike said.
Council member Mary May opened her remarks by addressing what she called confusion and misinformation circulating on social media about Second Amendment rights and the city's authority over BLM land. She walked through the legal history of how the BLM parcels came to be within Eagle's city limits — noting that the city annexed the property through a series of public hearings and ordinances going back to 2007, with the BLM and federal government in agreement throughout the process.
"The city didn't just come in and do a land grab. I mean this was all done according to statute and rules and regulations," May said.
She said the city recently emerged from a lawsuit involving the shooting area that had been discussed at the meeting, and that the council has not yet had the opportunity to sit down and discuss what comes next.
"I really think hands down we need that established area. Education is always key. I like the exemptions, and that would all come forward in the resolution. Safety will always be at the forefront as an issue," May said.
Council member Nancy Merrill said she agreed with her colleagues and noted that the original ordinance change was actually very narrow — focused specifically on the 20-acre or larger property size requirement for discharging a firearm — and that the discussion had grown well beyond that original scope. Merrill said she is a strong Second Amendment supporter who did her first elk hunt at 14 with her father and is happy to see her grandchildren learning to use firearms responsibly.
"We need a place for that," Merrill said.
She said she is concerned about what is happening off Hartley Road and believes the city needs guidance on how to manage these areas as growth continues.
"I don't think you need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's lots of good stuff in here that we need to adopt," Merrill said.
Council member Craig Kvamme said he is empathetic to the concerns about restricting shooting areas but raised a dimension of the debate that he felt had been largely overlooked — the safety of other users of the BLM land.
"What I didn't hear and what we have heard in feedback over the last couple of years is that there are other users of the BLM land that are afraid to go up on the BLM land because of this discharge of firearms — and that is the hikers, the bike riders, and the equestrian group," Kvamme said.
"It's been demonstrated that at times it's not safe because we've had bullets damage construction property. We've had bullets going to residences' roofs. We've had bullets flying over their head," Kvamme said.
He said he was disappointed to hear a comment during the meeting suggesting that stray bullets are simply a normal part of living near BLM land. He said he is not comfortable supporting the proposal as written and wants the city to bring users together to find a solution that works for everyone.
"I'm not in favor of passing it as it is," Kvamme said.
One significant point of clarification that emerged during the discussion: much of the green area shown on the proposed map — which appeared to designate land where shooting would remain permitted — is actually private property owned by the Avimor development company. A neighbor who identified himself as familiar with Avimor's policies told the council that Avimor limits access to roughly 5 or 6 people per day on certain days, and that the property also has owner permits for elk and deer hunting that are tightly controlled.
"This green thing is a fiction. It's not real. The public is not gonna get to use it," he said.
An Avimor neighbor told the council that the community recently lost its only designated shooting area. That area was shut down about two to three weeks before the meeting, not because of firearm concerns but because construction has moved into the zone. He said Avimor is working to find a solution but has no answers yet — and noted that even if a new designated area is established on the property, it would only be available to Avimor residents and their guests, not the general public.
One neighbor added during public comment how he knows the proposal is not popular but believes the city needs to act before more housing moves into the area.
"Nobody's trying to take your guns. Nobody's trying to regulate what you're doing. You have the option to go other places," the neighbor said.
He noted that a shooting range connected to the sports park area is already in the works pending legal matters and said he supports the city moving in that direction.
"I think it's about time we need to take care of this now instead of waiting down the line and then having a big battle about it," he added.
Not all neighbors agreed, though.
"This is typically when the government takes something away, they never give it back," one neighbor said.
Another neighbor added, "I don't believe changing the ordinance will stop the people who are already not following the rules. They will continue to shoot on BLM land, and the rest who comply will not have anywhere to shoot."
Former Eagle City Council member Charlie Vaughn, who was on the council when the 2021 ordinance was passed, told leaders the situation is not an if — it is a when. He said the Valnova development has already been approved and will encompass the entire northern section of the area, and that BLM is required under federal law to shut down shooting areas if a safety issue exists.
"We need to develop an area for people to go shoot in a safe manner. Again, we cannot just take something away without replacing it," Vaughn said.
Vaughn said the Eagle shooting park concept was developed through an eight-month planning process specifically to address this issue — with acoustic monitoring, surface danger zone analysis and coordination with law enforcement. He said a .30-06 rifle can travel 3.5 miles and a .22 can travel more than 2 miles, making uncontrolled shooting in a densely developing area increasingly untenable.
"Education only goes so far. Signage is a target. In the long term, the best thing for the city is to push forward with the shooting complex," Vaughn said.
Council member Robert Gillis said he found himself seeing both sides of the issue strongly. As a former law enforcement officer who carried a gun for most of his adult life and trained constantly — including with SWAT teams and active shooter scenarios — he said he understands both the value of responsible firearm use and the real risks when things go wrong.
"I don't know how we can legislate our way through forcing people that are already irresponsible into becoming responsible by banning it for everybody," Gillis said.
"We are kind of sort of starting to create more problems than we have answers for right now. I feel like it's kind of the cart before the horse without all the pieces of the puzzle in place," Gillis said.
City leaders say they now plan to revisit the issue — including possible future discussions about a designated shooting area or shooting range in Eagle.
