Steve Creek Shooting Range Draws 50-Plus-Signature Petition

Last updated: October 2026

Kelly McCarran drove up from Chippewa Falls on Tuesday morning to tell the Price County Forestry and Parks Committee one thing. He owns land on the south fork of the Jump River, right against the Steve Creek Wildlife Area, and a shooting range is going in beside it.

“I don’t want it,” McCarran said.

His wife, Sarah McCarran, carried the paper that backed him up.

More than 50 neighbors signed a petition asking the county to stop building the range, and the McCarrans handed it to the committee during public comment at the October 6 meeting.

Quick Answer: The Price County Forestry, Parks and Buildings and Grounds Committee met Tuesday, October 6, 2026, and took no vote on the Steve Creek shooting range after neighbors delivered a petition with more than 50 signatures opposing it. The committee let a county forest easement request on Green Creek Road die for lack of a motion, accepted lower prices on a stalled 2018 timber sale now held by Twin Forest Products, and put the 2025 county forest annual report on file. The range still needs a conditional use permit from the Town of Kennan before it can be finished.

Sarah McCarran told the committee the people who approved the range do not live near it. “The closest board member that I could tell to the range is 13 miles away,” she said. “It’s one thing to pass something that’s not going to affect them at all.” Her remarks and the quotes below come from the meeting’s auto-generated transcript.

The paper trail on this project is longer than the meeting agenda suggests. Nearly 18 months ago, the Town of Georgetown’s annual meeting minutes recorded one line under the chairman’s report: “Progress on Steve Creek restoration is waiting on DNR permits.” That single sentence, filed April 15, 2025, is the earliest written sign that the range was stalled on state paperwork and moving forward anyway.

Why do Kennan residents want the Steve Creek shooting range stopped?

Their objections are specific. Noise comes first, because the shooting lanes sit close to the family’s property line.

Safety comes second. Sarah McCarran said two of the lanes point directly at a road, and that the berms sit below road level where drivers can still see them. She raised liability next, arguing that a range firing toward a road could push up the county’s insurance costs.

The process is the third complaint. Kelly McCarran said the family was never notified the range was going in, and that they learned about it later. He said the Town of Kennan, where the range sits, was not looped in either.

Has the range cost the county money so far?

Almost nothing, the McCarrans said. The only work finished so far is dirt moving and berm building, and the county paid nothing for it because it was done as in-kind work. That matters to their argument.

“There is no financial hardship to the county due to the work that has been done, so to stop it wouldn’t cost any money,” Sarah McCarran said.

She warned the money question changes later, when taxes have to cover maintenance, insurance, upkeep and sound mitigation.

No committee member responded to the petition on the floor.

Where does the conditional use permit stand?

County Forester Joe said the range needs a conditional use permit from the Town of Kennan before construction can proceed, the same state approval Georgetown’s 2025 minutes were already waiting on.

The town board revisited the item on September 10, 2026, and voted to place the Steve Creek shooting range on its October 5 agenda, according to minutes signed by Clerk Lynn Redfall.

County staff said flowage bids at Steve Creek were due that week, with construction likely in the summer of 2027.

Why did the Green Creek Road easement request fail?

A landowner on Green Creek Road asked the committee for an easement across county forest land. He wanted to rebuild an old road that once ran north toward Highway 8. Parts of it have sunk into swamp over the years.

County forest law does not allow the county to grant easements across county forest land, Joe told the committee, and staff said the county has never granted one.

The requestor had submitted a packet arguing his case, and asked the county to have a lawyer review it. Joe pushed back on spending county money for that.

What can the county offer instead?

A five-year access agreement. Joe described it as the department’s normal practice. “We don’t block people off from their land,” he said. “We’ve never done that.”

The agreement renews automatically, and it does not transfer if the property is sold. Joe said his department can issue it without a committee vote, so the easement request simply died for lack of a motion.

Where the easement request goes from here

The requestor still gets to his land. The difference is the paperwork. Instead of a permanent easement binding future owners, the forestry office issues a renewable five-year access agreement.

What did the committee decide about the Twin Forest Products timber sale?

Central Wisconsin Lumber bought the sale in 2018, back when the company was still independent. The business later sold to Twin Forest Products, and much of the timber still stands.

Roughly 5,300 tons of mixed pulp and about 112,000 board feet of saw logs remain uncut, according to the sale summary Joe presented.

The company’s letter said it cannot cut the sale at the current price, and asked the county to bring prices back down. Joe said the ownership change gives the county a reason to amend the contract, something he said the county would not consider for the same owner.

Why not just re-bid the sale?

Because the sale is half cut, Joe said. Re-selling would mean re-marking about 100 acres of swamp hardwood, with the time and paint cost that carries. Most of what is left is black ash in ground that only freezes in the driest years.

The committee accepted the company’s proposed prices by motion, with no opposed votes.

How the vote came down

Joe put the choice plainly. The county could take the bond and re-sell the sale, or accept the lower prices and keep a willing buyer in a market where buyers are scarce.

“Sometimes markets the way they are right now, that’s tough to find,” he said. He pointed to a comparable sale about two miles south that set a much lower price benchmark this spring. That job, he said, would not draw the original bid if it went back out half cut.

The ownership transfer is what makes the amendment defensible, Joe told the committee. If the same owner had simply asked for a price cut, he said, the county would not have opened the contract at all.

Is the county rethinking its timber sale contract extensions?

Contract extensions came up next, and Joe called Price County an outlier. The county lets sales run long because so much of its forest sits behind swamps that need a hard freeze to cross. Some years the ground never locks up at all.

Joe floated one change: raising the performance bond on timber sales to 30 percent from 25 percent, so the county holds more money if a sale goes bad.

No motion was made. He said staff would review the timber sale contract before the next round of bidding. Raising the bond mid-extension would mean letters of credit and bank paperwork, he added, which is why the county typically charges more up front instead.

What else happened at the October 6 meeting?

Buildings and grounds

Buildings and Grounds Director Josh said his crew re-roofed a highway department building over the summer, stripped and resealed courthouse floors, and kept swapping fluorescent lights for LEDs. The courthouse’s main electrical switchgear is still waiting on a request for proposals, and Josh said it is now written into the 2027 preliminary budget as a capital improvement project.

Human services is getting two new offices on the top floor of the Normal Building, where staff condensed the UW-Extension space. A larger office is being split into two smaller ones.

The 2027 draft budget that capital request lands in has already drawn public questions at the Executive Committee, where Flock camera data sales and the budget draft debuted in September.

Parks and forest work

At Solberg Lake, staff shut off water to the park expansion and planned to shut down the rest of the park’s water within two weeks. The Blue River grade got fabric and gravel and is drivable now, though Joe said road spending ran over budget and will pull money from other line items. That sort of overrun has been the pattern across the county this year, from highway department staffing and road projects to a parks system carrying deferred maintenance that keeps getting pushed to a later budget.

The highway shop installed the Cranberry Creek flowage culvert ahead of a hard deadline tied to a wood turtle, with an engineer on site to set elevations. Two-vault toilets went in at Big Falls, with landscaping left to finish.

Crews sprayed planting sites for next year, roughly 170 acres by Joe’s estimate, and trenching still has to happen before the county bids out planting.

A new forester, and one more vacancy coming

The department’s new forester started Monday, October 5, Joe said, and will train over the coming months. The county is already advertising again, because forester Rich plans to retire in December.

Trail and opening mowing did not get finished this year. Joe pointed to the staffing turnover and to equipment breakdowns.

The committee approved its vouchers, accepted the 2025 annual report for the county board, and set its next meeting for November 3, 2026, when fall timber sale bids open and December bids are accepted.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Steve Creek shooting range open yet?

No. Work so far is limited to moving dirt and building berms, and the project still needs a conditional use permit from the Town of Kennan before it can proceed, according to County Forester Joe.

Why can’t Price County grant an easement across county forest land?

State county forest law bars it, Joe told the committee, and staff said the county has never granted one. The alternative is a five-year access agreement that renews automatically and ends if the property sells.

Who will build the Steve Creek flowage project?

Bids were due the week of October 6, 2026, and the contract will likely be built in the summer of 2027, county staff said.

How much timber is left in the 2018 Twin Forest Products sale?

Roughly 5,300 tons of mixed pulp and about 112,000 board feet of saw logs, per the sale summary presented to the committee. Most of what remains is black ash in wet ground.

When does the Price County Forestry and Parks Committee meet next?

November 3, 2026, at the Price County Courthouse. Fall timber sale bids open that month and are accepted in December.

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