The Columbia Board of Aldermen decided Tuesday to hold a work sesson Feb. 6 to discuss different locations and layouts for a sportsplex.
The board has also received an environmental study for RA Johnson Drive and will be reviewing that.
“We need to plan and work on our sports complex. It does not need to be in a regular board meeting because we need time to work on it,” Mayor Justin McKenzie said.
“We need to keep an open mind about location,” Alderman-at-Large Edward Hough said.
Hough has been a public advocate for putting the sportsplex at the Marion County BusinessPlex (former Columbia Training School), saying that would be more conducive to hosting travel ball tournaments, among other things.
McKenzie told the board that Hough had told him he didn’t care what went on RA Johnson Drive as long as it wasn’t the baseball and softball fields. Hough confirmed he said that. The city owns the RA Johnson Drive property, while the county owns the businessplex land.
“If we want to shoot for 2021 or definitely by 2022, we need to get serious on the planning aspect and pull the trigger where it is going to go and what is going to go,” McKenzie said.
In May voters approved a 3% sales tax on restaurants and lodging in the city for tourism, including building a sportsplex. Since then the board has been in discussions about where to put the facility, including ordering the environmental study about the RA Johnson Drive land.
In other business the board approved financing its new garbage truck with State Bank. The board also gave McKenzie the go ahead to solicit bids for financing four new police cars, which were approved at the Dec. 17 meeting.
Engineer Jeff Dungan said only one bid was received for replacing the bridge on Columbia Purvis Road. Beacon Construction made a bid of $656,296.30, which was within 1% of what was estimated.
The work will be paid through an Emergency Road and Bridge Repair grant.
Dungan said the work should begin in March and will take eight or 10 weeks to complete.
The board approved sending City Clerk Maria Temples to the Certified Municipal Clerk Class in Hattiesburg March 4 through March 6 for $200.
City Building Inspector Carrie Thornhill received approval for:
l Resolutions to demolish dilapidated buildings at 310 Hawkins Ave. and 1005 Church St.;
l Resolution to mow and clean at 212 Dewey St.;
l Hearing for removal of old cars at 528 and 914 Branton Ave.;
l Hearing for clean and mow at 321 Garden Ave. and 113 Wiggins Road;
l Hearing for demolitions at 919 Duane Ave. and 804 Church St.
The next city meeting will be Tuesday, Feb. 4.
