The email below was sent from Assistant Director of TWRA Barry Sumners to Kenneth Carey on March 21, 2017. This outlines some of the potential problems with a possible change in the location of the proposed Shooting Sports Park.
We talked to Mr. Carey this morning and he said that he was not representing the county when he spoke to Crossville city council in past meetings. There has been some confusion over that situation and if the county was involved in the project. It turns out that the county is not part of the project and Carey has been acting, not as county mayor but as an interested individual. He explained that a group of parents and gun sports supporters came to him seeking help as they knew he had dome some coaching as well and Carey said he agreed to "try and help them."
Kenneth Carey
Carey said he would be at the council Tuesday meeting and try and straighten out any confusion if he gets the opportunity to speak.
He also said that there was no truth to rumors he would get a job out of the project after he left office and he would address that as well.
Carey continued to say as he had previously that he hoped the project could possibly attract some gun manufacturers or other related industry to the community because of the shooting park.
The following email was sent to Carey at his official County email address.
Hello Mayor Carey,
I wanted to summarize our conversation earlier today regarding the possibility of moving the site for the Crossville range.
We received federal grant approval after submitting documents that support constructing the project at the Frye Rd. site. This included an evaluation of the impact on endangered species and approval from the State Historic Preservation Office.
If the location is changed we could re-apply to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (after securing the required compliance documents) and request that we be allowed to construct the range at a different site. Doing so would introduce a lot of uncertainty since we don’t know if a different site would comply with the federal requirements. It is quite possible that we would not find an approvable site and funding would revert.
Our standard contract language includes a clause titled “subject to funds availability” and TWRA is counting on the federal funds being available to construct the range.
Another related factor is that we have negotiated an agreement with the federal government to use the value of the Frye Rd. property as matching funds (see attachment), based on an appraisal of the site. A different site would of course have a different value and we would also have to start that process again.
I understand that there is some opposition to construction the range at the current site. If the location is changed, TWRA will work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to try to make funding available for a different site.
Barry Sumners
Assistant Director- Staff Operations
TN Wildlife Resources Agency
No comments:
Post a Comment