Lack of Louisa support dooms tactical facility

By Tasha Kates

Published: June 27, 2008

A tactical training facility that was dubbed a “Rambo amusement park” by one official will not be built in Louisa County because of a lack of community support.

The Cincinnati-based O’Gara Group has announced that it won’t submit a conditional-use permit for the training facility, which would have been located on about 1,200 acres along Route 22 between Chalk Level Road (Route 625) and Chopping Road (Route 623). Some residents had expressed concern about noise and safety issues.

“In arriving at its decision, the company concluded that the intended use of the site was not fully supported by the community, and therefore the company could not justify at this time the large commitment in time and capital,” the O’Gara Group said in a news release this week.

A call to Bill O’Gara, the company’s president and chief executive officer, was not immediately returned Thursday.

Willie L. Harper, chairman of Louisa’s Board of Supervisors, said O’Gara hadn’t been in contact with the board for several months.

“We didn’t know the full scope of things,” Harper said Thursday. “There was nothing in writing.”

The company started looking late last year into moving and expanding its Danville-area training facility, used in part for military purposes and private security. The proposed facility was supposed to include shooting ranges, driving courses, lodging, dining rooms, classrooms and offices.

Mary Johnson acted as O’Gara’s consultant through the Louisa-based Bell Surveys Inc. Johnson said she spoke with community members to find out their questions and concerns about the project, then reported their responses back to the firm in May. She said the O’Gara Group was concerned that one board member had expressed strong opposition to the project.

The most outspoken supervisor has been P.T. Spencer, whose district’s boundaries are close to the land. He labeled the proposed facility a “Rambo amusement park” Thursday.

“I’m strongly opposed to it, and my vote’s not for sale no matter how much money Randy Tingler wants to give to the county of Louisa,” Spencer said. “Grant money doesn’t matter if you have one person killed by a stray bullet.”

Tingler is the president of William A. Cooke Inc., which funds a foundation of the same name that gives grant money to help people in Louisa and Orange counties.  William A. Cooke owns the land O’Gara was planning to use as the site for its facility.

Although Tingler has not revealed the sale price of the land to O’Gara, he said the proceeds from the sale would have allowed the foundation to increase grant opportunities from about $250,000 a year to $1 million a year for 100 years.

About 800 acres of the site was rezoned two years ago for an industrial rail park. Tingler said 12 companies had shown interest in the land, but all of them decided to locate elsewhere.

“I’ve always viewed the rail park as a partnership with the county, and I hope we can learn from the O’Gara experience,” Tingler said.

“It’s OK to be against a project, but it’s not OK to be discourteous and dismissive to a company that wants to invest millions in our county.”

Lee Shiflett, a resident in the nearby Walnut Woods subdivision, was another voice of opposition to the facility. He started a letter-writing campaign and was one of six people who went on an organized trip to O’Gara’s existing facility.

“I was very much disappointed with what I saw,” Shiflett said. “What they were doing there was fine, but they were hopping on the fact that no one complains. Well, there wasn’t a house within a half a mile.”

According to the county, there are about 1,050 homes, 10 churches and 70 businesses within 2 miles of the site.