PORT TOWNSEND – Joe D’Amico, president of Security Services Northwest, is asking that several-decade-old documents be considered as proof that he can legally operate his business as a shooting range and training center.
Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Ray B. Roof ruled on Nov. 1 that Security Services Northwest can conduct business as a security guard service but not as the Fort Discovery Training Center, a shooting range and third-party training center, on 3,700 acres in the Gardiner area that D’Amico leases from the Gunstone family.
Roof said that, in 1992, when Jefferson County’s unified development code and zoning rules took effect, D’Amico’s security car service and armored car business was grandfathered in.
Roof remanded the issue back to Jefferson County Hearing Examiner Irv Berteig “solely to determine the scope and nature of SSNW’s nonconforming use as of Jan. 6, 1992, based on the existing record” as established in a November 2005 hearing.
Roof said that, “No additional hearings should be conducted.”
Berteig is expected to make that decision sometime in February.
Roof’s decision was a departure from a January 2006 decision by Berteig, who concluded after the November 2005 open record hearing that SSNW was an illegally operating business because it lacked necessary building permits.
Through his attorney, Glenn Amster of Seattle, DiAmico has requested that Berteig consider an additional 38 documents dating back to 1978 while deciding the nature of the business as it existed in 1992.
“We just want to make sure they have all the evidence,” said Amster.
One document is a July 13, 1990 letter from then-Port of Port Townsend General Manager William M. Toskey permitting D’Amico’s security staff to carry firearms while guarding port facilities.
What D’Amico is hoping Berteig will decide is that his employees were operating firearms and training with firearms on SSNW shooting ranges before 1992, which would allow D’Amico to continue that practice.
Mark Johnsen, Jefferson County’s Seattle-based attorney, said Berteig should not be allowed to look at any new evidence.
He said Roof’s instructions were clear: Berteig would make his decision “based on the existing record.”
“When the judge makes a ruling, the parties are supposed to follow it,” said Johnsen.
“It’s in contradiction to what the judge said.”
