2011-11-10
By Lisa Loomis
True North Wilderness Programs plans to create a public hunting program that would allow the public to hunt on the same land where its wilderness therapy school is located.
True North is seeking state and local permits for a residential therapy program that will have up to 42 students and 14 counselors camping on the ground and in yurts on the 650-acre Lathrop parcel in Fayston 12 months of the year.
A public recreation easement runs with that parcel that allows hunting and trapping in season. Adjoiners to the project and the Fayston Citizens Group has questioned whether federal and state regulations that prohibit firearms on school grounds create a conflict for True North on the issue of hunters and a school co-existing on this parcel.
True North argues in an October 31 brief that by creating a public hunting program, the Gun-Free Schools Act will not create a conflict between the school and the regulations.
The company is seeking permits for 12 permanent campsites, each with two yurts and a composting toilet, a variety of support buildings and permission to camp throughout the parcel during the spring, summer and fall. True North works with teenagers and young adults and wants permission for a maximum of 42 students and 14 counselors to be on the land year round.
Around each campsite True North will create a zone of non-interference. Outside of those zones of non-interference, True North is proposing a public hunting program allowing hunters to “possess and discharge firearms on the property solely for hunting in accordance with all applicable laws, and outside designated safety zones, pursuant to the public access easement.”
The safety zones are proposed as a 200-square-foot radius around buildings and up to a 100-square-foot radius around permanent campsites.”
True North has received a conditional use permit from the Fayston Development Review Board to operate its school on the parcel. That permit has been appealed by the applicant as well as the Fayston Citizens Group. State Act 250 hearings got underway on September 27. During the Act 250 hearings, the Fayston Citizens Group (FCG) raised the issue of a conflict between the recreational easement and federal laws regarding guns on school grounds.
The Gun-Free Schools Act, according to True North, was created to address issues that don’t apply to True North such as crimes involving drugs, guns and criminal gangs.
“The Congress found further that lithe occurrence of violent crime in school zones has resulted in a decline of the quality of education in our country and that ordinary citizens and foreign visitors may fear to travel to or through certain parts of the country due to concern about violent crime and gun violence, and parents may decline to send their children to school for the same reason,” True North’s brief explained.
“This hardly fits the picture of Vermont, which is not known for gun violence and where
guns are far more readily associated with the traditional rural cultural activity of hunting than
with drugs, criminal gangs, and schools,” True North attorneys Rebecca Boucher and Geoff Hand wrote.
The law includes exemptions for instances when possession or discharge of firearms on school is allowed. One exemption applies when a gun and shooting are part of a program approved by the school in a school zone.
To the extent that the entire Fayston parcel could be considered part of a school zone—an interpretation with which True North does not agree—True North intends to approve a Public Hunting Program to allow individuals to possess and discharge firearms on the Fayston parcel when hunting lawfully outside of designated safety zone,” the attorneys wrote.
Thus, the GFSZA will not apply to lawful hunting on the Fayston parcel outside of designated safety zones. True North's proposed Public Hunting Program will ensure the safety of children in the school program, will meet the language and intent of the federal statute, and will allow members of the public to engage in safe and lawful hunting on the property as envisioned by the public access easement,” they continued.
They cite a similar exemption to Vermont laws that prohibit guns on school buses or buildings or grounds arguing that because the school will not allow guns in school buildings or vehicles, the Vermont law is inapplicable to this situation.
True North also argues that the entire 650-acre parcel cannot be considered the school grounds.
“The undeveloped portions of the parcel will neither be enclosed nor ‘used for a specified purpose.’ Rather, similarly to the public lands True North students use elsewhere in the state, the undeveloped areas of the Lathrop parcel will be open to the public for a variety of uses outside of the zones of non-interference. While the school will use these areas for dispersed hiking and camping, it would be unreasonable and beyond the intent of the federal legislation to consider the entire parcel ‘school grounds.’ However, this issue need not be decided, because True North's establishment of the Public Hunting Program exempts application of the guns free school zone act to lawful participants,” the attorneys concluded.
Members of the Fayston Citizens Group point out that there are other state regulations that will impact True North’s ability to run its wilderness therapy program which has a state designation as a school and a residential treatment program. Licensing regulations for residential treatment programs in Vermont spell out that no such program shall permit any firearm or chemical weapon on the property, including program and employee vehicles.
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