TWRA says Shooting Sports Park would be "A Tremendous Opportunity" for Area. City Work session Tuesday at 5 PM

With a city council work session set for Tuesday afternoon at 5 PM at Crossville city hall on the proposed Crossville Shooting Sports Park, we asked the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency for a statement concerning the project that seemed to go quietly along for 18 months but became controversial in just the last several weeks.

The park project has been discussed for over a year and a half and the site between I-40 and Albert Frye Road has been the proposed location for most of that time. It is unclear if the county will lose the park to another county in middle Tennessee if the proposed site is not used but a long list of requirements because of the use of federal funds have already been done and the site meets all the requirements. One report indicates the cost of those studies was around $25,000.

In a special called meeting March 21, a majority of city council members reversed their action in February and voted to rescind approval of a contract that would have sold the 146 acres to the nonprofit Crossville Shooting Park, Inc. for one dollar. That vote reversed action in February approving the contract and sale after a number of property owners and area residents complained about the project being located near them and the fact that they had not been informed ahead of time about the proposed project.

TWRA's statement from the Crossville regional office says, “With the number of sportsmen and women in the area that enjoy the shooting sports, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) sees the addition of a shooting sports facility as a tremendous opportunity for the citizens of Cumberland County and beyond. This center will provide TWRA additional opportunities to serve the community with not only boating and hunter education classes, but many other educational sessions for adults and youth. Funding for this project was provided directly from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and not TWRA subsidies. TWRA is chiefly funded through the sales of hunting and fishing licenses.”

TWRA has committed $2.2 million from US Fish and Wildlife for the development and construction of the shooting park that would be operated by a nonprofit organization that has been formed. The funds for the project come from federal Pittman-Robertson funding generate by excise tax on ammunition and granted to states for conservation efforts, hunter's education and shooting projects and programs.

Crossville Mayor James Mayberry called for the work session saying the meeting will discuss some of the issues that have cropped up in the matter of the proposed Crossville Shooting Sports Park listed in the meeting call as "confusion, misinformation and clarification.”