Agenda - Council - 02/11/2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

To: Sarah Strommen, Mayor Ramsey City Council CC: Matt Look, Anoka County Commissioner Jim Abeler, State Representative Branden Petersen, Senator Anoka -Hennepin School Board From: Kari & Steven Mevissen (Concerned Parents & Ramsey Residents) 5045 - 155th Lane NW Ramsey, MN 55303 612-805-2185 Subject: Help us save our daycare center from the proposed gun range next door We are writing to inform you that we are 100% against the proposed gun range going in next door (we're talking 30 feet away) to our daycare center, Little Me Childcare at 6013 167th Ave in Ramsey. The playground area that our children play in is outside directly next to the building that the gun range wants to acquire plus the school -aged kids are getting on & off the buses every day out front. We're sure those of you that have children can understand why this is a major safety concern for all the parents that have children attending this daycare center. We have 3 children enrolled here but would have to look for daycare elsewhere if you decide to approve this business in this location, which obviously most parents would follow suit so now you're allowing one business to come in that is going to close or relocate another well established business. What sense does that make and how does that improve our community?! Little Me Childcare is not only a wonderful & affordable daycare center but also a much needed child education center that prepares our preschoolers for kindergarten. We take pride in having them in our community. The only other two daycare centers in the area have a lot more overhead which in turn makes them way more expensive...about 2-3 times more money a week, which for us having 3 children in daycare comes out to be a very large amount of money per week to say the least. But we will do what we need to do to protect our children. So not only would you be closing a beloved daycare/education center, you're also forcing your residents to possibly have to move their kids to one of those more expensive centers which obviously prevents us from spending that "extra" money in our community. As residents of Ramsey, we do not see what benefit/value this would provide our community in this location either. If the idea of growing the business community in this area was to bring in some convenience factors (such gas, grocery/market, pharmacy, etc — which would be excellent) then starting with a gun range is the wrong approach to accomplish that kind of development. We feel that a gun range in this location is going to deteriorate the community instead of improve it. What types of businesses will come in after that... Pawn America?! A gas station owner or a market owner is going to think twice about being directly next to a gun range where people of all shapes/sizes/backgrounds will be toting their guns in & out of. We know the City of Ramsey had talked about pairing up a gun range with the Ramsey police dept. in the industrial area of Ramsey which is actually a great idea and one that makes sense for that type of location/business. NOT NEXT DOOR TO A DAYCARE CENTER!! Like we said earlier, if you approve this location for a gun range we will feel the need to change to a new daycare location for the safety of our children (& will likely avoid going to this area in the future). So ask yourselves this before approving the gun range... is the City prepared to pay for the daycare center to relocate and/or for their lost revenue (because there will be a lawsuit & repercussions from ALL residents due to that) and is it worth losing one well -established well -liked daycare center plus potential convenience business opportunities to allow just this one business to open at this location??