The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors voted to hire consulting firm RF Outdoor Consulting, LLC of Clinton to conduct a study of the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority. The move came over the objections of two supervisors and a request from a city representative to delay the choice and allow the city to participate in selecting the consultants.
Board President Harry Sanders, who made the motion, along with District 2 Supervisor Bill Brigham and District 3 Supervisor John Holliman voted for the proposal with District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith and District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks voting against the move. The board set a limit of $4,000 for the study.
The matter has been a source of debate throughout the week after Sanders sent a letter to Columbus Mayor Robert Smith informing him of the board’s intentions to hire a consultant to study the CLRA’s performance and make recommendations. Smith responded to Sanders with a letter of his own, asking that the supervisors delay hiring a consultant, which would allow the city council and supervisors to interview potential consultants in a public hearing. Smith said the city would be willing to pay for half of the cost of the study under that agreement.
Smith told The Dispatch earlier he feared the county’s move was an effort by Sanders to end the inter-local agreement the CLRA operates under and form its own recreation programs, a move Smith said would lead to “recreation segregation.”
After quickly dispensing with its other business, the board turned to the parks discussion.
“For some reason, there has been a lot of controversy on this,” Sanders said in introducing the subject. “Time and time again, we’ve heard complaints and I’ve had a lot of people in the county who have complained about the lack of recreation facilities where they live.
“For all the time we’ve spent listening to people complain about these problems, I figure it’s time to get an outside person, someone who doesn’t have blinders on, to look at this and tell us what we need to do. That’s all this is about. We’re not trying to get out of anything. We’re not trying to close anything or build anything. None of that. The only decision we’re going to make today is whether we want to hire a consultant. I can’t see an objection to that.”
Sanders said he met with Ramie Ford (co-owner of RF Outdoor Consulting) last week in Louisville on the recommendation of former CLRA director Roger Short.
Brooks and Smith said they felt the matter should have been discussed at the previous board meeting.
“At the last board meeting I brought up a community center issue,” Smith said. “Why couldn’t we have used that to talk about hiring a consultant then? The window to talk about that was open. But nobody went threw it. That would have been the perfect opportunity to tell us what you were thinking.”
Sanders said he had been transparent, pointing out that he had talked to Smith twice before meeting with Ford, with Smith offering no objection. Sanders said Brigham had talked to Brooks prior to that interview as well.
“I’m just having a problem with the way the process works,” Brooks said. “When Bill came to me, it was like ‘this is what we’re going to do’ and the decision had already been made. It shouldn’t be like that. When an idea comes into your head, we should sit down at this table and talk about it. If I’m not going to be a part of the washing, I don’t want to be a part of the rinsing.”
Joe Dillon, public information officer for the City of Columbus, asked the board to allow the city to join the process of hiring a consultant.
“The city does support this study and wants to see what it will show,” Dillon said. “What we have heard this morning is that two of your own board members were left out of the loop in this process and the city was also left out of that same decision process. When the city council meets Tuesday night, Mayor Smith is willing to present a plan to the city council to ask them to pay for half of the fee if the city is allowed to participate in the selection process.”
The board voted after Dillon’s comments, then adjourned.
“Right now the city just has to wait,” Dillon said after the meeting. “The county is going to meet with (the consultants). The board indicated that the consultant would likely talk to the city and get some input from the city. We will look forward to that consultant coming back and asking the city some questions.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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