This petition is to express our strong opposition to Councilman Richard Garrett’s resolution to take $14 million from the Exit 8 Athletic Complex and reallocating those funds toward a project in North Clarksville. The soccer community, the football community and the lacrosse community have fought for nearly a decade to add quality fields to the Clarksville Parks and Recreation inventory to meet our needs due to the growth of Clarksville and Montgomery County and the increase in participation in youth sports associated with that growth.

The Exit 8 Athletic Complex is not a concept. The complex has land, an approved design that was provided to the people of Clarksville for public comment, and more than $1 million already invested by the city. The construction on the project is ready to begin this year. Kids would be on those fields playing the sports they love in less than two years, perhaps even next year. The Exit 8 Athletic Complex meets a need, is approved, and is ready to begin. Taking that $14 million and pulling the plug on the project now would be irresponsible.

This is especially true when looking at what Garrett is proposing to do with the money. He wants to allocate those funds to a project that has no land purchased to build the project on, no approved design (or even a design that is ready to be put forth for public comment), and no cost estimate. This is not good stewardship of taxpayer dollars. This is taking money from a project that will benefit the Clarksville community almost immediately and putting those funds toward nothing more than a very broad concept lacking in any details.

Heritage Park was built in 1994 to accommodate approximately 1,500 kids on eight full sized soccer fields. Between the Clarksville Soccer Club, the Clarksville Soccer Club Player Development Program and Academy, the Montgomery County Soccer Association, the Montgomery County Middle School Soccer League, the Clarksville Adult Soccer League, the Montgomery County Youth Soccer Academy, Clarksville Academy, Clarksville Christian Academy and the Hispanic Soccer League, that soccer complex now has to accommodate over 4,000 soccer players. Additionally, not all of those fields can be used at night when teams practice and play games because the Heritage Park Soccer Complex does not have enough lighting for all the fields.

None of this is to say the soccer community does not see a need for a North Clarksville Regional Recreation Center. We do. In fact, we support the project as strongly as many of you do. Many of the kids in the Clarksville and Montgomery County soccer organizations would use such a facility. So would the football, baseball and lacrosse communities. But nobody in the Clarksville soccer community supports that project at the expense of what has already been promised to the families of this city and county and the time and investments already made. 

We urge our city council to please vote against Councilman Garrett’s resolution 79-2020-21 to kill the Exit 8 Athletic Complex.