There's an ongoing controversy in Kerrville, TX right now over a new shooting range the San Antonio FBI office is proposing to build there. The FBI is offering the City of Kerrville $1.3 million to build them a proposed FBI "Firearm Training Facility" they say would also be made available to local law enforcement officers for training.
Sounds good, so why all the fuss? For starters, the FBI money would only be used for construction of this facility; the city would then be charged with operating it, and the FBI is asking for a 25-year contract, meaning local taxpayers would be responsible for the bills from this facility for years to come.
Also, the proposed location for this facility is inside the city limits of Kerrville, adjacent to the local high school, and very close to subdivisions, businesses, and churches. Residents have voiced serious concerns about noise (the facility would be open 7 days a week until 10 PM), safety because of stray bullets, and resulting reductions in property values. The city paid an engineering firm $24,000 to conduct a preliminary study for the facility--but the company they hired for this apparently has no expertise in gun range design.
But wait, there's more--the Kerrville area already has a world-class shooting facility! The Hill Country Shooting Sport Center is a top-notch local non-profit shooting range that has hosted official pre-Olympic competitive events. The HCSSC is located out in the county, well away from surrounding development, yet is not far from town (and may even be closer to I-10). The Kerrville Police Department currently uses this facility for training at a cost to them of $3,000 per year.
However, the strangest aspect of this whole affair by far is the fact that the San Antonio FBI is currently building a $2.5 million state-of-the-art gun range near San Antonio. Why would they suddenly need two such facilities, with the proposed Kerrville one being over an hour away from their office?
None of this makes any sense, so there has to be more to the whole affair than what's being given out. Local taxpayers and property owners appear to be the potential victims here. It should be noted that Boerne was approached first about this project and turned it down.
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5 comments:
here s an idea, ml gets a contract for a ranger on her land she gets money security and she will always have agents close by thus saving thousands in fax's paer stamps!!!
The use of the word "stamps" in the comment above may possibly be a reference to the constant and severe illegal tampering with our mail that has been going on for years.
fool
Update: An article in yesterday's (1/9/10) San Antonio Express-News now says the new Kerrville firearms facility probably will not be built, although as one opponent was quoted as saying, "Nobody's celebrating until they actually vote to kill it." The mayor of Kerrville's quoted comments read, in part, "I'm a little disappointed because I know our police department is really in need of a firearms training facility."
Update: Kerrville did apparently kill this project, but the FBI is said to be "shopping it around" to other Hill Country towns. (Just how many shooting facilities does a small area need??)
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