Springfield City Council cuts $800,000 for police shooting range lease

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SPRINGFIELD — The City Council, following a prolonged debate Monday night, voted to cut $800,000 from the city budget for the planned first-year lease of a new police shooting range.

The city, however, has already negotiated a 20-year lease for the former Smith & Wesson firing range building on Page Boulevard in East Springfield, leaving questions about what may happen next on the plans.

Not funding the firing range would be “penny wise and pound foolish,” said Timothy J. Plant, the city’s chief administrative and financial officer. He said the city would need to pursue funds within the budget for the lease agreement, as it has been finalized and renovations in the building have begun. The council’s approval was not needed to approve the lease, he said.


This is a great idea.

Less training with guns will make the police less accurate when they shoot black people.
 
The policemen should be allowed to practice their poor shooting habits in their own back yards as needed. They can rotate from one officers house to the next. While at each house, the officer’s wife can give them all their de rigueur big boy buzz cuts.
 
Makes perfect sense. If they can't practice shooting then it is almost guaranteed that they won't be killing all these innocent people anymore. Why? Because they will miss :)

Them are some real smart folks sitting on that council. Real thinkers right there.
 
If they have a contract and fail to pay per the contract, they may well be sued and have to pay plus legal fees and penalties for breaking the contract.

Very stupid!

Few things:

(1) The article says "negotiated" a lease. Not "finalized" a lease. Doesn't sound done to me.
(2) When drafting the lease, the city's lawyer or outside counsel or whoever would likely put in some contingencies stating something to the effect of "this lease is contingent upon approval by the Springfield City Council."
(3) Cities like Springfield have counsel on retainer; yeah, they'll have to pay for representation, but that bill already exists.
(4) The lease likely has a dispute resolution clause where the parties would go to arbitration or a mediator first.

I enjoy contract drafting.
 
Sound great to me the criminals are dancing in the street. It is already a lawless city and some parts are a real shit hole. The more this defund movement moves foward there won't be a safe city left. The only people left in these cities will be the people too poor to move out. What will that look like?
 
Lol. Are things that bad?
What's next?
A bunch of off-duty police officers at city intersections collecting 9mm ammo donations a'la "The Fire-fighter's Boot"...???


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Few things:

(1) The article says "negotiated" a lease. Not "finalized" a lease. Doesn't sound done to me.
(2) When drafting the lease, the city's lawyer or outside counsel or whoever would likely put in some contingencies stating something to the effect of "this lease is contingent upon approval by the Springfield City Council."
(3) Cities like Springfield have counsel on retainer; yeah, they'll have to pay for representation, but that bill already exists.
(4) The lease likely has a dispute resolution clause where the parties would go to arbitration or a mediator first.

I enjoy contract drafting.

Negotiated is past tense. As in the negotiations had finished. Either they reached agreement or they didn’t. Finalized doesn’t necessarily mean signed either, so that wouldn’t necessarily be the right word either.

There may have been funding contingencies or not. They may have been in play by statute. Maybe not. Maybe they just signed the lessor’s form. Maybe (likely) the city has its own shitty in house lawyers like every other city out there.

I’d be surprised if there was a mediation or arbitration clause unless it was on the lessor’s paper. Municipalities would rather litigate in local courts. Arbitration exists largely to save money, and municipalities aren’t spending their own.
 
There may have been funding contingencies or not. They may have been in play by statute. Maybe not. Maybe they just signed the lessor’s form.
This really depends on the status of the property owner - if it's a third cousin once removed of someone important in local government or linked by business or romantic entanglements, it's probably an iron clad contract in favor of the range owner, otherwise, the city would negotiate knowing they were the golden goose with all the real power. It's not like the contract of adhesion one is offered on a residential lease.
 
Negotiated is past tense. As in the negotiations had finished. Either they reached agreement or they didn’t.

There may have been funding contingencies or not. They may have been in play by statute. Maybe not. Maybe they just signed the lessor’s form.

I’d be surprised if there was a mediation or arbitration clause unless it was on the lessor’s paper. Municipalities would rather litigate in local courts. Arbitration exists largely to save money, and municipalities aren’t spending their own.

I can walk into a gun store, or PM a seller on here, and negotiate the sale of a gun. But the sale of the gun isn't complete until I pay for the gun. If I'm a buyer with enough money and credibility (municipalities have more sway than a normal tenant), I can negotiate in a contingency or two.

Regarding alternative dispute resolution, ADR is generally the preferred method in "the biz" of contract drafting. ADR is less publicized than litigation. City councils are elected and ADR generates less negative press than litigation.

A city's lawyer would be totally moronic to simply "sign on the dotted line" of a $800k lease. Like, malpractice moronic. He's not a tenant looking for an apartment; it's a lease on a gun range.
 
I can walk into a gun store, or PM a seller on here, and negotiate the sale of a gun. But the sale of the gun isn't complete until I pay for the gun. If I'm a buyer with enough money and credibility (municipalities have more sway than a normal tenant), I can negotiate in a contingency or two.

Regarding alternative dispute resolution, ADR is generally the preferred method in "the biz" of contract drafting. ADR is less publicized than litigation. City councils are elected and ADR generates less negative press than litigation.

A city's lawyer would be totally moronic to simply "sign on the dotted line" of a $800k lease. Like, malpractice moronic. He's not a tenant looking for an apartment; it's a lease on a gun range.

How long have you been “in the biz”?
 
Like I said in my first post in this thread, contract drafting is an area I'm familiar with.

But don't take my word for it. Read up on modern contract drafting theories.

You just graduated from law school. Your last few responses show it.

I was negotiating a long, messy MSA in 2007 or so with a lawyer from a massive global dairy company half way around the world. We had been going back and forth on the phone for the full hour doing a page turn. Things were plenty friendly, but there were a couple of open items and we were going in circles on one of them. He paused and asked me how long I had been practicing. I made the mistake of answering him candidly, proud that I had been hanging on for so long despite being relatively new at it. That was a mistake. Sometimes experience matters.
 
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You just graduated from law school. Your last few responses show it.

I was negotiating a long, messy MSA in 2007 or so with a lawyer from a massive global dairy company half way around the world. We had been going back and forth on the phone for the full hour doing a page turn. Things were plenty friendly, but there were a couple of open items and we were going in circles on one of them. He paused and asked me how long I had been practicing. I made the mistake of answering him candidly, proud that I had been hanging on for so long despite being relatively new at it. Sometimes experience matters.
Don’t be jealous. Stockwell is legit.
 
Is that lease 800,000 a year? That seems really high.
Someones friend or family member owns the range.

$800K is retarded. Should just get cops memberships to the local range and mandate they go shooting once per week.

For less than half that money they could build a cop only range at the local range.

So many options. But its not their money, so f*ck it. Right?
 
How long have you been “in the biz”?
Everything he said in that post is correct. I work with multi million dollar contracts, currently working on a $12M sale that will close in August. I'm not the lawyer, I am the sales guy, but I have to speak with vendor management, procurement and I have to be the middle guy between the lawyers and read all their junk so I can get my commission. Lol.
Most of the time when I post here throughout the day, it is because I'm in one of those calls and I get bored AF.

I cant book anything until we have everything signed by both sides. I have had one POS stop a huge sale before, a lawyer. Decided he wanted to renegotiate every single deal we had with them into a master agreement, took 3 f*cking months.

Once in a while, I get on d*ck measuring contest with procurement. I have everything negotiated and agreed on and some new moron that wants to make a name for himself jumps in and says "I want an additional 5% off" ... I usually hold tight and dont move because if they dont pay, their network goes to sh*t and they cant go to someone else, but when a lawyer gets involved, you are F*CKED. Nothing moves, no one signs anything until legal gives the greenlight.
 
Everything he said in that post is correct. I work with multi million dollar contracts, currently working on a $12M sale that will close in August. I'm not the lawyer, I am the sales guy, but I have to speak with vendor management, procurement and I have to be the middle guy between the lawyers and read all their junk so I can get my commission. Lol.
Most of the time when I post here throughout the day, it is because I'm in one of those calls and I get bored AF.

I cant book anything until we have everything signed by both sides. I have had one POS stop a huge sale before, a lawyer. Decided he wanted to renegotiate every single deal we had with them into a master agreement, took 3 f*cking months.

All that experience and only one deal slowed down by a lawyer?
 
All that experience and only one deal slowed down by a lawyer?
Yes man. Legal can hold whatever they want, no one f*cks with legal and their contracts, it's their job to protect their employer.

My 3 month issue with that lawyer, although I was pissed, it was actually a good thing for the client and us. It put everything into one nice master agreement. But, it totally messed up my forecast.
 
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