Tarrant County is asking for $10 million in federal money to fund the construction of a shooting range building at the sheriff’s improved training center.
Tarrant County commissioners voted last year to renovate existing buildings, scrapping the original plan to build a brand-new law enforcement training center. Two buildings at Tarrant County’s Resource Connection campus in southeast Fort Worth are set for upgrades, with an estimated cost of $28 million, according to county documents. The shooting range building has an additional estimated cost of $18 million.
The project has faced criticism because there are already several other law enforcement training centers in Tarrant County.
Democratic County Commissioner Alisa Simmons has not been a supporter of the project in the past, but she said at a Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday she is glad the county is finally asking for federal money for local projects, or earmarks. Earmarks came back in 2021 after a 10-year moratorium.
Since the return of earmarks, other large Texas counties have taken advantage of the money, but Tarrant County hasn’t gotten a cent, Simmons said.
“That’s zero dollars that Tarrant County taxpayers did not benefit from,” she said.
On Tuesday, commissioners voted unanimously to submit the $10 million earmark request to U.S. Rep. Kay Granger’s office. The Republican is not running for reelection after nearly 30 years in Congress, where she chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the group responsible for funding the federal government.
Some members of the public urged commissioners to take advantage of Granger’s power and experience to ask for more money while they still can.
“You seem content to squander it with a project completely disconnected from the community,” said Laura Leeman, who’s also the current Democratic candidate for Commissioners Court Precinct 3.
The Sheriff’s Office and Republicans on the Commissioners Court say the renovation project is necessary to train and retain quality detention officers for the Tarrant County jail system, which the Sheriff’s Office operates.
“We felt like the need right now is to provide more comprehensive, more complete, better training and equipment to our jailers. This is the quickest and most efficient and effective way to do it,” Republican County Commissioner Manny Ramirez previously told the Fort Worth Report.
Other people called for commissioners to ask for earmarks to improve community mental health programs. Local activists have raised concerns about the large number of people in the local jail who require mental health treatment, and they asked for more ways to prevent people from entering the jail system.
Democratic County Commissioner Roy Charles Brooks agreed.
“Mental health services in Tarrant County should be our number one priority,” he said.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
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