With talk of privatization in the news almost every day in Tennessee, it can be hard to decipher exactly what it might mean for various state agencies.
The matter gets even more tangled when it comes to Tennessee State Parks. That's because the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, which oversees the state's parks, was already exploring the possibility of privatizing state park hospitality services before Gov. Bill Haslam began considering the privatization of facilities management for state buildings.
But in the wake of a Tuesday night meeting of Van Buren County and Bledsoe County residents where privatization was widely denounced, TDEC wants to set the record straight about the future of Tennessee's state parks.
Neither the privatization of state park hospitality services TDEC is exploring, or the privatization of facilities management being explored by Haslam, would affect the core operations of state parks, a TDEC official said Wednesday.
"The park would still be the state's park," TDEC communications director Kelly Brockman said. "It still has all of our rangers, interpretive programming, all the pools, all of that. This is just looking at the hospitality portions of it, and it's basically just because of the cost of keeping all of that up."
At Fall Creek Falls State Park, which is located in Bledsoe and Van Buren counties, privatization would mean an outside company would enter a partnership with the state to operate an inn, a restaurant, cabins and a golf course currently operated directly by the state.
A private company would be selected in the spring with a contract beginning next August.
Brockman said it's similar to the model adopted by the National Park Service and by other states' park services.
Some leaders in the area believe a change could stimulate the local economy.
"It'll bring fresh, new ideas," said Van Buren-Spencer Chamber of Commerce treasurer Diann Goney, who also serves on the board of trustees for the Friends of Fall Creek Falls State Park. "A private company is going to come in here and be aggressive and want business. If they can grow the business in the park, that's going to help everybody."
Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.