Clark County Council voted 3-2 this week, ending a long-term relationship that allowed FBI agents to train at a firing range at Camp Bonneville
Paul Valencia
Clark County Today
It appears that the theft of 12,000 rounds of ammunition — a case that is still open — has led the Clark County Council to end its long-term relationship with the FBI, denying the FBI from using the firearms range at Camp Bonneville.
The council on Tuesday voted 3-2 to deny the county manager from executing a memorandum of agreement between Clark County and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would allow the FBI to continue to train at the facility.
The FBI had been using Camp Bonneville in Brush Prairie since 2006 under a number of agreements with the county.
In January of this year, it was learned that 12,000 rounds of ammunition were stolen from the facility.
Sue Marshall, the chair of the Clark County Council, said that trust was lost, claiming the FBI was never authorized to store ammunition at the site.
Councilor Michelle Belkot countered that there was no trust broken. The previous agreements did not include language on whether or not the storage of ammunition was allowed. She said that the FBI has always been a good partner with the county.
It was noted that the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, which also uses the range at Camp Bonneville, still currently stores ammunition at the facility.
Kathleen Otto, the county manager, reminded the councilors that the county opened negotiations with the FBI a year-and-a-half ago based on direction from this very council. Her team negotiated in “good faith” with the FBI. She also emphasized that under this new contract, the FBI agreed that they would no longer store any ammunition at Camp Bonneville.
Nevertheless, the agreement with the FBI was denied.
“I’m not going to support it,” Marshall said. “If those 12,000 rounds had been found, I’d feel better about this.”
Marshall was joined by councilors Glen Yung, and Wil Fuentes in voting against the new agreement. Councilors Belkot and Matt Little voted to approve the new agreement.
“We will move forward and let the FBI know that they no longer can use Camp Bonneville” for a shooting range, Otto said.
Otto reminded the councilors that the FBI does have an office in Vancouver. Earlier in the discussion, it was suggested that the FBI officers using the range were based in Oregon.
On Thursday, Belkot told Clark County Today that these are local law enforcement agents using the facility, either Clark County or in the region.
“Those FBI officers live here in the area. They are federal employees, but they live here in this area. They have a field office in Portland, but they also have a field office in Vancouver, too,” Belkot said.
Now, they will have to travel elsewhere to train, taking their federal dollars elsewhere.
“I want my officers to be well trained and qualified. They have to have a certain amount of training to be qualified in their job. The FBI is going to pay someone other than Clark County to do it,” Belkot said.
She said she was “shocked and disappointed” in the vote, adding that it appeared the council just wanted to penalize the FBI for the theft in January. It was not a good look, she said, for the council to punish a good partner.
When contacted Thursday afternoon, the FBI declined to comment on the Camp Bonneville vote.
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Vote Otto OUT of office! Unbelievably stupid.
She’s not elected.
Vancouver/Clark county’s way to work against the Federal Government.
Please contact all the councilors and let them know how ridiculous it is to be punitive to a lasw enforcement agency due to a crime against same. This is nothing morc than an excuse to make an anti law enforcement statement that does not reflect their constituents. Chair Sue Marshall, Glen Jung and Wil Fuentes need to hear from you on their anti law enforcement stance. You can easily contact them by googling clark county wa councilors contact.
If you stand against law enforcement I believe you are either corrupt a criminal or both. We should not have leadership that is not going to abide by the law or support our law enforcement teams. I will vote accordingly.
The FBI promised to pay $400,000 for site cleanup over the term of their last agreement. The County never received a cent. They expanded the shooting range that they used, but they didn’t pay the County what they promised. They also agreed to limit their activities to the prescribed shooting range. Instead they wandered over the whole property.
When the DNR issues red-flag fire warnings, which prohibit target shooting on state land, law enforcement has continued to shoot in Camp Bonneville.
Anyone remember the attempted Portland Christmas tree bombing? That was instigated by Portland FBI agents, who found a Muslim man and promised to provide explosives to him that he could detonate with a cell phone. What about all the school shooters that were “on the FBI’s radar?” What about the 21 agents that they sent to investigate a garage door pull? One can be for law enforcement, while opposing the secret police that are the FBI and ATF. It wouldn’t surprise me if the “theft” of those 12,000 rounds was orchestrated by the FBI to arm somebody violent.
This sounds so familiar. I have been loosely associated with and trained at this site. The history of Clark County and Camp Bonneville and the (occasional) boondoggle that it was and appears still to be is unsurprising. Record keeping and accounting appear to always be unchecked and without audited to prevent such discrepancies from occurring again and again. It appears to continue yet again. I can’t blame three councilors for wanting to check the inequity before revising and signing another agreement that may not be followed by the FBI or the county. Nor can I blame any agency for storing their ammo on site (just the transportation cost savings makes sense). That site should be a premier law enforcement site (for all Federal, State and Local LEOs) for firearms training for the region and it languishes for feel good parks programs that yield little result. A 120,000 rounds is a surprising amount and perhaps theft occurred but a culprit should be readily seen on the posted cameras there. Why the mystery? The county councilors pausing an agreement until facts, figures and responsibility and accountability can be obtained is reasonable and necessary step. But without a systematic AUDIT of the WHOLE county budget and strong measures to prevent this and other types of malfeasance is squarely on the current councilors for failing their due diligence in the first place. We will be subjected to more taxes without transparency if this slate of elected officials do not take immediate actions to audit the county financials, training budgets and expenditures ASAP. Otherwise this information is flapping in the wind like Camp Bonneville has been for decades.