Franklin County sheriff’s range still lacks a public site or completion record

Franklin County commissioners received another update April 28 on the new Sheriff’s Office shooting range, with County Manager Terry Harris providing photos of the project. The work-session minutes show discussion of the update, but they do not identify the range’s site or say that the facility had been completed or placed in service.

The project concerns a county public-safety facility intended for law-enforcement training. Without a named property, a description of the facility or confirmation that it is operating, residents cannot tell from the public meeting accounts where the range stands, whether the near-term construction expectation was met, or whether deputies are using it.

Harris first reported the project’s progress at the Board of Commissioners’ March 31 work session, saying a shooting range for the Sheriff’s Office was being established and was expected to be finished by the end of the following week. That was an anticipated deadline, not documentation of completion. Nearly a month later, Harris returned with an update and photos, showing the subject remained before commissioners but without recording a completed-project milestone.

Harris is the county official identified in both work-session minutes as reporting on the range. The Board of Commissioners received those reports, but the April entry records an update rather than a vote or final action. The Sheriff’s Office is the intended user of the facility; neither set of minutes attributes a public position to the agency or records a dispute over the project.

What is documented is that the range was being established as of March 31 and that commissioners later received an update with photos. What remains unconfirmed is more consequential than the projection: the minutes do not establish that the expected early-April finish occurred, give an opening date, state that training has begun, or disclose the site. The April 28 account also supplies no new completion date, project cost or final action.

The next public clarification would be a later Board of Commissioners agenda or minutes, or a county manager report, that names the range property and records whether setup or construction was completed and the facility entered service. Until such a record appears, the location, actual completion date and operating status of the Sheriff’s Office range remain undecided in the public account.