City of Chattanooga and law enforcement officials tasked with planning and paying for a new police firing range wanted to know Tuesday why the federal government can't help pay for it.
Members of the Moccasin Bend firing range committee agree it would be best to vacate the current 33-acre firing range located on Moccasin Bend so the National Park Service can incorporate the space into its plans for the area.
But the committee has no easy solution for how to pay for a new facility to replace the one now used by city and county officers.
"This project is primarily being done because the city has a piece of property that the [federal] government wants to use for their purposes," the city's chief financial officer, Daisy Madison, said at City Hall in the committee's second meeting. "They're very legitimate purposes, but all the costs of making it happen seem to be falling to the city and the county."
The 769 acres comprising the Moccasin Bend Archeological District and surrounding the firing range are a part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. The park is overseen by the National Park Service, which is an arm of the federal government.
But, park Superintendent Brad Bennett explained, the federal government cannot simply write a check for the current firing range that would help the city and county pay for a new one somewhere else.
"We can purchase private property from a willing seller," Bennett said. "But if it's state owned or municipally owned, the federal government cannot buy that land. It can accept that land through donations or a land exchange."
The plan has been for the city and county to donate the site of the current firing range to the National Park Service once a new range was built.
That process has endured its share of setbacks.
A plan to build a $5 million range on 12th Street was abandoned in 2014 because the range did not meet the standards of police, who said they would be better off continuing to use the Moccasin Bend facility, which also houses training for K-9 units and bomb squads, among other functions.
Finding an affordable location large enough to meet law enforcement needs but where the sound of gunshots won't disturb existing development is another challenge.
The 15-member committee agreed Tuesday to split into three groups, including a property group that would identify potential locations for a new range, a budget group that would explore funding strategies and a group that would outline what police need at the firing range.
Even when a new facility is built, the old site will need to be cleaned up before the National Park Service can accept it because 40 years of spent bullets have caused lead contamination at the site that exceeds federal limits. Friends of Moccasin Bend board chairman Dan Saieed said federal grants may be available to help with the cleanup, estimated at more than $1 million.
But in the absence of private donors, the estimated $10- to $15-million cost of the new range appears likely to fall on the city and the county.
For the sake of comparison, city chief of staff Stacy Richardson said the city's entire general fund this year is $27-28 million.
"We understand that the majority of the funds that are going to be spent on that are capital funds that aren't going to be spent on something else that year," Richardson said. "That's just the reality, and we're just going to have to plan really well so we don't sacrifice public safety as we make those plans."
Moccasin Bend figures to serve as a next frontier of sorts in the city's outdoor identity, even as the firing range remains active for the immediate future. Plans are in the works to extend the Tennessee Riverwalk to the North Shore and to connect it to the bend, where trails are already available.
The National Park Service is in the process of settling on a "preferred alternative" that will dictate further recreational development at the area, which has strong American Indian significance and played a role in the Civil War. One concept calls for a full-fledged visitor center at the site, even as gunshots from the firing range can be heard.
Hamilton County Sheriff's Office chief deputy Allen Branum asked why the economic benefit of future tourism could not somehow be channeled to pay for the new range.
Park advocates explained that the local economic benefit of $15 million or more Moccasin Bend could bring is not money that would go into federal hands. Rather, that's money that will be dispersed throughout the community as a result of the increased traffic to Moccasin Bend.
Bennett added that the park service's $3 million budget for the area gets a 16-to-1 benefit in terms of economic benefit felt by the community.
"Your investment is a $3 million budget. Ours is whatever much it's going to cost to build a new firing range," Madison said. "We're all in this together.
"It just seems that the city and the county have a disproportionate share."
Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.