NEAH BAY — While Security Services Northwest has been maligned as a bad neighbor on Discovery Bay, Makah tribal leaders are welcoming the company’s training gunfire with open arms on Neah Bay.
“We don’t have a problem with it,” said Makah Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson Jr.
“We do hear it, but it’s not that annoying . . . It would make very little impact out here.”
Johnson and Makah tribal assets manager Alice Langebartel confirmed Wednesday that Joe D’Amico, Security Services founder and president, has been training military servicemen and women at the tribe’s gun range near the Koitlah Point dump site.
Koitlah Point overlooks the western bluffs of Neah Bay.
Johnson said that he saw the company’s presence, along with the military personnel it trains, as an honor for the tribe, which has produced many war veterans and heroes over the years.
He said he only knew that the U.S. Department of Defense and other military personnel were being trained there.
Langebartel said she met Wednesday with D’Amico and Johnson saw D’Amico in Neah Bay on Sunday.
“He was out here (Wednesday) discussing the gun range and what they need,” Langebartel said.
D’Amico has already struck two short-term gun-range use agreements approved by the Makah Tribal Council, she said — the first on Sept. 16, 2005, and the second effective Jan. 1.
